NN - EP#02 - Targeted Ads, Tangled Lives

Originally release in November 2019.

A single recliner ad jumped from a late‑night browse to a Facebook feed in minutes—and that one moment cracked open a bigger story about how our choices are tracked, merged, and sold. We follow that thread from living‑room shopping to the mechanics of cross‑device identity, data brokers, and real‑time ad auctions. No scare tactics, just clear language and firsthand moments that show why “they must be listening” feels true even when algorithms are doing most of the work.

We rewind to the early days of RSS, clunky banner ads, and the fight to bring Wi‑Fi to public spaces to explain how we landed here. The past reveals a pattern: tech outpaces institutions, and leaders often don’t speak the language needed to set guardrails. That gap fuels modern privacy risks and shapes public debates on encryption, law enforcement access, and the role private companies play in gathering more behavioral data than any government office ever could. You’ll hear how gaming sessions can silently drive ad shifts, why Cambridge Analytica still matters, and how probability—not microphones—can make platforms feel psychic.

We keep it practical and human. You’ll get doable steps to reduce tracking—reset IDs, limit ACR on TVs, separate browsers for shopping, rein in app permissions—without turning your life upside down. And we share a moment of choosing family over platforms, because attention is the scarcest resource we have. If you’ve ever wondered why the internet seems to know what you want before you do, this conversation connects the dots and hands you the tools to push back.

Enjoyed the show? Follow, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more privacy‑curious listeners find us. Got a story about an ad that followed you a little too closely? Tell us—we might feature it next time.

Transcript

A Call For Compassion And Justice

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a difficult day. It is a difficult time for the United States. Well to ask what kind of a nation we are. What direction we want to move in. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness. But it love and wisdom and compassion toward one another. And a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We had difficult times in the past. It is not the end of violence. It is not the end of lawlessness. It is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together. Want to improve the quality of our life. And want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Well, actually, I have all the time in the world, but I'm gonna start by chatting with my son Ryan about the great hack documentary and consumerism. After that, I'm gonna be joined by my nephew, Peter Serafine, author of the book Progress? Really? And host of the podcast Liberty Lighthouse. A little bit later on, I'll get a chance to hear Josh Brunty's opinion on the encryption backdoor debate of 2019. Josh is a highly respected professor of digital forensics at Marshall University's highly regarded forensic science graduate program. That's not all, folks. I can't have a show without him. Just won't do it. So if you like nonsense and laughter, Music Man Mark and I will close out the show with some of that. Buckle up. Let me try and turn the volume on your mic up. Hello?

SPEAKER_05 3:03

Okay, see, that's a little better. Now I can understand what humans are talking about.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Oh, there we go. There we go. See, it's just it's just operator error. It wasn't even you. See?

The Chair That Followed Us Online

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I told you I was amazing at this. It's the first time I've mentioned it. If anyone was listening.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Alright, so here's the thing. I wanted to talk to you about this. We started, I was just telling Ryan about something that happened to Stacy and I last night as we were looking for some furniture for uh one of the rooms in our house as we're rearranging for uh family visit and stuff, and uh had been wanting, she'd been wanting to rearrange this. It's a long story. Anyway, uh we were shopping for furniture last night, Stacy and I, and she was on her Android tablet in the bedroom to start with, watching TV and on Wayfair on the tablet I had just uh gotten her a while back, which she rarely uses. I mean, rarely has ever even turned it on. But in any case, I am she's on Wayfair on her tablet signed into her Google account. I am on Amazon on my tablet, and we're chatting, right? So I go outside to have some cigar in the garage, and I'm looking at the you know furniture chairs that we're looking at and stuff, and I'm on Amazon looking, she's on Wayfair. So I find something and I come up, I'm like, oh, you gotta check this out. This is so cool, this is so awesome, right? And she's like, Yeah, yeah. So she takes a look at it and she goes, but check this out, and shows me a chair on Wayfair that we had been looking at leather, right? All these leather options. And she shows me this cloth-covered recliner that is really, you know, awesome. But I'm like, I really like the leather, man. I love the whole jazz club, you know, burgundy leather, comfy, sink into it thing. And and she's like, Yeah, I don't know. I like cloth much better. And I and I'm like, well, you know, if that's what we're gonna go with, I don't care. I'm gonna be comfortable one way or another, right? So I go back out to the garage to continue my cigar. I open Facebook real quick, and I no sooner get like half an inch down my feed, you know, moving my finger like half an inch at the screen, and there's a Wayfair ad. Not for a chair, not for anything related to furniture, bedding, covers, or you know, not for just something random like that. Okay, it was an ad for the exact same cloth-covered chair that she had just showed me on Way Fair up in the bedroom, right? Now, we are not connected via Google in any way. She has a Google account. I have a Google account, right? We don't have any information on there regarding each other. Facebook, we are connected. We are connected on, although she doesn't use it, but we are connected on there. And she's on Twitter, but she doesn't use that either. She created an account and it was like, you know, she's like, ah, this is pointless. So wrap your mind around this. Now that was last night, and I I told you this what just a little while ago, earlier this morning when we were out in the garage smoking and joking. I was having another cigar, surprise, surprise. And anyways, I'm telling you this story, right? After I got done talking to you, guess what I saw Facebook when I came up here and got on my computer to do some work. I was starting to work. Yeah, I open up Facebook to answer a message because I don't do Facebook Messenger on mobiles. Anyways, I open up Facebook to answer a message, and guess what's there?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I don't want to assume a chair.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

The exact damn same chair live Facebook, you know. So it that and they wonder why. They that everybody's like, you know, they gotta be listening. They're listening to me, right? It's just by design massive collection of information, and so efficient that by the time I got from my bedroom to my garage, back to my cigar, it was already on my Facebook page.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

It is crazy how fast it happens.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

I I don't understand. I mean, I mean, I do understand. I know all about I mean, I the whole consumerism part of it. What I was trying to try telling Ryan a little while ago was that you know, back in the late 90s, I started dabbling with web development stuff. And at the time, you know, RSS was new, and and so I had started a couple little sites just for myself to aggregate technology news and stuff like that. And so I said, well, hey, I bet other people would like this. So I, you know, started uh telling people about it and and had all these RSS feed categories and the so on and so forth. Wasn't I didn't even blog on it or anything. But I figured, you know, okay, I'll try the ad thing, Google Ads, you know, whatever. And I and I tried that ad model for about a half a second, and I'm like, this blows. This is the dumbest consumerism thing in the world. It's annoying. It is, it's like, you know, so much, they're gaining s access to so much information, of course. And then I get into digital forensics, you know, like shortly thereafter, and uh it just freaking mind-boggling, you know. To be around when the technology before the technology existed, you don't under I don't, you know, you don't have that perspective. I you appreciate the history, but I mean I was born with technology in my hands. Yeah, I mean, so it's totally different. But like for me, just 20 years ago, 21 years ago, you know, you That's my whole life. It's your whole life, 21 years ago. I mean, just 21 years ago, not everybody had a cell phone in you know, in the late 90s. And I was a jerk because I did, you know, that's literally the case. I shit, you're not that's the case. People would see me with one, what a friggin' prick. Look at that asshole.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

They're walking around with their bricks in their pockets, got a whole briefcase ready. They're like, hold on, this guy's got a real mobile device. He can use one hand to hold the case and put it on his belt. Doesn't make any sense. These people were walking around like looking at red bricks on buildings and going, yeah, that's a great phone design. I'm gonna use that every day. And I'm gonna carry it everywhere I go.

How Ad Tech Tracks At Lightning Speed

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Hey, everything has to start. Oh, see, that's the problem with the mic vibe. We're gonna we're gonna clip a lot, but you guys will get over it. Um everything's gotta start somewhere. And so, you know, the brick phone was absolutely a technology breakthrough. It was absolutely if you were alive during that time, absolutely a technology breakthrough. Thank goodness I wasn't. Just as much as Ethernet, just as much as IP networking, you know, just I mean, it was just crazy. But it's it was only that, you know, 20 years ago where people were like completely the other way with mobile phones, let alone the internet, right? Now it's so pervasive in everything we do, and they don't even think about it. They don't even think about holy crap, everything the advertisers know more about ooh, that was cool. What was that? Oh Pluto TV. Oh, hey, uh Best Buy. Thanks, Best Buy. I appreciate that. Let me just clear these notifications, so you know, just trying to do a radio show, assholes. See, consumerism. I don't buy, I don't anyway. What what up what was I saying? I don't even remember. Oh, technology, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:22

Computers and everything.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah, just that the the entire thing is by design, and I've gotten that, you know, from the get-go. You know, I I get that from the get-go. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it just depends on who's looking at it. I've been ahead of that technology curve, like throughout, you know, various my whole career. Like in the military, right, I was in when we were going through the analog to digital transition. So I learned I was taught analog stuff and taught the digital stuff, right? That the next generation is going to be, right? And so started with X.2.5, you know, networking and stuff like this that nobody, you know, token ring and doing and and nobody gives a crap or has any clue what any of that stuff is, right? So, and I'm not offended in the least. You should, you know. But but it is helpful to understand history to understand how we got here.

SPEAKER_05 12:13

And and well, it's just twenty years ago, technology was crazy different. People didn't even understand computers. I mean, they thought the world was gonna end because the year turned to 2000. Your computer is going to be fine, it can process the jump from 1,900.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Well, no, there wasn't there was a literal issue there though, that literally I spent over 18 months, you know, two years working on committees with, you know, uh community leaders and technology leaders from both, you know, local to state to regional governments because it hit them that, oh crap, everything runs on this stuff. Now, now remember, at the same time, at the very same time, we're tr starting the beginnings of a digital evidence lab in upstate New York. And nobody nobody's got a you know a formal digital evidence lab in upstate New York. There are certainly analysts that have been doing the work in various uh agencies and stuff across the state, but but really no formal regional you know resources at all. You know, the uh you know FBI regional labs didn't exist, none of that stuff. In fact, they came to us, but anyways, we're going around trying to educate, you know, myself, uh Jim Thompson, Carl Fennessey, all these we're going around, uh Rob Chelis, uh Lyle Marsh, I mean, I'm just IT and law enforcement, we're going around trying to educate the community that, hey, this is an issue we've got to take into consideration as a community, not just as an IT representative or a law enforcement representative, right? But with everything running on it, yeah. Yeah, but they didn't get it. They don't, they did not understand, right? They just weren't there. Yeah, right. Their politicians and leaders and their expertise is in other areas, right? Same thing's happening now, like with this encryption debate, but I don't want to get sidetracked. But my point is that I understand why they didn't get it. So like I I started studying and reading things like Teach an Elephant to Dance, and you know, how do you change corporate, you know, mindset and structure and get them to understand the importance of technology to infrastructure and economic development and you know, all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

It's hard because for them someone else will deal with it.

Tech History And Culture Shock

SPEAKER_02 14:41

It's also hard because I realized early on that a lot of the them thought it I it was about me. You know? A lot of them thought I was trying to make a name for myself. I was it was, you know, whoa, what's this guy? You know, who's this guy to tell me? Who's this guy to bring this obvious fact to our attention and point it out? That's that's you know this helped. But but you know, I literally had, you know, I've had I had an uh executive I with Wi-Fi, right? I wanted Binghamton Airport did not have Wi-Fi, right? Yeah, and we had no cell service, horrible cell service at the time at the airport, right? Of course, no Wi-Fi downtown, none of you know, it's all pre uh the that stuff. So as it's coming along, I'm like, oh man, we gotta put Wi-Fi at the airport, and you know, da da da and we should, you know, look into a community project to work with the public and put Wi-Fi downtown. Do you know how long and hard I fought that in committees? And do you know what it ended up being? I uh an executive explained to me, deputy executive says, Larry, listen. I I you know, I see what you're uh what you're doing here, but it we are not some rich Virginia community. Because I had showed him an article about this Virginia town that you know had put in a Wi-Fi. We are not some you know rich Virginia community. And I I said, I know. Do you want to be? But I don't fault that person or any of them that it was partially in my message and how I was presenting it, right? Of course, of course. And and so their their perception was, oh, what an arrogant prick this guy is, you know. And I get that. And and even though I'm not, I I uh I mean, well, yeah, I guess everyone can be. But it's everywhere on all the time, is my point. And no, nobody has the time. Like just like with law enforcement, nobody at Google or Amazon is sitting listening to you. Yeah. That's not happening.

SPEAKER_05 17:03

Well, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Well, yeah. I guess I should. Yeah, we should always you know, generalizations. I hate generalizations, so yeah. But you get my point. It's just like the argument that, oh, law and law enforcement, because they have this data, they're gonna be listening, or you know, if they, you know, just on it. I'm again speaking generally, but you know, uh listen, law enforcement does not have that time. They do not have time to be doing shit that you know they're gonna buy everybody. Have you not looked outside lately?

SPEAKER_05 17:36

You can see all the vacuum cleaner vanies with the CIA and FBI just waiting. I mean, they do read our dish on top, swirling around. They don't have, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Uh trust me, on the flip side, we have the technologies. Obviously, private industry knows more about you than the government does. I can promise you that. And it took it took private industry and the government as well, I'm sure, less than two minutes to realize my wife and I were looking at recliners and uh show me the exact same one she was looking at twice.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Uh you need this one though. Exactly. You gotta have this one. You didn't get it five minutes ago, but you were looking, so if you see it again, you're getting it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

And you know, that$200 one you're looking at's okay, but do you see this$3,000 massage chair?

SPEAKER_05 18:36

I don't have$3,000, but nine easy payments and going for it.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

That's right. So uh no, don't no, you don't need to send us money today, just the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_05 18:50

That's fine. I won't be there for that. I can just future me'll deal with those problems. But it just baffles me as a chair.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah, it just baffles me, you know. It's so much data happening so fast, and it is insane, you know. So you told me about a story with you and your friends and and about a meme. T what what was that one? What platform was that on?

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Well uh for the meme one, I was just using iFunny back in like eighth grade or whatever. And me and my friends are talking about making a meme for and the next morning we were like, okay, let's make this meme about Monopoly. Oh yeah, Monopoly's been ruining friendships since 1994, you know. Like don't know when Monopoly was made. We were just like, whatever, this is the year. And so like we wake up and we're like about to make it and we check IFunny and it's already there, it's like featured number one of the day. We're like, how did this already happen? Like, it was insane. But that's not even the worst. The worst is I'll be I was playing PS4 one day, I had Skyrim loaded, I'm playing that game, I'm chilling, having a good time. Probably like tenth grade a few years ago. And I'm playing and I'm on YouTube, I'm My phone, I'm always like sitting there with videos up, and I keep it up all the time. And through my ads, all I see is Skyrim ads, so I'm like, what the what is going on? Like, it was completely different two days ago, so I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, this game is irrelevant. There's no way they're having ads for this game still. So I switched off to a different game. I start playing Final Fantasy, and I can go back to YouTube because keep it open. I just refresh the page and boom, Final Fantasy ads everywhere instantly. Like, took me ten seconds to look over my phone, refresh it, check the new ads, and they're instantly the game I was playing now. So I'm like, okay, that's weird. So I switch off to a new game. Don't even remember what that game was, but I'm playing it for a while, and I'm checking my phone. The ads obviously switch to that game too, so I'm like, okay. That's a little weird, but whatever. And then as me and my friends are sitting there, we're talking about playing a different game, Final Fantasy again. We're talking about it for a while. And we're still playing the other game, and all we all check our phones, and we all have ads for Final Fantasy. We're just talking about. We're sitting there talking about this game. They had the freaking vacuum van outside my house with the damn radar.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Did you have you I haven't watched it because I've I've intentionally avoided it, but I'm I started it this morning because I want to watch it so bad, but I haven't watched the Great Hack on Netflix. Did you watch that? About the Cambridge Analytica? No, I have not. Oh my gosh, it's really good. It's really, really good, and I've known that since it came out, but I didn't want to see it because I didn't want I guess I didn't want someone else's perspective on the topic before I got a chance to share mine.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

You want to get your own out there, and then you can find out what other people have to say. That's right.

unknown 21:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 21:44

It's better to have like your opinion out first.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Well, that's what I you know what I said on Facebook earlier is what I learned the hard way. Through in fact, through that exact example I was talking about, that same uh deputy executive I was talking about earlier, what I learned, what that gentleman taught me, I mean, and this is a big lesson for me, taught me was, you know, number one, you don't go through problems. You go around them, right? You avoid the toxicity, you go around the problem. Now that doesn't mean circumvent, you know, chain of command and stuff, but but understand that you must avoid the toxicity if there is an available way to do that. Number two, if there's not, use their rules against them. They're likely too dumb to understand them. You know, you know, you know, so that's how you deal with that. And so, but it it it just shoot, what I forgot where I was going, right? What happened?

SPEAKER_05 22:44

It was going pretty good there. You lost everything.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I looked over at you and I was just so damn proud to have you sitting here. So cool uh to have you sitting here with me. It really is an honor, and I appreciate it, and I think we got more than enough for the show, and this is gonna be on the in the second episode because in our third episode we're changing topics on the what's your opinion segment, and it's going to be this smart homes, Google Home, Amazon, Echo, you know, Alexa, all of that stuff, and some some opinions from some of my peers and friends and family, hopefully, as well. So I hope people will check that out. And Ryan, anything you want to say before we bust out?

SPEAKER_05 23:36

Yeah, I have my opinion. Don't date Alexa. It's a robot.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Like Bill Barr.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Bill Burr.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Not Bill Barr, that guy. No, Bill Burr said, right? Robots is right. All right, man. Thanks so much, Alexa man.

Wi‑Fi, Policy, And Getting Buy‑In

SPEAKER_04 24:23

Y'all don't know it's real or not. Y'all don't even understand what I be saying half the time. Y'all be thinking when I'm rap, I'm cap a lot. I'm on my line. I gotta spit it all the time. But that's just not what's on my mind. I gotta tell the truth to these people. I'll be root, gotta scream it to the ones that always roll up in a coup. Gotta tell you what it's like to be the one and live like this. Live is life. Don't care, y'all don't want to be. I'm just tryna find out how I really fit in. I'm a motherfuckin' misfit.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Yeah, you know you cannot make me different. Wanna change my tune, wanna get a different life, wanna live soon, wanna get a fun flight, live like my soon.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Y'all don't know what's real or not. Y'all don't even understand what I be saying half the time. Y'all be thinking when I rap, I'm cap a lot. I'm on my line. I gotta spit it all the time. But that's just not what's on my mind. I gotta tell the truth to these people out the roof. Gotta scream it to the ones that always roll up in a coup. Gotta tell you what it's like to be the one and live like this. Life is life. Golden kid, golden games, go game. Y'all don't know it's real or not. Y'all don't even understand what I be saying half the time. Y'all be thinking when I'm rap, I'm camp a lot. I'm on my line. I gotta spit it all the time. But that's just not what's on my mind. I gotta tell the truth to these people out the roof. Gotta scream it to the ones that always roll up in a coup. Gotta tell you what it's like to be the one and live like this lavish life. Golden kid, golden one, chosen.

Law Enforcement, Data, And Limits

SPEAKER_02 27:18

That, my friends, was my son Ryan and I chatting about the documentary The Great Hack and Cambridge Analytica and all of the privacy and security issues that come along with that. That is going to be the topic for our next episode, episode three and episode four. We'll be talking about that. Those familiar with the Cambridge Analytica thing remember back in 2014 when that kicked off. Well, about uh a year prior, over a year prior, I had filed a pending patent application for a very similar-like thing for law enforcement use. That was a very hectic year in technology, and throughout that I had talked to many people via NDA, and we had really, really cool ideas. I'm surprised the government didn't grab it. I tried to draw that up from the 50,000 foot level, you know, but I thought the government would have grabbed it and pigeonholed it at least or something, but apparently it w it wasn't, you know, even of the slightest bit of interest the way I presented it anyway. So it with all that said, my point here is that, you know, this isn't new stuff. This is stuff that's been around for a while, and every one of us in law enforcement, in IT and technology that have been doing it for a career, you know, that have an understanding of the capabilities of different pieces and components of all of this and how we can leverage them and put them together to accomplish certain tasks. That those people, those are the ones that uh facilitate real change in an organization in a world. And, you know, there was a time in my career where it scared me, you know, where things were going. Most of my career, you know, I was excited about technology. But but but yeah, there were a few times where I was scared, and now, you know, a little bit, and now I'm not as much, you know, uh, even though it's moving faster than ever and crazier and ever. So long story short, the documentary The Great Hack on Netflix, the topic of our next two episodes. So I want you to, if you haven't seen that, you know, and you're just uh looking for something to watch in the middle of the night, check that out and uh call in with your comments on that at 541-314-4271. That's five four one three one four four two seven one. Hey, all right, guys. So here's the deal. I lied. We're not gonna have uh my nephew Peter in this episode, we're not gonna get Josh Brunny in this episode, nor are we gonna get a chance to chat with a music man, Mark. Unfortunately, I've got some stuff going on in my life, and I gotta deal with that. So I am going out to see my mom, spend some time with her, and bring her back out here for a while. I hope to, I'm really, really sorry. I had gotten this far in the episode and and realized it just wasn't gonna get done. Also, by the way, deleted my Twitter account today and my Facebook page. I don't need that nonsense anymore in my life, and I am tired of dealing with it. I'm not going to repeat myself. I am tired of having to repeat myself when it's absolutely unnecessary. I completely appreciate repetition and the purposes of education. Uh, I understand the necessity of repetition, so please, you know, feel free to uh react however the hell you want. I really don't give a shit. I do apologize greatly to uh Josh and Peter and of course uh Mark, screw you, buddy. We'll be in every episode together. So you'll get over it. I'm going to see my mom, and in the meantime, you'll find me online as you always have. I have a published phone number, a published cell phone, I am on the internet at the same location I have been for decades, and I live at the same address I have for quite some time, so it's not difficult to find me if you do give a shit and want to. I, uh, on on the other hand, really don't give a shit if you do or don't. I have my hands full, quite frankly, dealing with my life and the people that I love and the ones that do care about me. That's what I'm gonna focus on right now, and that's what this show is about. And so that's why I feel bad about pushing Josh and Peter and Mark and telling you I was gonna do one thing and doing something else, but guess what? I'm over it already. I'm over it already because my mom and my family mean more to me than you do. And that's facts, folks. You're gonna have to learn to deal with it. Copyright 2019, there's a contents with Larry Cocktail. All rights reserved. Well, except that I don't really mind if you share this, so maybe feel free to do that. You know, share and share alike, that sort of thing. Speaking of copyrights, though, special thanks to Joe Daniels, copyright owner, co-writer, and original drummer from LocalH, for permission to use Bound for the Floor by LocalH as our show's theme song. Check out our Patreon community at patreon.com forward slash nerds and nonsense for more information on getting involved or supporting the show. If you're listening via nerdsandnonsense.com, simply click on the Support the Show link to learn more. Be great and do great things, my friends.