Anonymity, Cookies and Breadcrumbs: The Digital Footprint
I miss the good old days. When someone wanted to follow you, they did it the hard way, looked up your address in the phonebook, hid in the bushes next to your house until you came out, then casually bumped into you like, “Oh, I was just in the area. Do you live around here?”
Sure, we did some creepy things. But we were nice about it.
Now we live in a world where a few internet searches are all it takes to send you a DM from underneath your bed, asking what you would do if they came for a sleepover.
The internet is the world’s stage, and everybody is wearing a mask.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
— Oscar Wilde
The thing about masks, though, is that they create an illusion of anonymity. You stop paying attention to what you are giving away, because hey, it can’t possibly come back to the real you, right?
Right?
There is a trail of cookies, and much like Hansel and Gretel, it leads right to your doorstep.
Every website you visit will probably flash a brief pop-up about cookies that need to be accepted, rejected, or otherwise dealt with. It is by design that the easiest thing to do is accept all cookies. Try to reject them and you may find yourself jumping through extra steps, only to discover that some “necessary cookies” are required simply for the page to function
On their own, cookies are fairly harmless. They are small text files stored in your browser that help make your internet experience seamless; remembers your preference and shopping cart like a Digital Butler remembering a returning guest.
The problem arises when malicious players hijack the data stored in these files for dodgy and sometimes criminal purposes; targeting adverts based on your browsing history, stealing your personal information, or compromising your accounts. Cookies can be stitched together into a full picture of you.
There are some internet challenges where people will post a video from an undisclosed location, asking people to find them. How they are found will leave you genuinely unsettled at how much we expose about ourselves without realising it. You might as well post a postcard of your house, captioned with the address and an arrow saying I live here.
And it gets worse for those with a predictable routine. Someone examining the metadata of your online activity can work out when you are at the office, the café you visit on your break, and when you finally get home. Your daily rhythm, mapped out in timestamps and IP addresses.
Then one day you find your house has been robbed, and you quietly suspect the neighbours because they were the only ones you told you were away… Spoiler Alert: you posted on Instagram.
How aware are you of the information your online presence quietly reveals?
WinterABC26 – Digital Identity and Privacy
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