Someone is watching you!!!!!!!

[oldred]

A few days ago in a discussion about polishing brass I mentioned something I hadn't thought about in years, an old tube of metal polish I had in a box of stuff left over from the sixties. In one of the replies I mentioned that I had a partial tube of Semichrome polish that was left from when I had used it on my motorcycle in '68-'69 and that the stuff was made in Germany. That's it, I never said anything else about it here or anywhere else nor have I searched for Semichrome anywhere on the 'net because I simply never had a reason to. Now a week or so later I am getting spam mails in my E-Mail from Amazon, etc pumping specials on guess what? SEMICHROME!!! I have NEVER mentioned that stuff before on the internet, never even thought about it in years and never have I searched the 'net for anything similar since I had no need to. I have checked my hard drive thoroughly and while it's certainly possible I have missed something I have AVG pro and two other good spyware checkers and they are all coming up clean. I also keep everything including Micro-Soft essentials updated so while it is possible it's spyware on this end it's not highly likely. Just something to think about if privacy is important to you.

[Blanco]

All the online sites check for keywords in your cookies...

[geargnasher]

It's the google mastermind at work. Same thing happens with keywords in your emails linking to banner ads. They troll keywords in the text for ad selection. Could just as easily be used for other things.

Gear

[oldred]

After reading that again looks very much like I am blaming this site and I have to apologize for that as that was not my intention, my point was that ANYWHERE on the 'net someone can be watching when you least expect it! I never meant this site was guilty and I guess I got in too big of a hurry to post that so to be perfectly clear I never intended to say this site was in any way responsible!

[ShooterAZ]

Yes, it's the cookies. I searched the net for Danner boots, now the ads are popping up all the time.

[oldred]

I don't think cookies would have anything to do with this, SEARCHING for something with a search engine absolutely but I made it clear I never at any time searched anywhere for that product or anything similar, all I did was mention it on a forum (this one) and "bang" there it was! Again I am not blaming the site for this, my point is and was be careful what you say ANYWHERE because you never know who is watching what, where-ever you may be, even here!

[badbob454]

my search results pop up in facebook all the time ... gotta go incognito // so the cookies dont hang around..

[jmort]

At this point, I just don't care. There is little privacy left, especially if you use the internet and are on the grid. Want privacy, get off the grid, and the internet, and buy your property, house/land/cars for cash in the name of a trust or privacy protected corporation or LLC.

[oldred]

my search results pop up in facebook all the time ... gotta go incognito // so the cookies dont hang around..

TWICE, even in my first post, I made it clear I never ever SEARCHED for this product or anything similar! I simply mentioned it in one post on a forum (which just happened to be this one).

[badbob454]

i searched for a so called herbal male firmness pill... ha ha got lots of ads over that one ...

[oldred]

i searched for a so called herbal male firmness pill... ha ha got lots of ads over that one ...


How is searching for a product vs simply mentioning something on a forum the same? Can you explain that, I would certainly like to know?

[jmort]

Google Bot

[runfiverun]

mmmm hmmm, did you know you can buy green-dot for half price on Amazon?
well no you can't, I looked.
I'm thinking about suing some of these cookie company ad popper upper ripper offers for false advertising.

[Harter66]

Everything is being mined for something ,I got an ad from the Democratic National party today head lined let's take back our congress in 16'. Got nothing for why that came up.

[oldred]

How ever it is done the point is that while we all (well most anyway) are quite aware the internet is a VERY un-secure place it can still be surprising at how such a minor mention of something can show up on someone's radar! If I had of searched E-Bay, Amazon or especially any of the search engines I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But to just causally mention something on a forum, in this case a gun forum, in a reply to a post someone else started only to suddenly have this product spamming my E-Mail was kind of surprising.

The point is to NEVER say something you might not want linked to you no matter how causal or where you are on the 'net and no matter how anonymous you may THINK you are!

[oldred]

Everything is being mined for something ,I got an ad from the Democratic National party today head lined let's take back our congress in 16'. Got nothing for why that came up.


well you immediately offered your support and sent them a donation didn't you? Well DIDN'T you? I mean Obammy is going to need all the support he can get these next two years and it's up to us to help isn't it?




Don't even think of taking that seriously!!!!! :-P

[GabbyM]

Question I have is. How did they link your post to your email address?

[oldred]

Question I have is. How did they link your post to your email address?


That's what has me puzzled more than anything else. Of course this in this case is harmless but still food for thought, if something as vague as simply mentioning a product in a reply to another person on a forum such as this can lead to that product being linked to me by on-line merchants it's kind of scary thinking about what else can happen. I know that data mining for on-line merchants is BIG business but if it's that good at what it does it kind of makes me nervous.

[Blanco]

Just do a search for a product... no matter what, on just about any search engine/ site. Usually the first 3 or 4 are of a company that is selling that product, then what ever it was you were searching

[oldred]

Just do a search for a product... no matter what, on just about any search engine/ site. Usually the first 3 or 4 are of a company that is selling that product, then what ever it was you were searching

Well this makes about 3 or 4 times I have said it but here goes again, I WAS NOT SEARCHING! We all know that searching will result in this sort of thing, that's been going on since the start of the internet, this instance had NOTHING to do with a search it was simply a casual mention on a forum (coincidentally this one). The point of my post is that apparently even vague references to a product, or anything else for that matter, might be seen, collected and used somewhere by someone else and it does not have to involve searching.

[Multigunner]

It was "Ceiling Cat" watching you post.
He sees all, knows all, beats all.

[oldred]

It was "Ceiling Cat" watching you post.
He sees all, knows all, beats all.

SSSH, he will see and hear you telling on him and he will know who dunnit!

[1980Harley]

What was that book back in the late 60's???? Oh yea, 1984 by George Orwell referencing "Big Brother". With today's level of technology, privacy in any respect has gone out the window.

[RayinNH]

oldred you are being tracked constantly while on the net. Install an application called Ghostery. It will tell you who is tracking you. Right now on this site I'm being tracked by AvantLink and Second Media
both advertising companies. They are both blocked from my computer. Also in your internet settings, block cookies. If you go to a site to order something and the site requires cookies you can tell Ghostery to allow them for that session only.

[jmort]

That may help, but in the end, there is little privacy.

[oldred]

oldred you are being tracked constantly while on the net. Install an application called Ghostery. It will tell you who is tracking you. Right now on this site I'm being tracked by AvantLink and Second Media
both advertising companies. They are both blocked from my computer. Also in your internet settings, block cookies. If you go to a site to order something and the site requires cookies you can tell Ghostery to allow them for that session only.



Thank you I will most certainly check into that one!

[oneokie]

You have not said what browser you are using. Some are more intrusive than others.

[oldred]

You have not said what browser you are using. Some are more intrusive than others.


Win 7, Firefox with "LightBeam" add-On , LightBeam is supposed to be for monitoring this sort of thing but I can't find anything that should have allowed someone to mine my activities here. However to be honest I am still new to that Add-On which itself is also new.

[dragon813gt]

Install Ghostery and be amazed at who's tracking you. Some of the worse sites I've come across are banking sites. Any popular news site will have a lot of trackers. I went to AR15.com just to see how many. I believe the total was 12-15. Once you shut the trackers down the targeted advertisements will stop.

[RED333]

The only way you will have any privacy is when you are thinking to your self and that might not last for very much longer.

[Hogtamer]

So I'll have to google Ghostery and how long before similar products pop up? I'm about to try.

[JimmyTheDentist]

oldred you are being tracked constantly while on the net. Install an application called Ghostery. It will tell you who is tracking you. Right now on this site I'm being tracked by AvantLink and Second Media
both advertising companies. They are both blocked from my computer. Also in your internet settings, block cookies. If you go to a site to order something and the site requires cookies you can tell Ghostery to allow them for that session only.

i've had good luck with software called "Disconnect" as well:

https://disconnect.me/

but, in the end, there's really no privacy left on the interwebs.

as soon as we change our behaviors because we're worried about somebody "watching" us then it's already too late.

so go where you want. search what you want. say what you mean. say it how you want to say it. and to hell with the PC police or the advertisers or any other reprehensible louse who feels entitled though he's not been invited.

Shakespeare had it right:

"This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

ciao.

J the D

[GabbyM]

Good chance you have a Trojan and your AV is corrupted also. Based on the fact your email is being transmitted. I'd go to a known clean computer. Then make a boot disc on CD. Kaspersky has one that boots your computer off the optical drive in Linux OS. Then scans all your drives.

I think this is it here.
http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk

Generally you need to save the download to a temp file in hard drive then burn a CD from that folder. I can't recall how I did this one. Advantage here, if this is new ground. Is the computer boots from an OS on the CD and does not start up the hard drives operating system. Thus virus trash isn't started up and cannot migrate onto a CD anyway.

Good luck.

[Taylor]

How's this for scary? Yesterday the wife and I were returning to Clarksville from The VA in Nashville on I24.Our conversation was about were we would have lunch.I suggested we stop in Pleasant View.We talked a bit more and I happened to notice the gps.It was telling us to get off at the exit to Pleasant View.She said "I didn't touch it"!! Neither did I.

[DLCTEX]

That is what prompted me to change my screen name from my real name . My wife had googled my name and many of my comments on here came up. In searching some gun related topics, comments by members here come up. I searched led bulbs, flourescent replacements in particular, and now my facebook page is rampant with led ads. Better be careful what you search for lol.

[pmer]

A while ago when I was using Windows XP and having trouble a member here suggested Linux. I learned I had a virus program but no malware protection. I downloaded a free malware program and had hundreds of bugs in the computer.

Fast forward to Linux and wow my old 32 bit computer has been happy and bug free ever since. No virus programs running either. It has kept me from buying a new computer.

[MaryB]

Firefox is selling ad space to google and allowing tracking http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/02/12/mozilla-has-just-sold-its-soul-get-ready-for-ads-in-firefox/


How is searching for a product vs simply mentioning something on a forum the same? Can you explain that, I would certainly like to know?

[WILCO]

TWICE, even in my first post, I made it clear I never ever SEARCHED for this product or anything similar! I simply mentioned it in one post on a forum (which just happened to be this one).

Message received. Thanks for sharing this.

[StratsMan]

Oldred, et al...

Your browser doesn't always remove all the 'cookies', and there is another type called an "LSO" (Local Shared Object) that is created by Flash, and most people have it on their machines. An incredible amount of info can be stored in an LSO, and read by a variety of browsers. I use Firefox because there is an add-on called "Better Privacy" that erases all LSO's when I close Firefox. You can read more about it at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/

And I'm not inundated with ads for stuff I've viewed on my home computer....

[oldred]

Oldred, et al...

Your browser doesn't always remove all the 'cookies', and there is another type called an "LSO" (Local Shared Object) that is created by Flash, and most people have it on their machines. An incredible amount of info can be stored in an LSO, and read by a variety of browsers. I use Firefox because there is an add-on called "Better Privacy" that erases all LSO's when I close Firefox. You can read more about it at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/

And I'm not inundated with ads for stuff I've viewed on my home computer....


Interesting but it's spooky that they could dig up such a minor mention of a single product in nothing more than a conversation with another member in one of the forums, THEN they know who that member is by associating said member with their E-Mail. But then I did a bit of checking and linking a member to his/her E-Mail is as simple as falling off a log! Apparently there's no way to make your E-Mail here private, not that I would want to since regardless of this thread I am not "worried" about anything I say here anyway.