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I'm not paranoid but... These ads are reading my mind!
The other day I was brushing my teeth and thought to myself “I really don’t like this flavor, I need to pick up my old kind.” Then about an hour or so later I'm scrolling through Instagram and see a sponsored ad for the toothpaste I was thinking of buying!
I stared at the screen, thunderstruck. My mind raced.
Did I search for the toothpaste online? No.
Did I speak out loud the need for toothpaste? Thinking perhaps the speaker on my phone was listening for keywords and matches them to a database of ads being run to sent to me? No.
Was BigToothpaste peering at me through the window? Okay, now I need to pull it together.
The tube was still mostly full, this detail matters because others have suggested that some algorithm simply tracked about how long I go in-between toothpaste purchases, there are several problems here.
I don't use those shopper cards and I pay cash for groceries. If I did use a shopper card, I suppose it's possible that there is a link between those cards, what you buy, how long ago you bought it and targeted ads. Reasonable. But none of those links were there.
The brain sends messages via electric signals, there is neuroscience research that is astonishing, computers are interpreting those signals. People can be hooked up to a machine with electrodes on their heads, look at an image on a computer screen, keep it in their mind, and the electrodes can "read" the electric currents in their brain to re-create the image on another screen. This research was done over 10 years ago.
Suppose this can be done more accurately and wirelessly now? What if phones can pick up on these transmissions and read them? Then if what you are thinking about matches some ad in the database, you get it displayed soon thereafter.
A few of my twitter friends on the phenomena:
“Last year I went for a walk in the neighborhood. Thought about buying a Jetta for my next car. I didn’t talk or text to anyone about it. Back home after my walk, I open FB and there sits an ad for a Jetta. It for real creeped me out.”
“This happened to me! I bought a new kind of yogurt for the first time last week, never spoke about it or anything just had it in the fridge and would occasionally think of it and have some. Then like a day later I started seeing ads for that exact kind of yogurt on insta lol”
“I was the only person in a small cafeteria and they ran out of plastic forks. I thought about how I wish they had forks while eating my food with a spoon. An hour later Amazon recommends me a plastic utensil pack. I was alone, spoke to no one, voiced nothing, so yeah.”
Many people experiencing the same thing!! Thankfully, we're all going nuts together. Somewhat assuring. I suppose.
One twitter friend said: “When I still used to go to bars I’d notice the next morning I’d have ads on my social media for liver pills and hangover cures... I attributed that to the phone listening. Maybe your phone’s camera saw your empty tube of paste?”
This one I believe is due to location tracking. Your phone tracks millions of data points, much about location. That data can be used to track every move of a person. It stands to reason that is used to target ads.. and can be used for things far more sinister. It's not that his phone was "listening" but his GPS chip was, knew he was at bars, and sent him hangover cures. No need to "listen" or "look" via the camera here.
(Data point tracking article here: http://archive.is/6AzgK )
I thought it might be possible that before an actual ad or item is displayed to us, there are subliminal messages or ads which “prime” us to think a certain way, and then we later get the ad. The extra exposure might induce more purchases or behavior.
But that still does not explain the Jetta or the lack of forks in the café. I don’t think it would even explain my thoughts on wanting to switch toothpaste.
We know we get ads targeted based on things we search, this happens commonly. My friend even started to get ads for desks after I sent him a couple texts with desks. It's often been commented that people talking about things will lead to ads.
What we know for sure from the research is that neuroscientists can re-create images on screens that are held in our minds and that we are viewing, and that our phones can track us anywhere. This is simply what we know about currently. No doubt there is more out there hidden away.
At some point, this could be used for any number of things. Imagine having access to all the location data. You could figure out just with the raw data alone who a person is, for example, you can easily find the neighborhood a CEO lives in, and you know where his office is. You match those data points together to find him and identify the "anonymous" data, then look where else he goes. A random apartment on the other side of town? Is he having an affair? Can he then be extorted by the person holding the data?
The police could catch criminals, say there was a string of bank robberies, how many actual customers would travel to all the locations that have been robbed? Can't be many. Pull all the data of all the people who went to them all, and you just narrowed down your suspect list from millions in a big city to a handful.
Hooking people's heads up to the electrodes and looking for any wrong thoughts they might have? Doing it remotely by capturing the electric waves through the air? Realizing political enemies are feeling depressed and ensuring all the news and post they see are curated to induce more depression and hopelessness? To induce panic? To derail them? Extort them like our CEO? These possibilities make it clear that this is powerful information and makes it all the more crucial we regain power.
Something is afoot, that is certain. I'm sure this will be a breaking news story at some point in the next decade, for now, we'll keep wondering what the fuck is going on, and maybe throw the phones in a river. I know for a fact I’ve gotten ads for things I’ve never searched, bought, or spoke about out loud, only thought. And I want to know what is going on.
I think I might send Ted a letter via carrier pigeon and ask for advice. But I'm pretty sure I'll know what he will say. Until then, I'm wrapping my helmet in aluminum foil. If anybody is going to decide to buy toothpaste, it'll be me.
There's a lot of ways to have data about you that has nothing to do with gathering data directly from you. There just has to be enough demographic information about you to pool you with others and use the aggregate data as it it were your own. Seeing something you're thinking about is not unusual. The most famous experiments have been done with the number '23'. Once you think that number is important, you'll start seeing it. When you consider the sheer volume of messages being created based upon whatever demographic others have about you and other meta-data you're generating just by using technology, some messages are bound to be more apropos than others and seem uncanny.
Something is definitely up! The Librem phone by Purism is an attempt at a privacy phone. I hear good things about it.
I used to work for a cable/internet company doing tech support. I think it was around 2008 the company wanted to cater their advertising based on internet search information. I assume it’s all done automatically with various programs. I remember that the company sent out a letter to the customers about it. They decided against it because too many people complained. Unfortunately, most other companies just went ahead with it anyway. It’s likely that a significant portion of the older generation died off and the youngsters raised in the surveillance state just went along with it. The new generational trend is to simply go along with it as if it’s for the greater good and chastise anyone who has reservations about it. The general attitude is why worry unless you have something to hide?
THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME. (Not with toothpaste though)
One easy measure to take is to use those privacy stickers and cover up the cameras on all your devices when you're not using them. Everyone should do this. Another is to use various free browser plugins like HTTPS Everywhere and maybe a couple ad blockers. I heard ublock origin is a decent one. Also, it's more costly, but a good VPN (never use a free one) may prevent the ISP and other third parties from monitoring all your internet traffic.