At least they’re telling you. There’s also a lot of hidden surveillance in stores - they’ve done it with Bluetooth and cameras for some time. Things like monitoring how long you look at products and evaluating your reactions to displays.
That’s why I always introduce a good bit of entropy to my shopping patterns:
-Enter and go straight to produce
-Spend 20 minutes examining eggplants
-Walk up and down 5 aisles pausing exactly the square of the aisle number in seconds.
-Grab a box of tampons
-Grab what I need as quickly as possible
-Return tampons
-Checkout and leaveSomewhere a marketing team is spending hours trying to figure out how to improve the conversion rates for tampons and eggplants for customers in my demo.
This is even more hilarious if you read it in Dale Gribble’s (from King of the Hill) voice
Then throw some pocketsand at the end
Shaaahhhhhh
Don’t forget to be visibly revolted by any ads you happen to glance at
Don’t forget to flick and knock on various fruits and vegetables. Randomize how many flicks/knocks per item, and throw in a few on produce items that normally don’t get that kind of test e.g. grapes or potatoes.
Wait, there are fruits/veggies that get this kind of treatment by typical customers? Please list a few.
Melons and squashes (inc. pumpkins).
I believe the idea is to allow you to roughly evaluate the density of the produce, to avoid e.g. mushy grainy watermelon or weird squashes that don’t have their expected hollowness.
isn’t that why Kramer was bowling watermelons down the aisle (dating myself a bit here)
At least they’re telling you.
Now there telling you. They just didn’t ask for consent before.
That’s what I mean.
I created an account while in the store with an email of fuckyou@thisisstupid.com and a basic password and surprisingly didn’t have to verify the email. Then turned on a VPN to my house.
I plan on just creating a new account every time I go in just to fill up their database with nonsense.
You do realize that they are actually tracking the device itself by the hardware MAC address and other device fingerprints.
The email is just a bonus to let them legally spam you. Anti-spam laws have an exemption. If there’s a prior business relationship like shopping in their stores, they can put you on their spam list unless you opt out.
Bogus email only helps for spam but doesn’t do anything about tracking.
EDIT: For Android when there’s a Captive Portal like the screen shot. devices will use Persistent randomization which while not the hardware MAC will remain the same for the same network where they can track your visits.
Pretty much all modern phones randomize the MAC address everytime they connect to a network unless the user explicitly says not to do that.
When there’s a Captive Portal like the screenshot, many devices use a random but persistent mac for that network avoid reauthorization after any network drop. This will make your access to the specific network trackable.
I’d assume after a certain amount of time or after moving far enough away from the network it “forgets” the last randomized MAC address?
It doesn’t really make sense to store these things long term.
But can’t you go manually forget the network in your device network options to circumvent this?
chuckles in GrapheneOS
(per-connection random MAC, for all networks, by default)
This is actually just part of stock Android. My Pixel 5 has MAC randomization on by default for new Wi-Fi networks.
It’s per-network, not per-connection. Though that option does exist but is hidden away under developer settings.
Oh you mean like per TCP connection?
randomize the MAC address everytime they connect to a network
+1, had issues using Android devices for presence detection because of this very useful privacy feature. Even on your home network, the MAC address and device hostname get randomized, unless disabled in the settings
Edit: typo
GrapheneOS let’s me do a per-connection randomized MAC.
I’m sure they do collect a lot more about my device, but there’s not much I can do about it short of wrapping my phone in tin foil.
Don’t forget to disable wifi and bluetooth before approaching the store, as those give off unique identifiers too.
Cool, is samwaltoncaneatabagofdicks@inhell.com still available?
It is not. You need to add a number at the end.
inhell.info is available and Postfix is a thing.
Not Walmart, not wifi but my default is <randomstring>@gfy.com
GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out) is the correct way to deal with the surveillance system.
This makes me feel a lot better about ChatGPT garbage corrupting Google search results.
Fun fact: Android developer options has a Disabled Persistent Mac address randomization toggle. Or at least Pixel phones do
This is the way. Fuck them.
Don’t forget to spoof your MAC address so they cant see who is making the fake accounts ;D
That’s done automatically on mobile devices
Walmart, the biggest grocery retailer in the entire United States, uses face tracking in the majority of their stores in several sections, and we’re concerned about their Wi-Fi?
The Wi-Fi seems like such a minor problem compared to them collecting massive amounts of data off of something you aren’t consenting to explicitly.
Like you walk into their stores and they can know: How often you visit, what items you buy, what payment method you use most often, what items you looked at and what aisles you visit, who you bring with you, what your kids look like, what disabilities you may have, size of your household, and whatever else they want. There’s basically no respect for any privacy in their stores.
The US is a privacy nightmare in competition with China. Most of the US doesn’t have any option over their privacy. You just don’t get it here.
It’s even worse as an associate. They make us sign up for some social media I never use, download apps on our phones, and make us give them our handprints for a machine to take out our tills. And we’re getting face scanned by cameras all day. Dystopian nightmare and it makes me feel ashamed to have accepted the job here.
I use GOS and therefore believe that I have some level of protection on the WiFi level based off of that, and I have their apps on a separate profile but it’s getting tougher on privacy here at Walmart.
Edit: That’s also why I have no pictures of me in my socials and deleted my Facebook, Instagram, and twitter, so they shouldn’t have too many ways to market to me aside through my debit and credit cards possibly.
Revoke the data privileges of the app on your phone. That will effectively neuter it, while you can show them it’s there.
I have all of their apps on a separate profile. One app I do sadly need data for to check my schedule and look up prices of things.
I think the point of this post is all the stuff below the email field. Yikes.
Bub, they always did this.
They just tell you that they’re doing it now.
I was responding to all the people who said “just use a fake email,” bub…
Well now they can legally use that data since you now have to agree to the terms.
That data isn’t nothing, either. Over ten years ago, Target was able to use shoppers habits to determine when women were pregnant, sometimes even before the women knew.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Imagine how much more robust this has gotten 10 years later.
Exactly, a damn good reason to avoid the Wi-Fi in stores altogether. So many wifi access points are super weak in security and super sketchy.
I try sticking to my home where I can manage it like a nervous hawk.
Now they can tell when women are pregnant before they even have sex.
Would using a VPN remedy this?
Not really. With https luckily being the default, at most they could get the sites you were going to (I don’t think dnss is dead, but it’s been very slow to grow unfortunately).
They could probably see if you’re checking Amazon or Google, but wouldn’t be able to see what you’re looking at exactly. Theoretically they could use cameras and or triangulation to see what you’re in front of when you use the Internet, but a VPN would still show traffic so they’d know you’re looking up something.
The big thing this would do is act like a loyalty card… They give you some amount of benefit in exchange for tracking your purchases in ever higher detail. Mostly it’s just like that, except they’d also be able to see how long you are in the store, and ideally they can link it to your purchases so they can infer more about it
FWIW, I wouldn’t only consider giving them a disposable email
This is a fantastic read.
I remember febreeze coming out and being like, that would be cool but you can’t trust ads and it sounds like total BS. I knew they added a scent, but I had not idea about the subtle social manipulation that they used to shift people’s habits.
Speaking of habits, this is the first time I have heard about all the science involved in studying and breaking them.
Thank you for that link. Definitely going to save it.
Why are all you mother fuckers shopping at Walmart. They are a welfare corporation offloading their costs to tax payers because despite making tons of money they pay shit and skirt employee benefits laws by keeping worker hours low and give new employees info on how to get financial aid such as food stamps.
This is the most privileged thing you could say.
“Hey, why isn’t everyone eating sustainably sourced GMO-free, organic, locally-grown food all the time?”
Spoiler alert: it costs more
Haha exactly. People shop at Walmart because they work at target and don’t make enough money to shop at Whole Foods.
Yeah, this is the thing. Does literally anyone want to go to Walmart? No. Is it the place I can afford? Increasingly, still no. Not sure I can even afford to walk past whatever the good version of a Whole Foods is today, though.
Dollar tree is looking expensive these days
At least dollar tree is significantly easier to shoplift from.
I needed a job, alright. I usually shop at hannaford although it’s expensive. I wanna farm someday.
A lot of people in rural areas find themselves in situations like being 10 minutes from a walmart and an hour from any other option. So then anything besides walmart costs gas and time, on top of the product cost difference to begin with.
Nobody wants to drive extra after 8 hours of shitty minimum wage work and/or taking care of children.
Not like other grocery stores are any good for workers, either.
Cause WinCo doesn’t always have what I need, but most importantly:
I’m poor.
Because all of the other retailers do the same shit only with higher prices. Here in Canada they don’t pay their employees any less than the competition, yet their prices are 30-40% cheaper on average.
That extra 40% doesn’t result in better working conditions for the employees, it goes directly to the shareholders and bonuses for the C-suite.
I respect the hell out of Walmart because they actually keep their price increases tied to inflation and aren’t out there trying to sell a loaf of poverty white bread for $5 or a pack of 4 chicken breasts for $37.
I got some insight from a friend who works at a major supplier for these retail stores in Canada. He said how they manage prices is that when they anticipate a rise in cost they’ll jack the price all the way to a future projected target instead of following the current inflationary rate so that they won’t need to constantly quote their customers different prices. They don’t care because they know it will get passed downstream.
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Fair, but even using your normal router without a VPN isn’t good imo. Even if it’s not as bad as public. And VPNs are usually an extreme measure. If I was using public WiFi, and doing stuff on my bank account, then yes, VPN all the way, but I usually don’t feel that I need it.
Why is the vpn necessary when you have https to the bank? Just to hide you’re ip from the bank?
Public WiFi would make me skeptical when I always put in my passwords.
Well im just saying thats what https is for but there’s nothing wrong with extra security
So if https is all that’s needed, why do VPNs recommend using them at public locations? Just false advertising? I click on my bank app and it always wants a password and I guess I don’t know enough about network engineering. I’m interested in Android Development but don’t know much about WiFi I guess.
Marketing mostly. The vpn makes an encrypted tunnel that you’re traffic goes thru. If using https and vpn there are 2 layers of encryption. It’s not false advertising bc an extra layer doesn’t hurt. Now if your sending password over http it would help but you shouldnt be using a site that sends passwords over plaintext. I would say vpn is mostly to either hide your ip from websites or to hide internet activity from your isp
So more for privacy than security, so it would make sense to use a VPN depending on your threat model I suppose, or how much you care.
I always wonder why those VPN absolutists aren’t happy with your regular HTTPS. Sure, maybe HTTP is safer with the VPN, but it just hides your real IP from the target website.
it also hides the websites you visit from your ISP, who often likes to profile you based on your browsing habits.
Yeah but it’s on a public wifi
in that case, it hides the websites you visit from:
- the ISP providing the network, and
- the business who offers the public WiFi,
both of them probably being very eager to profile your browsing habits (as seen on the image in the post).
It shifts from the isp to the VPN provider, who isn’t doing that profiling yet.
yes.
Cause I get shit service in Walmart and don’t really have any other option if I need to look something up while shopping.
I live near a shopping area with a bunch of stores. It has zero cell coverage from any provider. Apparently there’s been some NIMBY resistance to putting up towers in nearby neighborhoods.
Same here. I wonder if they do it on purpose.
At nearly any gas station in NRW, Germany it’s this way as well and I absolutely hate it.
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It sounds to me like they are developing some tools to help map things inside the store. So they can give you directions to things you are looking for maybe. Also with this information they could do something similar to those Amazon stores where you just pick things up and walk out and it charges you automatically.
Not saying you all want to share the info with them. It is invasive. But as an engineer I can see so many cool features I could build with this information.
Never trust an open network. Even if the company providing isn’t doing anything shady, the easy at which MITM (man in the middle) attacked, can be performed means that many insecure (and some secure) networks can be spoofed with a small amount of know-how.
Always make sure your connecting to a safe, secure wifi network, in a place where you expect that network to exist at.
If your phone connects in a place you wouldn’t expect it to connect, double check what it’s connecting to, and if necessary, disable your wifi.
How would they do man in the middle attacks? Don’t you need to trust their certificate first?
That mechanism only happens after you connect to it, you have to connect to the wifi in order to download the certificate to connect. And it doesn’t apply to all open WI-FI. A someone can still spoof the wifi. The fun part is when they set up their own false “I agree to the usage” pop up page that just steals your data - standardised systems like this are easily spoofed, especially when it comes to open and insecure wifi. They could even send you a bogus certificate that routes all the traffic through their gateway, allowing them to spy on the secure connections.
Why would anyone interested in privacy connect to any public WiFi? That’s crazy.
When you need service, but data is blocked by all the steel in the ceiling/roof. I’ve used it, but with my VPN active. I wonder if they’re now going to try to block VPN services?
Just VPN to your home network. What are they going to do, block every IP but theirs?
You do realize they were almost certainly doing this before, right?
More of shock value of them announcing it and requiring an email now.
Damn now I have to put in my real email! noooooo I don’t know how to avoid this only real emails work?
I’ve never had this happen before so I didn’t know. I just thought it was interesting how they’re requiring this now though.
It’s a good thing they don’t have high resolution cameras tracking everything you look at, or they might know what you were thinking about buying
It’s a good thing I don’t have any socials for them to trace me back to. And since I work there, I’m always looking at shit that will prolly throw them off.
For the email, you can use an email alias service like Addy or SimpleLogin. They’re both open-source and offer free tiers. I never give out my real email to anyone now except actual contacts.
After that, I think a VPN would probably still work to disguise what you’re doing from Walmart, but I’m not a 100% certain on that so I won’t link any.
But yeah, definitely use email alias wherever you can.
Do you do that with utility companies and bills?
I do and it works great! I mostly did this to limit the blast radius of breaches, but aliases also provide an easy way to send those kinds of things to both me and my spouse.
I do it with everything. The only people who have my real email address are my family. Everything else is a masked email. It’s especially nice because if I start getting spam on one email I can immediately tell which site sold my info and I never use that site again.
I do.
I use SimpleLogin and ProtonMail.
Some sites have I’ll actually know you’re using SimpleLogin though and just say no, but they’re few and far between.
You could also use your own domain if you have one or buy a cheap one.
Then you can create as many as you like and just kill them as and when you need.
SimpleLogin has plugins for all browsers and phones so it’s not too difficult to create new addresses.
just use a throwaway private email?
Junk email + VPN, but I’ve found that most free wifi services like this explicitly try to inhibit the functionality of mobile VPN clients.
The irony being open wifi like this absolutely need a vpn running
