Blurs

Ad networks don’t usually “know you” in a single, direct way. They assemble a stitched-together identity from many weak signals collected across different websites.  Think of it less like a passport and more like reconstructing the same person from repeated patterns of behaviour and device traits. Here’s how that identity merging actually works. 1) The shared tracking script ecosystem (the backbone) Most websites don’t run their own tracking from scratch. They embed third-party scripts from large ad platforms and analytics providers. When you visit Site A and Site B, both might load the same tracking code from the same company. That means: • The same tracking infrastructure sees both visits • It can compare signals across millions of sites • It builds a cross-site activity graph So even if the websites are unrelated, the tracker is the common observer linking them. 2) Cookie syncing (classic cross-site identity linking) Historically, ad networks used third-party cookies to recognis...

Leave the Phone at Home: Covert Tracking and Surveillance in Modern Apps Smartphones have become indispensable tools for communication, navigation, banking, and entertainment.  Yet beneath their convenience lies a complex and often poorly understood ecosystem of data collection.  Many apps quietly gather far more information than users realise, creating detailed behavioural profiles that can be used for advertising, analytics, and sometimes surveillance. The phrase “leave the phone at home” captures a growing concern: in certain contexts, a smartphone is not just a device—it is a tracking beacon. This article explores how covert tracking works in mobile apps, what data is collected, who uses it, and why it matters. The Hidden Economy of App Data Most free apps are not truly free.  Instead, they are funded through data-driven business models, primarily advertising technology but also data collection.  To serve targeted ads, apps and their partners need to collect exte...

How Intelligence Agencies Procure Spies: Recruitment, Handling, and the Making of Human Intelligence Assets Intelligence services don’t “buy spies” in the way fiction often suggests. Instead, agencies cultivate, recruit, and manage individuals who provide information over time—sometimes willingly, sometimes under pressure, and sometimes through carefully constructed relationships that evolve over years. The process used by organisations such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) is a structured discipline known as human intelligence (HUMINT) recruitment and handling. This article explains how it works in practice, based on declassified material, intelligence studies, and investigative reporting. What “recruiting a spy” actually means In intelligence terminology, a “spy” is usually called a: • Source • Asset • Agent • Informant These individuals may: • provide documents or access to information • report on political or military developments • enabl...

IP-based geolocation is basically a lookup system that maps an internet connection to an approximate physical area.  It’s widely used, but it’s important to understand what it can and can’t do. How it works When you connect to a service, your device uses an IP address (e.g. something like 82.xxx.xxx.xxx).  That IP is assigned by your internet provider (ISP). Geolocation databases (run by companies like MaxMind, IP2Location, etc.) map IP ranges to locations using: • ISP registration data (who owns that block of IPs) • Routing information (where traffic enters major internet hubs) • Data from Wi-Fi/mobile networks (crowdsourced or licensed) • Previous user/device location signals (in some cases) So instead of “tracking you,” it’s more like: “This block of IPs is usually used in or around Manchester.” How accurate it is It varies a lot: • City-level (like Manchester): often fairly accurate, but not guaranteed • Wrong city but correct country: common • Completely wrong region: ha...

Apple’s privacy changes—especially App Tracking Transparency (ATT)—didn’t stop tracking so much as break one of the main pipes used to connect identity across apps.  That forced ad networks (including Meta and others) to rebuild their systems around weaker, more indirect signals. Here’s what actually changed. 1) What ATT actually did App Tracking Transparency requires apps on iOS to ask: “Allow this app to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites?” If the user says no, the app cannot access the IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). That matters because IDFA used to be: • a stable device-level advertising ID • shared across apps • resettable but persistent enough for long-term tracking So ATT effectively: • cut off the easiest cross-app identity connector on iPhones 2) What got broken (significant disruption) A) Cross-app tracking collapsed Before ATT: • App A knows you installed App B • Both apps can share the same advertising ID • Ad networks stitch behaviour to...

How Destroying Wealth Can Help Create Wealth At first glance, the idea sounds absurd. How can destroying wealth possibly create more of it?  Wealth is usually associated with accumulation: more money, more assets, more production, more growth. Yet throughout history, periods of destruction have often been followed by bursts of innovation, productivity, and economic expansion. This paradox sits at the centre of capitalism itself. Economies do not grow simply because they preserve everything that already exists. They grow because outdated systems, inefficient businesses, and obsolete technologies are replaced by better ones. In many cases, wealth creation depends on the destruction of older forms of wealth. Economist Joseph Schumpeter famously called this process “creative destruction”. The Meaning of Creative Destruction Creative destruction describes the constant replacement of old economic structures with new ones. New inventions make older products irrelevant. New companies displ...

Reality as Simulation: Could God Be a Supercomputer? For centuries humanity has attempted to answer the same profound questions: Why does the universe exist? What is consciousness? Is there a creator?  Ancient civilisations answered through mythology and religion, while modern science has sought explanations through mathematics, physics, and observation.  Yet in recent decades an unusual idea has emerged at the intersection of philosophy, computer science, and cosmology: the possibility that reality itself is a simulation. This theory, often called the “simulation hypothesis”, proposes that the universe we experience may not be the fundamental level of existence. Instead, reality could be an artificial construct generated by an unimaginably advanced intelligence.  In some interpretations, this intelligence resembles what previous generations would have called God.  However, rather than a supernatural being existing outside physical laws, this “God” could be understoo...