Anonymity Digital Footprint Reduction.

[Fixxx]

According to rough estimates, each of us generates between two and three gigabytes of data every hour through smartphones, IoT devices and online services. At the same time, 71% of Americans are concerned about the collection of information by the government and 81% are concerned about corporations. Today, we will analyze a typical day in the life of a modern person to understand where and how we leave digital traces through our habitual actions and what to do about it.

How Your Smartphone And Browser Track You​

You got up, checked the weather for today, scrolled through your feed, liked something, entered your route to work and figured out which traffic jams you'll have to fight through. With privacy settings on social media, everything is obvious: you need to tweak them so that your parents and colleagues who follow you don't turn gray from your sense of humor. It's more complicated with geolocation, which everyone loves to collect. Just imagine: about half of popular Android apps request geolocation where it's not needed. And Chrome and Safari browsers allow cross-domain cookie tracking by default, which allows ad networks to build detailed user profiles for personalized advertising. Almost all of the smartphone's telemetry is used to create a detailed portrait of the consumer without casts and focus groups.

Standard measures​

• Android: Settings → Privacy → Permission Manager → disable background access to geo for messengers, weather widgets and other apps that shouldn't track your movements.
• iOS: Settings → Privacy and Security → Tracking → disable App Tracking Request. By the way, in modern versions of iOS, in the Settings → Privacy and Security section, there is a Security Check section where you can change the settings for apps and other user's access to your data and urgently reset all types of access.

Paranoid measures​

• Android: buy a Google Pixel and install modified GrapheneOS firmware with Google Play services disabled. Or find out if your Android smartphone can be flashed with AOSP firmware, where you can choose which services you want to install on your “bare Android”.
• iPhone: enable Lockdown Mode (the last item in Settings → Privacy & Security), which will severely limit functionality but reduce the chances of hacking your iPhone.
• Everyone: set up a local DNS filter, such as Pi-hole, to block 280,000+ trackers or install the Privacy Badger browser extension for Firefox, Opera, Edge and Chrome. Many modern routers allow you to set up DNS filters that will block most advertising partners on websites.

Why Delivery Apps Can Be Dangerous​

The long-awaited lunch break is the perfect time to catch your breath...and leave a couple more digital footprints. As soon as you order coffee through an app or check in on social media at your favorite bakery around the corner, the Internet immediately adds to the dossier on your habits. Geolocation, payment information, and order history in delivery apps all come into play. Food delivery apps are among the most “curious” in this regard. On average, they collect 21 categories of personal data, 95% of which is directly linked to your identity. Much of this data doesn't stay with the food delivery service, but is sent onward. Uber Eats, for example, shares 12 of the 21 parameters it collects with partner companies, including your phone number, address, search history and order history. What's more, food delivery services have security leaks, which means that data you would hardly want to share voluntarily becomes publicly available: from your name, phone number and address to your shopping list and the cost of your orders. In short, something needs to be done about this too.

Normal measures​

• Check for unnecessary permissions in the delivery app settings: disable constant access to geolocation - the “only when using the app” mode is sufficient. Those who are particularly cautious can disable geolocation altogether, entering addresses manually and selecting the desired one from the list.
• Don't give delivery apps permission to read your contacts and SMS messages or access your gallery if the main functionality of the app doesn't require it.

Paranoid measures​

• Create a separate “disposable” account for food orders - under a different name and with a separate email address. Even more radical - have a second smartphone exclusively for delivery and other questionable apps to isolate them from your main life.
• Don't specify the exact address of your apartment; meet the courier at the entrance. After all, in the event of a leak, your approximate income and exact place of residence can be determined based on your shopping basket and order amounts.
• Pay in cash - then the details of your purchase will not be recorded in your payment system profile.
• The most drastic step is to avoid using electronic orders for lunch altogether. If you want to grab a bite to eat without leaving a digital trail, take cash, leave your phone at the office and go to the nearest cafeteria. Without your phone, you cannot be tracked by GPS and paying in cash will not leave a transaction in the system. Of course, this will not make you completely invisible (no one has canceled surveillance cameras yet), but your digital footprint will be significantly reduced.

What Smart Homes And Voice Assistants Know About You​

After work, you return to the comfort of your home. You ask your voice assistant to turn on the lights and recommend something to watch in the evening. Smart speakers, televisions, robot vacuum cleaners and other gadgets make life easier, but they also create a lot of vulnerabilities for the homes where they operate and their privacy features are not always adequate. In 2023, Amazon had to pay a $25 million fine for storing voice recordings of children and other privacy violations committed while using Alexa. But it's not just corporations that abuse the capabilities of voice assistants. Surveillance cameras, smart outlets and even kettles are often hacked and combined into botnet networks for DDoS attacks. There have been cases where attackers gained access to home cameras and conducted surveillance or pranks, such as talking through a hacked baby monitor.

Normal measures​

• Open your smart home management app (Google Home, Apple Home, Alexa app, etc.) and find sections with names like Privacy. Disable the options for sending recordings for analysis: in Alexa, this is the Use of Voice Recordings setting and in Google Assistant, it's opting out of the quality improvement program. Enable automatic deletion of voice history. You can also manually clear your request history: in Alexa, say “Alexa, delete everything I said today” and in Google Assistant, delete recordings through your Google account.
• Every smart speaker has a mute button - use it when you don't need the assistant, especially during private conversations.
• Laptops and some smart cameras have a camera cover or shutter - close them to prevent unwanted peeping.
• Smart TVs often allow you to disable viewing statistics collection (ACR function) - it makes sense to do this so that the TV doesn't send a report on every channel you switch to.
• Modern routers allow you to create an additional or guest Wi-Fi network - connect all IoT devices to it. This way, gadgets will not see your main computers and phones on your home network and even if one of the smart gadgets is hacked, the attacker will not be able to access your personal data. It will also be easier to disable IoT device's Internet access when they are not in use.
• Set a unique password to control each smart device. Change the factory logins and passwords when you first start up and no “12345” or repeats of your usual password.

Paranoid measures​

• The most extreme option: completely abandon voice assistants and smart home cloud services. Turn on the lights with your hands, set mechanical timers for appliances. The fewer microphones and cameras in the house, the more peace of mind for the paranoid. If you really need an assistant, consider offline alternatives: there are open source projects (Mycroft AI and similar) that can be configured to recognize commands locally, without sending data to the cloud.
• If you are afraid of covert eavesdropping, purchase a bug detector - a device that helps detect hidden cameras and microphones (what if a smart light bulb turns out to be a spy device?). We have already described four ways to detect hidden video cameras.
• During confidential meetings, turn off the power to suspicious gadgets or remove them from the room.
• Choose IoT devices that can operate autonomously. For example, cameras with local storage, without cloud streaming. Or smart home systems based on a local server (such as openHAB), where all data is stored in your home.

Conclusion​

Your data is valuable currency in today's digital world and while it may be impossible to completely erase your digital footprint, that's no reason to give up. Awareness and smart security measures will allow you to control the lion's share of leaks. Yes, absolute anonymity requires efforts bordering on paranoia and most people don't need it. However, by implementing at least the “normal measures” from our list, you will seriously limit the surveillance capabilities of both malicious actors and corporations.