News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Migrating from Google Analytics by chrisseaton on Thursday January 03, 2019 @09:06AM (#18815144)
If you were a bookshop and your events log someone anonymous as buying a book on niche topics A, B and C, I reckon that could easily globally uniquely identify me as there aren't many people in the world interested in all three. Then you could also see me buying a book on embarrassing topic D and blackmail me with it. No personal identifying information, but it's not anonymous.
Re:Migrating from Google Analytics by mywittyname on Thursday January 03, 2019 @10:20AM (#18815694)
Finger-printing is not PII. And the people blackmailing you because you're interested in both finger painting and the orficial applications of pine cones would not be entirely sure it was you. If they had an email address, name, or IP address with a timestamp, then they could be quite certain it that it was you.
Re:Migrating from Google Analytics by chrisseaton on Thursday January 03, 2019 @11:34AM (#18816365)
> Finger-printing is not PII

I didn’t say it was. The original conversation wasn’t about PII it was about anonymising. Fingerprints defeat anonymisation.

I reckon in practice with for example an Amazon sales log with names removed and my public Twitter feed you could de-anonymise me with a high degree of certainty.