Replies to post #215666 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[evanstony]

just did the google test with Dcvax l and got optune ad on the bottom
of page... optune is buying the response.. not just a coincidence

[CogDiss 1188X]

Part 1 - Al4door says

I just googles Dcvac-L and got just that. Another conspiracy theory gone mad.

Help me understand the conspiracy to which I was referring. I confirmed two things others were seeing and speculated on possible causes that were based in how web companies might typically work.

I said:

First, it seems to go away on google after you’ve searched for DCVax-L several times (I reproduced Flipper’s experience). That makes sense assuming google has optimized its algorithm in certain ways. There’s probably an optimum number of ad impressions before diminishing returns kick in.

As mentioned, I confirmed Flipper’s experience, which others also later confirmed. So maybe we’ve established a conspiracy fact. I then speculated that google has an algorithm that optimizes the number of times it shows the ad. It seems to me to be a conspiracy to deliver value to their customer, Novacure.

I said:

Second, as Biosect points out and I experienced as well, it started showing up after the Optune conversation on this board. Google could be tracking what we read, though multiple ways. Or perhaps some of us did some google searches regarding Optune in response to the conversation here.

Both Biosect and I noticed the ads started showing up around the time Flipper started pounding away at Optune. My explanation is that google could be tracking what we read in multiple ways, or perhaps it was because we did a specific google search for Optune. Essentially both ideas are that google tracks our online behavior so it can target ads.

I didn’t go into the different typical ways our behavior could be tracked. Others have provided some ideas around IP addresses, cookies (browsing history), whatever. None of this is controversial. I mentioned we could have also been triggered the ad because some of us specifically did google searches for Optune.

A test of that would be for those who know they never did a search for Optune to try a search for DCVax-L to see if you get the ad. I’m pretty sure I did at least one search of Optune in the last couple of weeks.

You apparently did not do an optune search recently, since you didn’t see the optune ad. Thanks for confirming my idea! PopeFrancis confirmed as well.

Actually, just kidding. It was a bad idea to try to confirm this idea. It would be like herding kittens, since we did not control the environment (device types, browser types or apps, versions,) or the starting conditions. Doing so would be a wasted effort since the particular way google tracked our behavior and showed the ads is kind of irrelevant (to me at least).

So, is it your understanding that google does not try to target ads to users?

How can that be, when noted conspiracy monger The Wall Street Journal describes how Google (which owns the ad site DoubleClick) intentionally hacked around a safari browser default setting intended to prevent 3rd party cookies from being used unless the user specifically opts in. This allowed google, via DoubleClick cookies, to track safari users browsing. No doubt because they are good guys looking after their users’ best interest. I believe this action violated Apple’s TOS.

GOOGLE INTENTIONALLY CIRCUMVENTED the default privacy settings of Apple's Safari browser, using a backdoor to set cookies on browsers set to reject them, in the latest privacy debacle for the search and advertising giant.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204880404577225380456599176

BTW, they were fined $22.5 million by the FTC for that one.

So, yes, they track user behavior, and yes, sometimes they use underhanded ways to do it.

They’re still up to their old tricks. Just this month they were fined $57 million in France for failing to comply with privacy concerns in a satisfactory way.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/21/google-fined-57-million-by-french-data-privacy-body/

There is a lot more evidence one could marshal, but I’ve already beat a dead horse into the ground by even providing one example.

Fortunately, google had the foresight to remove “Do no evil” from their mission statement.

I concluded my post with the possibility of this old conspiracy concept, “coincidence”:

Of course it’s possible that Joe’s Van Damm experience and Optune starting to advertise on social media after the conversation here are both coincidences.

I also mentioned the behavioral psychology concept of priming:

Perhaps we are more attuned to seeing the word Optune after the last couple of weeks. This would fit if it’s only due to Optune’s use of AdWords/Adsense of whatever it’s called.

I think some kind of data mining/sharing is likely however.

I was suggesting that priming would help us see coincidences, not conspiracies.

In sum, I’m not seeing the conspiracy theory you are seeing. Maybe you were referring to the creepy Joe Rogan story? If you read that through, you see I was actually pointing out that his explanation, while technically feasible, had an alternative explanation that is based on social network analysis, which happens to be all the rage in technology (actually, it’s very old but additional new techniques are being developed). I’ll break that story down in a second post.

[CogDiss 1188X]

Part 2 - Al4door says

I just googles Dcvac-L and got just that. Another conspiracy theory gone mad.

In part 1, I confirmed Flipper and Biosect’s experience regarding the Optune ad’s appearance, and provided some plausible explanations, which others have confirmed (sometimes derisively, because it is obvious that this is typical user behavior tracking. I agree it is typical, so I’m not sure where the derision comes from).

Perhaps it was my lack of transition/setup to the Joe Rogan story that caused you/others to think I was promulgating some kind of “conspiracy theory.” I wasn’t offering Joe’s story as an explanation of the targeted optune ads appearing, since I don’t think Flipper, Biosect, CaptainOblivious, me, etc., were all reading Flipper’s Optune posts out loud into our device microphones. Though I suppose the camera could have been reading my lips as I read, lol.

Hi HAL9000! Glad to see you’ve recovered!

I thought Joe’s story was interesting to share in the general context of web tracking, so I shared it.

Joe Rogan told of a personal experience related to tracking across multiple platforms that was particularly creepy. He and his friends were talking about a specific Jean-Claude Van Damm movie from the ‘80’s one afternoon. Later that night, back at home, Joe logged onto Netflix. Several Van Damm movies were recommended to him. He contends the only way that would have happened is if his phone had been monitoring his conversation because he hadn’t done anything in the intervening time to trigger that result other than talk about an obscure movie with friends a few hours before.

That’s what *he* contends. I point out it is feasible technically and fits with the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley assholes.

That one’s phone is listening to conversations and parsing for keywords and updating a database somewhere is certainly feasible. And given the fact that assholes like Mark “Privacy is dead” Zuckerberg have such prominent roles in technology these days, it’s likely to be the case that some app on your phone is doing that. It’s one of many reasons why I don’t download any apps on my phone. Paranoid? Knowledgeable? Both?

Recall that part of the whole Russian Hacking the Election story involves the company Cambridge Analytica hacking the Facebook data on 87 million users because fewer than 300 thousand of their “friends” took a fun quiz on a Facebook app which exploited FB API security issues. Facebook “prohibited” the selling of data collected this way, but Cambridge Analytica sold the data anyway.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram

Of course, Facebook is a tough cop when it comes to their users’ privacy.

But former Facebook employees have said that there’s a tension between the security team and the legal/policy team in terms of how they prioritize user protection in their decision making.

“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company.”

Not surprising when Mark “Privacy is Dead” Zuckerberg is the CEO.

Apps are capable of all kinds of mischief, like this most recent example: stealing your crypto currencies:

http://www.arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/google-play-caught-hosting-an-app-that-steals-users-cryptocurrency


Of course it is feasible to control of device, especially when the government wants tech companies to leave backdoors open on their platforms:
https://www.wired.com/2014/07/hackers-can-control-your-phone-using-a-tool-thats-already-built-into-it/

Here’s another example.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/427103/how-a-web-link-can-take-control-of-your-phone/

and you can even do it to a loved one!
http://www.technows.com/how-to-hack-into-someones-phone/

This is all obvious. Who knows exactly how devices are being exploited? We won’t know until the particular exploit is discovered and publicized.

However, I offered a different explanation from Joe’s that is I believe less “conspiracy-y”:

However, an equally likely way to explain Joe’s experience that is somewhat less creepy and could be more easily justified to the public if it got out would be for ads to be also based on our close network of friends and family. One of his friends in the conversation probably googled the movie even though he didn’t. Netflix no doubt buys marketing data from google since it is one of the best sources of information on us in the world. Netflix’s algorithm probably uses friends’ profiles to predict what you might like. This makes a lot of sense based on social network research. Even some friends of friends can be highly predictive of some of our traits and preferences.

Maybe I should have said “more likely.” It was really late so word choice could be improved, no doubt. It is more likely that corporations would rely on social network analysis than hacking, I am suggesting, though who the hell knows what these guys are up to. Google seems to keep getting fined for some reason. They keep coming up with excuses like test code got left in, or the program accidentally stored more info than intended. Yep, happens all the time.

Here is an example of social network analysis that can predict things about you that you’ve never revealed:

The group’s new research shows that it’s possible to infer certain concealed traits by studying the friends of our friends.

https://www.futurity.org/social-media-friends-privacy-1725722/

If that is possible, certainly Netflix might infer that Joe might like 80s Van Damm movies if his friend is of the right predictive type and googles the movie earlier that day while they were talking. This isn’t magic. I expect something like this is going on, otherwise Netflix is behind the curve.

So, I’m still not seeing conspiracy theories being promulgated.

The issue I have with a statement like Another conspiracy theory gone mad is that it attempts to use stigma and derision to cut off debate or at least to limit its scope to a narrowly defined range. There is a famous quote (that is probably misattributed so I won’t attribute it) that is applicable here:

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

I will, however, suggest following up on a topic related to electronic devices and illegal surveillance that touches on a “conspiracy.” Here is a short William Binney interview on Stellar Wind, a program that monitors all electronic communications in the US. If you don’t know who Binney is, this is highly recommended as a taste:

At around 6:02, he uses the word “conspiracy” with regard to Bush, Cheney, Tenet (CIA), Hayden (NSA) subverting the constitution and US law.

A documentary on Binney, “A Good American”, describes the “thinthread” program that he believes would have stopped 9/11, but was purposely ignored/shelved:

The NSA honchos wanted a significantly more expensive system. Apparently thinthread was too thin.

Binney is the main guy who created a lot of the technology that the NSA uses to collect all our data. He was so good that even early in his career (1968), he predicted the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia based on phone metadata, ie, just the change in patterns of calls between key people in the USSR.