The creepy sound of online trackers

09/17/22 • -1 min

I can't get the noise out of my head. People who watch the video express awe and disgust. And that is why Dutch software developer Bert Hubert's experiment is so powerful. It doesn't really uncover something that we shouldn't already know. Something we often choose to ignore. The brilliance is that it makes us incapable of ignoring.

Bert himself explains that he has had the idea for years. It's one of those things that live on in the back of your mind, until one day the stars align and you finally find that block of time when your idea surfaces at the same time.

Bert's idea appears simple:

What if your computer made a little noise each time it sends data to Google?

So this is what he did. A piece of software dubbed googerteller designed for his Linux computer that emits a scratchy beep when the computer detects information flowing out from his computer to one of Google's computers.

And here is what his first video looks like. Or rather, sounds like. It's when visiting the official Dutch government jobs site. Bert notes that it does not ask for consent for this data transfer.

Take note in the beginning when each character in the search query sends data to google in order to trigger the search suggestions.

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Video by Bert Hubert

Levelling up with more trackers

After announcing the tool in a tweet the video quickly received over a million views. Spurred by this attention Bert decided to develop his tool further and include trackers not only from Google but also Facebook and dozens of other trackers.

When visiting some popular news sites, this is now what his computer sounds like:

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Video by Bert Hubert

Even though I personally am acutely aware that this tracking is happening on most sites we visit today, the video and its noise still make me shiver. In case you are hard of hearing, the noise in the second video is almost constant, ongoing even as Bert is just scrolling.

It's not only about the data transfer itself. Imagine the amount of network traffic required when this happens to everyone active online. And the storage and CPU power required to process it all. Yeah, you get it.

The power of transparency

When we talk about transparency we often talk about letting people know what is going on. But it's generally the case that transparency in worded explanations and reports is hard to digest and understand. This experiment shows what can happen when people begin to understand differently. A real-time audio explanation gives new meaning to transparency.

And I believe this is only a first step. Check out Bert's post where he talks about some ideas to take the tool further, including a public live demo installation.

I personally would of course like to see a tool like this available on more platforms. And there is a lot of opportunity to allow users to add trackers and select sounds for different trackers. And of course to add the option of visual feedback for people who can not hear, such as bubbles appearing and popping for each information transfer.

For a person like myself it would almost turn into a game seeing what trackers I manage to block in my Hosts file and which ones make it through.

If someone with more skills than me is building something along these lines I would definitely be interested in contributing with design ideas. I talk a lot about awareness, and this is one of those types of tools that I believe would encourage a lot more people to have important conversations, and take action.

Thank you Bert.

Listen

The sound of online trackers0:00/321.281×

Bert's idea appears simple:

What if your computer made a little noise each time it sends data to Google?

And here is what his first video looks like. Or rather, sounds like. It's when visiting the official Dutch government jobs site. Bert notes that it does not ask for consent for this data transfer.

Take note in the beginning when each character in the search query sends data to google in order to trigger the search suggestions.

0:00 /0:34 1×

Video by Bert Hubert

Levelling up with more trackers

When visiting some popular news sites, this is now what his computer sounds like:

0:00 /0:44 1×

Video by Bert Hubert

The power of transparency

And I believe this is only a first step. Check out Bert's post where he talks about some ideas to take the tool further, including a public live demo installation.

For a person like myself it would almost turn into a game seeing what trackers I manage to block in my Hosts file and which ones make it through.

Thank you Bert.

Listen

The sound of online trackers0:00/321.281×

Previous Episode

Your unique typing rhythm can reveal your identity

As early as 1860, experienced telegraph operators realized they could actually recognize each individual by everyone's unique tapping rhythm. To the trained ear, the soft tip-tap of every operator could be as recognizable as the spoken voice of a family member.

In World War II military intelligence used a methodology known as "Fist of the Sender" to identify unique ways of keying in a message's "dots" and "dashes" in Morse code. It was used to distinguish friend from foe. The pace and style of the communication allowed expert operators to deduce who was in the other end.

The more you type, the more of your unique qualities can be collected and identified

Even if people type on keyboards at approximately the same speed, everyone will have specific pauses, sequences and hold-times for certain letters that are true only for them. The more of these variables we have access to, the more certain we can be of a person's identity.

Common misspellings, errors, preferred words, punctuation, capitalisation and use of emojis will of course all play into this data. The more that is known, the closer confidence levels come to being the equivalent of a biometric fingerprint.

The behavioral biometric identifier retrieved through input via keyboard, known as keystroke dynamics, of course only gets better over time - able to take into account that your typing varies over a day or days and can be affected by external factors.

Your typing style can identify you in otherwise anonymized data

As you will likely be aware by now, this technique can of course be used to de-anonymize anyone wanting to appear anonymous online. So whatever security precautions you may have taken, keystroke logging may very well be enough to identify you.

Want to stay under the radar? Random taping of fingers, wearing gloves or consuming an alcoholic beverage may fool some software. But don't forget to also develop your vocabulary.

Note that keylogging is illegal in most countries (akin to wiretapping) and hopefully not employed as much as you might fear. But the data is very easy to collect in a digital world, by any website, and often the creators of software aren't thinking ahead on potential misuse — or maybe aren't even aware that what they are doing is illegal. Facebook was saving everything you typed, even when you didn't hit publish, very early on. TikTok today saves keystrokes when you use their internal web browser.

Who is doing what these days is not always obvious, and sometimes the logging itself is done under the guise of enhanced security, sometimes valid and sometimes not. But once again: consumer control is essentially non-existent. Awareness is all we can spread.

In 1844, on May 24, Samuel Morse sent an historic telegraph message from Washington, D.C. to Alfred Vail in Baltimore, Maryland. The message read

"What hath God wrought?".

This question perhaps invites more reflection than the modern-day oft-used sanity test : "Hello world".

Listen

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Keystroke dynamics - WikipediaWikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects VIDEO: The Fist Of The Sender: How Much Does Typing Reveal About Us? - Columbia EntrepreneurshipThe Fist Of The Sender: How Much Does Typing Reveal About Us? With Andrew Rosenberg Director of the Computational Linguistics Program at the CUNY GraduateColumbia EntrepreneurshipColumbia Entrepreneurship | July 22, 2015 The physiology of keystroke dynamicsA universal implementation for most behavioral Biometric systems is still unknown since some behaviors aren’t individual enough for identification. Habitual behaviors which are measurable by sensors are considered ‘soft’ biometrics (i.e., walking style, typing rhythm), while physical attributes (i.e...NASA/ADSJenkins, Jeffrey What is keystroke ID (keystroke identification)? - Definition from WhatIs.comThe use of an individual’s distinctive typing dynamics can be used as a non-intrusive and reliable form of biometric authentication.TechTargetTechTarget Contributors

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Digital tools, smart devices, AI and virtual worlds are celebrated for the problems they solve, while the problems they create are concealed or glossed over.
My name is Per Axbom and I’m a Swedish communication theorist born in Liberia. My international upbringing, my early 80s computer enthusiasm, aligned with a passion for responsible innovation, has resulted in a deep concern for human rights in a digital context.
I want to boost general knowledge about harmful impact and encourage balanced and honest conversations about possible, plausible and desirable futures.
After blogging for more than 25 years about the human perspective in digitalisation I am adding to my channels yet another podcast. You get brief insights in episodes around 7 minutes that can be listened to on a whim, and from time to time some longer expansions on current phenomena.
Do use the episodes as triggers for reflection but also conversation with people in your circles of trust.
The future is not predetermined and not something we can just leave to others to decide over. The future is something we together contribute to through our decisions. But this means we must also better understand the consequences of what we ourselves are doing today. And right now.
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