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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

(timsh.org)
1957 points apokryptein | 2 comments | 02 Feb 25 17:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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theptip ◴[02 Feb 25 17:58 UTC] No.42910331[source]▶
> Why do they need to know my screen brightness, memory amount, current volume and if I'm wearing headphones?

This is clearly adding entropy to de-anonymize users between apps, rather than to add specificity to ad bids.

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1. GeoAtreides ◴[02 Feb 25 18:44 UTC] No.42910702[source]▶
> adding entropy to de-anonymize users

_removing_ entropy, by adding more information bits

replies(1): >>42911996 #
2. ohisaysir ◴[02 Feb 25 21:24 UTC] No.42911996[source]▶
Technically, information are the bits you DON'T know. Once you know the bits, it isn't "information" in the Shannon sense, in that it takes no energy to reset a message if you know all the bits, but takes N-units of energy for N unknown bits of information. (See; Feynman's lectures on computation)