Trackers Save

Web tracking is the practice by which websites identify and collect information about users. This is generally in the form of some subset of web browsing history.

With more of us now using streaming services, mobile devices, laptops, wearables and indeed Internet of Things (IoT) at home and at work, we've entered into a realm whereby every second of what we do online is tracked, analysed, monetised and shared amongst a growing industry that doesn't like to be as transparent as they should be.

This project about understanding how people could track me, and my family, back in 2011 when Glenn Wilkinson and I created the Snoopy Project, a set of tools for tracking and visualising wireless client activity. I became obsessed with my digital exhaust and what someone could use to form a pattern of life from my daily habits.

Until a few weeks ago, when COVID-19 hit us hard and we were forced to self-isolate, I never really shared this information with anyone as I felt that either people didn't care or that they felt no need for it. However, with everyone now mostly stuck at home and using streaming services to keep the kids entertained, and indeed themselves, maybe now is the time to share.

What?

I've spent many hours doing deep inspection as to what each device, application, app and $thing does when it connects through my network. I try to understand how each endpoint works, what the code looks like (including reverse engineering apps) to look for known trackers so that I can add them to a blocklist.

In some cases, new kids on the block such as Disney+, who seemingly offer a great service but also adopted a whole new level of tracking, with unknown trackers. This presented many new challenges, such as understanding how this all works and what you can do to better protect your kids and family.

I'm not against tracking, I understand that this is part and parcel of the Internet and how many fund a lot of what we use. What I am against is how it is done, and how little transparency is around what they collect and how the infrastructure works.

How?

The project is a work in progress. It's based upon my obsession and might not work for you, but in the spirit of sharing I'm presenting the data for you to use, and maybe do a pull request to add to the data (if you can). I've started a seperate mobile games trackers list, mostly based on the games my kids play. You can find this under the mobilegames.txt list and ill endeavour to keep it as up to date as possible.

Building your own tracker and visualising the data

I've created a more detailed HOWTO guide if you want to play along at home. You can view it over at here