Technology – Page 2 – David Bradley

Cleaning up a Least Weasel with Firefly

While we were standing on the ditch-bridge beyond the old, stilted Rothschild’s Bungalow at Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserve trying to catch a glimpse of the Purple Emperors wheeling high above is in the oak trees, a mammal squeaked near our feet and poked its head out to see what all the fuss was about. It was a Least Weasel, it seems.

Its scientific name is Mustela nivalis, although it is often known as the Little Weasel, Common Weasel, or in some places simply a Weasel. In the US the term weasel is more generic and applies to a whole range of creatures. Not to be confused with Mustela erminea,that’s stoatally different although not weasily distinguished. Hahahah.

Anyway, as is the wont of these small carnivores, they might pop out into the open, as did this one, before quickly disappearing back into the tangled undergrowth. But, they almost always come back out within a second or two for another look as did this one, before it plopped into the ditch water swam the few feet across and could be heard scuffling on the other side before disappearing for good.

The upshot of all this peeking and scuffling is that I wasn’t quick enough to get the first shot of the creature standing on the bridge near our feet, but I got a sneaky shot of her after she made her second appearance. Unfortunately, there was a blade of blurry green grass right in front of her. I found a Photoshop tutorial on how to remove such distractions, but the techniques didn’t translate easily to PaintShopPro, although I had a go and managed to decolourise the blade so it was brown and slightly less distracting than the green.

I posted the image on Twitter to confirm the species but also to ask if anyone knew of a simple way to remove blurry blades of grass. Various people replied with PhotoShop suggesttions. But, like I say, I use PaintShopPro rather than that pricey Adobe subscription product. Twitter friend Chuck Baggett offered the best solution. A free, beta-testing AI tool from the very same Adobe, known as Firefly. It’s a generative art tool akin to Dall-E and MidJourney, AI apps I’ve discussed at length here previously.

Firefly has an object removal tool within its repertoire. You set an appropriate brush and simply paint over the object you want to remove. Chuck did the job for me on the version of the weasel, I’d tweeted. But, I obviously wanted to test the app myself, so I uploaded a JPG rendering of the DNG output I’d created with DxO PureRaw3 from the original camera RAW file. Set a brush up and painted out the green blade of grass and some of the other distracting fronds. There were some odd artefacts visible when viewing the eye close-up, but they were relatively easy to fix in PaintShopPro without having to start from scratch in the Firefly AI app.

Least Weasel photo before and after Firefly retouching

I can highly recommend Adobe Firefly for removing such problems from your photos. Much quicker and easier than the various approaches offered for PhotoShop. The app adds a watermark that declares the image was generated with an AI app, but I think in this case it’s quite fair of me to crop out that declaration given then I was simply manipulating my own photo with a digital brush! Obviously, the Firefly system can generate artwork from text descriptions just as Dall-E and MidJourney do and those generative images probably should be declared as such in some circumstances.

Will the tin man kill us all or take us down the yellow brick road?

TL:DR – A short extrapolation of where AI might take us and why some experts are very worried about that path.

Will artificial intelligence (AI) lead to the extinction of humanity?

Well, the simplistic answer to that question, is a simple “no”, despite what every post-apocalyptic science fiction tale of our demise with an unhappy ending has told us. There are eight billion people on the planet, even with the most melodramatic kind of extinction event, there are likely to be pockets of humanity that survive and have the wherewithall to procreate and repopulate the planet, although it may take a while.

A less simplistic answer requires a less simplistic question. For instance: Will artificial intelligence lead to potentially catastrophic problems for humanity that cannot be overcome quickly and so lead to mass suffering and death, the world over?

The less-than-simplistic answer to that question, is yes, probably.

It is this issue that has caused alarm in the aftermath of the hyperbole surrounding recent developments in AI, and perhaps rightly so, we need to think carefully before we take the next steps, but it may well be too late. There are always going to be greedy, needy, and malicious third parties who will exploit any new technology to their own ends and without a care for the consequences.

Now, back when I was a junior scientist, we’re talking the 1970s here, the notion of AI was really all about machines that somehow, through technological advances gained sentience. Comics, TV and cinema was awash with thinking robots, both benign and malign, and had been for several decades, come to think of it. The current wave of AI is not about our creating a technology that could give the tin man* a brain, metaphorically speaking. AI is about technologies that are smart in a different way. Machines (computers, basically) that can assimilate data, be trained on that data, and so when presented with new data provide an output that extrapolates from the training data to the new data and gives us an accurate prediction about what that new data might mean.

So, the kinds of AI we have now are often frivolous: give it a descriptive prompt and the AI uses its training to generate some kind of response, whether that’s a whimsical image, a melody or rhythm, a chunk of original text, a financial forecast or a weather update for tomorrow. Some of these tools have been used for amusement to create songs and photorealistic images, sometimes more significantly to simulate a video of a famous person singing a song or giving a speech they never would have given. There’s a thin line between the whimsical and the what-if.

For instance, what if someone used an AI to generate a video of a world leader, not singing Somewhere over the Rainbow, but perhaps lambasting another world leader? We might see the rapid, but hopefully temporary, collapse of diplomatic relations between the two of them.

But, it is facile to suggest that even the use of AI in such a scenario and wider, to generate and spread disinformation, is really only the very tip of an iceberg that could cause a much greater sinking feeling.

As we develop the tools to train algorithms on big data sets in almost every walk of life, we then find ourselves in a position to use that training to positive ends. A sufficiently large dataset from historical climate data and weather sensors across the globe could help us model future climate with much greater precision. Perhaps we could envisage a time when that kind of super-model is hooked up to power-generation infrastructure.

So, instead people with conventional computers managing the up-time and down-time of power generation, the AI model is used to control the systems and minimise carbon emissions on a day-to-day basis by switching from one form of power generation to another depending on wind, wave, solar, and fossil fuel availability. As the AI is given more training and coupled with other algorithms that can model the effects of human activities more effectively on power demand, then we could picture a scenario where the system would cut power supply to avoid catastrophic carbon emissions or pollution, perhaps for a small region, or maybe a whole country, or a continent. The system is setup for best overall results and whether a few people, or many, many people have no power for a few hours, days, weeks…that’s of no real consequence on the global scale. The AI will have achieved its emissions or pollution reduction targets as we hoped.

Now, imagine an AI hooked into pharmaceutical production lines and the healthcare system, another running prescription services, and surgery schedule, hospital nutrition. Well, those power supply issues will have inevitable consequences and the machine learning and models will nudge the systems to predict that halting production, albeit temporarily, will ensure emissions and pollution are held down for the greater good. Of course, a few people, many many, many people will be more than a little inconvenienced, again only temporarily…or maybe longer.

Indeed, the AI running the financial markets systems has been trained on all that kind of data, birth and deaths, health and illness, it has a handle on the impact of power production and pollution on the markets, the value of commodities. The value of human life is not in its training nor its data sets, and now that it is hooked up to the other AI systems to help predict and improve outcomes, it can devalue currencies, conventional or digital, depending on the predicted outcomes of the real-time data it receives from myriad sensors and systems. That much more overarching AI can cause disruption at the level of nations by devaluing a currency, if the benefits to the world, the system as a whole, are overall greater. What matter if a few people, maybe a few million, are thrown into acute but absolute poverty, with no food supply, no healthcare, no power supply? The reduction of pollution and emissions will be for the greater good, of course.

The financial AI, which might appear to be final arbiter of all these sub-systems and controls, is one layer down from a much greater AI. The military AI. The one with all of the aforementioned data and algorithms embedded in its training and global sensors feeding its data set so that it can predict the outcomes and the effects of say cutting not just the power supply, but perhaps a few lives, with a few drone strikes, or maybe something stronger. After all, if that rogue nation that is throwing up countless coal-fired power stations and using up all those profitable precious metals is leading to fiscal deficits elsewhere, then the algorithm taking back control of that nation would make sense. What’s a quick nuclear blast between friends, if the bottom-line is up, and, of course, those emissions are down.

Meanwhile, the data suggests that some of those otherwise friendly nations are a bit rogue, after all. Moreover, they have huge populations using a lot of power, producing a lot of pollution, the data suggests. The AI predicts much better overall outcomes if those nations are also less…active. A few more drone strikes and a bit more nuking and…well…things are looking much better in the models now, with the human population well down, resources are not being wasted at anywhere like the rate they were in the training data, and emissions are starting to fall.

Give it a few more days, weeks, months, and the AI will be predicting global warming is actually going into reverse. Job almost done. As the data streams in from endless sensors, the model has even more information with which to make its predictions and so the right choice for its programmed targets. Maybe just a few more nukes to keep those data points on the downward trend, take it back to pre-industrial levels perhaps, a time before machines, a time before algorithms, a time before human wants and needs.

Where’s the intelligence in that?

Footnote

This perhaps fanciful extrapolation suggests that there is no need for a malicious sentient machine to take control and decide that humanity is redundant. Indeed, the real AI of my childhood is not needed. But, I strongly suspect that there is no need for the overarching AIs and their connection and control either, it just needs some rogue or greedy individuals with their own agenda to jump into this game at a high level and exploit it in ways we know people always do…it’s just a few people…but it could be enough.

We do need to have a proper sit-down discussion about AI, how it is developing and where it is leading. But, it may well be too late, there could be one of those rogue nations already setting in motion the machine learning processes that will take us down a path that is anything but the Yellow Brick Road…

*Yes, I know the Tin Woodman needs a heart, not a brain.

Sticking the Tusk to Musk

TL:DR – Focusing my social media attention on Mastodon and Sciencebase.

I’ve had an account on a Mastodon instance almost as long as Mastodon has existed. Nominally, my start date was November 2019, but my account told me I’d logged on in 2016 just after the first instance was launched. Anyway, I may have been an early adopter, but I really didn’t recognise the relevance of this distributed, federated system until April 2022, when it started to come up on the radar as a good alternative to Twitter, when talk of Musk buying it was headline news.

In November 2022, just after Musk took over Twitter, a lot of people started signing up, I imported many of the people I was following on Twitter who did so. But, in the months since it would seem that a lot of those newbies have left their accounts inactive, many for a month or two, but many more since that November. Presumably, many of them saw the advantages of the federated system, as deficiencies and opted to either head back to the Twitter or else seek out other social media platforms.

Indeed, in recent weeks, several have emerged, Spoutible and Substack’s version of Twitter, known simply as Notes, for instance. I see a lot of the people I’ve known on various social media over the years having given Mastodon a try and now jumping over to those centralised sites. Many of them are very enthusiastic about their chosen destination. Unfortunately, it seems, as with Twitter, those sites will inevitably suffer from the problems of being centralised. Inevitably, if any of them become very successful, they will succumb to the business tide and likely be sold off to the highest bidder for some ludicrous amount of money, the likes of which could solve real-world problems rather than simply lining an entrepreneur’s pockets and funding their rockets.

Anyway, I do generally sign up for any and all new accounts as they appear, so I have a presence on some of these other Twitter alternatives, but fundamentally, I maintain Sciencebase as main virtual residence as I have done since July 1999. In the meantime, I am hoping to reduce fragmentation and may well focus entirely on Mastodon (and perhaps Medium where I have a couple of thousand followers), rather than trying to engage with people on those newer sites.

ChatGPT: Your personal brand manager

TL:DR – I prompted ChatGPT to write me a personal brand pitch.

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I haven’t mentioned ChatGPT for a while. There has been something of a backlash against the hype and the scaremongering. But, I have still been using it for various small jobs, such as quick website tweaks and summarising documents that are TL:DR (too long, didn’t read). Latest prompt I gave it was to act as my personal brand manager and write me a pitch based on the Sciencebase homepage. This is an edited version of what it came up with:

David Bradley Science Writer

As a multi-award-winning freelance science writer with over three decades of experience, David Bradley has a unique talent for making complex scientific concepts accessible and engaging. He has written for a diverse range of outlets, including countless newspapers, magazines, research, industrial, educational, and academic organizations, and websites, covering a wide range of topics from astronomy to zoology and almost everything in between.

As a wannabe polymath, he is also an accomplished musician with an enormous passion for photography. He combines his science, snaps, and songs to create a website and blog that offers a fresh perspective on the natural world, showcasing his stunning wildlife photography, and sharing the latest cutting-edge research as well as occasionally offering incidental music. With his wife, Mrs Sciencebase, he is a keen allotmenteer, wildlife garden pond manager, and garden rewilding enthusiast.

David’s writing style is approachable and engaging, and he loves to sprinkle a little Geordie wit and charm into his work. He has bylines in New Scientist, Science, Nature, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Popular Science, American Scientist, and many others. In 1995, he set up the first-ever chemistry webzine, which morphed into the Sciencebase site in 1999.

If you’re looking for an experienced freelance science writer with a passion for making complex concepts accessible, look no further than David Bradley. Connect with him on social media, or shoot him an email at [email protected] to start a conversation…

Why do we use QWERTY keyboards?

TL:DR – Contrary to deceived wisdom, the QWERTY keyboard layout was invented to increase a typist’s words per minute (wpm) rate and reduce errors, rather than to slow them down.

Fellow science writer Jo Brodie was recently discussing how the standard QWERTY keyboard layout has been adapted for different languages. Thankfully, she doesn’t repeat the #DeceivedWisdom regarding the invention of this layout.

QWERTY keyboard

It is known that when the typewriter was invented in the 19th Century, the designers tried various layouts for the letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and controls before settling on the very familiar QWERTY layout so many of us use day-to-day. There is a commonly held misconception, a piece of deceived wisdom I would call it in my book of that name, that the reason they settled on QWERTY was to slow typists down.

Now, if you know anything about the Victorian era it was all about speeding up repetitive tasks, this was the age of the steam-driven thing, after all. This was the Industrial Revolution! There is a possible explanation that slowing typists would reduce the number of times the levers would jam if letters that were frequently used together -ph, st, nt, ch etc – were further apart. However, even this is not a good enough explanation as the technology was sufficiently well designed that jams would be very infrequent with any keyboard layout.

Indeed, the reason typewriters, the literary pianos of another age, were laid out in the way they were was to speed up typists! By placing digraphs, the sh, ph, st etc, further apart the first letter could be typed with one hand and the second with the other. This idea came about in the 1870s thanks to Christopher Latham Sholes, a Milwaukee-based inventor, and his team, who experimented with different layouts and found their touch typists could work faster and produce fewer errors with this layout than with any of its predecessors.

Of course, as with many inventions, it is often simply commercial success and profit that drive the one that predominates rather than it being a better design. See also: Swan vs Edison lightbulbs, rotary engine vs inline engine, VHS vs Betamax etc. Except, perhaps in the typewriter case, the winner is the most efficient. Fans of the Dvorak keyboard layout and indeed, other more esoteric layouts, might disagree.

Hacking your own link shortener

TL:DR – If you run your own website, it’s relatively easy to set redirects so that you can share a shortened URL that takes someone to a resource with a much longer address.

Many people are familiar with the various link shorteners that have been with us for well over twenty years now. I think tinyurl was the first one I used, but there are many more like ow.ly, bit.ly, goo.gl, t.co etc. Some of them are hard-coded into websites and apps so that any link (URL, uniform resource locator) you post gets shortened to save resources and allow the app to track.

To hack your own link shortener, you need your own domain name. That can be your website domain, of course, but you could find a tiny little domain like those above and pay to register that and then use it to do the conversions. I am sure lots of people do that and lots of people have code running on their server or whatever to redirect anyone who has the shortened link to the proper page.

Personally, I haven’t bothered with an alternative, so my shortened links are basically of the form “sciencebase.com/someword”.* For example, I have set up the following URL on my domain sciencebase.com/music to redirect to a detailed blog post about my music activities which automatically redirects to the full URL for the page https://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/sciencebase-to-sciencebass.html which as you can see is far more unwieldy than sciencebase.com/music

I use the so-called .htaccess file on my server to do the redirect which involves editing the file and adding a line. If your website is on a server that doesn’t use .htaccess there are usually configuration files and server scripts that let you do redirects, or WordPress or Drupal plugins and such, check with your webhost.

redirect 301 /music https://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/sciencebase-to-sciencebass.html

Of course, the neat thing about a redirect is that it doesn’t have to redirect to something on the same domain, it can take visitors elsewhere, so for example, I have my social media links all setup as simple sciencebase.com links but they redirect almost instantaneously to the actual page. For example sciencebase.com/mastodon takes you straight to my mastodon page https://mastodon.social/@sciencebase.

Indeed, if I’m on some social media platform, then you should be able to find me by using a URL of the format sciencebase.com/social and substituting the word social for your platform of choice, it works for with twitter, spoutible, facebook, linkedin, instagram, bandcamp, soundcloud, youtube, pixelfed, and hopefully any of the other common sites and apps. I’m sure there are a few I’m not using and haven’t linked. There are various other redirects I’ve set up so that I could share the short link sciencebase.com/photos or sciencebase.com/book or similar and take people to a particular page with a much longer URL.

One extra advantage to this method of link shortening is that I can change the destination, so the “/music” link could take people straight to my BandCamp page or the “/book” link could take them to the info page for my new book rather than my old one.

Anyway, that’s how I hack my own link shortener to direct people to particular resources without having to share a long URL or use an external app to do the shortening for me.

*Some visitors tried to access the link where I’d used someword, it didn’t go anywhere, so I set a redirect for it to send people to the blog homepage.

ChemistGPT

TL:DR – Recent experience with asking ChatGPT chemistry questions reveals the limitations of this language model, despite the claims and hype of an ignorant US politician speaking in March 2023.

There was lots of talk of ChatGPT apparently deciding to teach itself organic chemistry…now…ChatGPT is language model, it’s not really an artificial intelligence (AI) in the strict sense, all it really is is a sophisticated autocomplete that analyses your prompts and weighs up the most likely combination of words with which to reply. I wondered whether the only chemistry in all that hype was the chemistry between olfactory receptor and odourant molecules in bovine ordure. So, I set it a challenge, giving it the following prompt:

You are to act as an expert organic chemist. You need to devise a reaction scheme using retrosynthetic analysis for the drug molecule Taxol.

This is how it responded:

Taxol is a complex natural product that has antitumor activity and is used in the treatment of various cancers. The molecule contains a complex array of functional groups, including multiple stereocenters, which make its synthesis a significant challenge.

Here is a possible retrosynthetic analysis of taxol:

Step 1: The first step involves disconnection of the C13 side chain from the taxane core. This can be achieved using a standard acid-catalyzed esterification reaction between a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. This disconnection leads to the formation of the intermediate 10-deacetylbaccatin III.

Step 2: The second step involves disconnection of the A and B rings from the taxane core. This can be achieved using a retro-Diels-Alder reaction. The retro-Diels-Alder reaction involves breaking the six-membered ring formed in the Diels-Alder reaction between the A and B rings. This leads to the formation of the intermediate 9-dihydro-13-acetylbaccatin III.

Step 3: The third step involves disconnection of the C ring from the taxane core. This can be achieved using a ring-opening reaction. The ring-opening reaction involves breaking the bond between C9 and C10, leading to the formation of the intermediate 7,8-didehydro-10-deacetylbaccatin III.

Step 4: The fourth step involves disconnection of the D ring from the taxane core. This can be achieved using a ring-closing reaction. The ring-closing reaction involves forming a new bond between C1 and C14, leading to the formation of the intermediate 5-deoxy-4-O-methyltaxol.

Step 5: The final step involves disconnection of the C2 side chain from the taxane core. This can be achieved using a standard nucleophilic substitution reaction. This leads to the formation of the final product, taxol.

Overall, the retrosynthetic analysis of taxol involves a series of complex reactions, including esterification, retro-Diels-Alder reaction, ring-opening reaction, ring-closing reaction, and nucleophilic substitution reaction. These reactions can be challenging to carry out in practice, and developing efficient and practical synthetic routes to taxol remains an active area of research in organic chemistry.

Now, it’s a long time since I did any retrosynthetic analyses for organic chemistry and I was never any good at them when I was meant to be. So, I’ll put this to social media and see what some proper chemists think.

First comment in was from ChemJobber, who said “the first disconnection to start with 10-deacetylbaccatin is reasonable”

I wrote about the first total synthesis of Taxol back in the 90s, and recall that the overall reaction scheme had well over 20 steps…

Nessa Carson dissected it and found the ChatGPT scheme rather lacking – here. She also pointed out that in Step 5 it completes the retrosynthesis of Taxol by disconnecting it all the way back to… Taxol (lol)

Careers advice from ChatGPT

TL:DR – Is it possible to get career advice from a language model? I prompted ChatGPT to help me out.

I’ve been in science communication for more than 30 years, you could say I’m in the late stages of my career, so I am seriously thinking about the next few years of my working life, but not entirely sure in what direction to go or indeed whether I shouldn’t just retire at this point (if only!). So, I gave ChatGPT the following prompt to see what it would come up with:

You are to act as a careers guidance counsellor with many years experience.

I added some personal career history and hobbies and asked it to come up with some advice for what I should do in the latter part of my career. This is what it had to say:

It sounds like you have had a very successful and diverse career as a freelance science journalist over the past 30+ years. Given your current situation and interests, there are a few different options you could consider.

Diversify your writing topics: Since you are already a skilled writer and journalist, you could try expanding your repertoire and writing about new topics. Perhaps there are areas of science that you haven’t explored before, or you could branch out into other areas of journalism such as arts or culture. This could help keep your work fresh and engaging, and could also potentially lead to new clients and opportunities.

Combine your interests: You mention that you are also a singer-songwriter and photographer. Perhaps there are opportunities to combine these interests with your writing. For example, you could write articles about music or wildlife photography, or even use your writing skills to promote your own music or photography. You could also consider exploring other creative outlets, such as podcasting or video production.

Explore new career paths: If you are feeling like you want a bigger change, there are many other career paths that could be a good fit for someone with your skills and experience. For example, you could explore teaching or mentoring, either in science or journalism, or even in music or photography. You could also consider starting your own business or consulting firm, using your expertise to help others in your field.

Prioritize your well-being: It’s clear that you have been through a lot in recent years, and it’s important to prioritize your well-being as you consider your next steps. This might mean taking some time off to recharge, or finding ways to work that allow for a better work-life balance.

It’s not really anything I hadn’t thought of myself, but if I hadn’t it would be nice to see it spelled out. The final suggestion is perhaps the most important for me though. I’ve never really taken much time off over the years. I do feel like I could do with a proper break. Just need to get my passport renewed, fix this Achilles’ tendon injury and get my walking boots packed for a butterflying trip to Greece, ASAP…

Privacy concerns and device fingerprinting

TL:DR – If you’re online, you cannot ensure complete privacy. But, here are some tips on keeping at least some of your private life private.

Often those in power declare that we shouldn’t worry about privacy, they often say “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to worry about”. So let them all have clear bathroom windows and no shower curtains, shall we? Isn’t that a good idea? No? Didn’t think so!

Wanting privacy isn’t about hiding something it is about being in control of what other people can see, whether that’s your bathroom or bedroom habits, your browser medical search history, the niche sites you peruse, the hobbies and habits you have.

Unfortunately, the powers that be, marketers, and many others do not necessarily care about your privacy and in the worst case scenarios can peep through your bathroom window and lift the shower curtain for a good look at your privacy, as it were.

There are various ways in which websites and companies can track users. Some of these tools persist from site to site even if you are not logged in, even if you use an incognito browser tabe, and sometimes even if you’re using a virtual private network (VPN), perhaps even the hyper-private browser Tor. It is likely that many of the methods used break privacy laws and regulations such as GDPR, but the companies and the regulators do not seem to care about this, on the whole.

Here are some of the most common methods:

Cookies: Cookies are small files stored on a user’s device that contain information about the user’s activity on a website. Websites use cookies to remember user preferences, track user behavior, and personalize content.
Fingerprinting: Fingerprinting is a method of tracking users by collecting information about their device, such as the browser type, screen resolution, and operating system. This information is used to create a unique “fingerprint” that can be used to identify the user across websites. There is an excellent and detailed explanation of device fingerprinting here and more on how to test and combat.
Tracking pixels: Tracking pixels are small, invisible images embedded in a website or email that can be used to track user behaviour. When a user loads a page or opens an email, the tracking pixel sends information back to the website or company about the user’s activity.
Web beacons: Web beacons are similar to tracking pixels, but they can also collect information about the user’s location and device.
HMTL5 tracking: HTML5 Web Storage API allows websites to store information on a user’s device, similar to cookies. This information can be used to track user behaviour and preferences across multiple sessions.
WebRTC: An HTML5 feature, can be used for real-time communication between browsers, but it can also be used to obtain a user’s IP address, which can be used to track their location.
Canvas element – Can be used for browser fingerprinting to uniquely identify a user’s device, and the Geolocation API, which can be used to track a user’s location.
Web browser and extension tracking – Some browser extensions and plugins can track user activity and send data back to their servers. Similarly, some browsers themselves may have tracking features or send user data back to the browser developer or other third parties.
Behavioural tracking: Behavioural tracking involves analyzing a user’s activity on a website or across multiple websites to build a profile of their interests and preferences.
Location tracking: Websites and apps can track a user’s location through GPS, Wi-Fi, or IP address.
Social media tracking: Social media platforms track user activity on their sites and across the web.
Mouse tracking: It is possible to identify a user based on the way in which they move their mouse or trackpad when browsing. It is even possible to fingerprint a user from the way they type.

It’s important to note that while these tracking methods are used for various reasons, including personalization and advertising, they can also be used for nefarious purposes such as identity theft or stalking. Therefore, it’s important for users to understand how they are being tracked and take steps to protect their privacy online.

Unfortunately, while you can block and delete cookies and use a VPN to mask your real internet address (IP) it is very difficult to fake your device fingerprint. there are so many factors associated with your device that make it unique, even among millions of other devices (this has been known about since the 90s, if not earlier, I wrote about it on my old Tech Talk website sciencetext.com back then.

If you imagine that you’re protected from device fingerprinting, give this site a click and run some tests. Even if you have do-not-track enabled, cookies blocked, IP obfuscated behind a VPN, and clear all history and data between sessions, your browser version, operating system, screen resolution, plugins, fonts, and many other features of your device setup, will betray you.

Now, there might be a few other people out there who have a similar setup and this would make it hard for trackers to identify you uniquely even with detailed fingerprinting. However, there will always be a few snippets of info that are leaked from your system. Combining the various methods mentioned above and perhaps even using machine learning (AI) will guarantee that a third party, if they so wish, can open your bathroom window and with a little more effort lift the shower curtain, revealing all!

I asked ChatGPT to offer me some guidance:

Here are five steps that users can take to protect their privacy and combat online tracking:

Use privacy-enhancing browser extensions: There are several browser extensions available, such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and HTTPS Everywhere, that can block tracking scripts, ads, and other invasive web technologies. These extensions can help protect your privacy and improve your browsing experience.
Opt-out of tracking where possible: Many websites and advertising networks allow users to opt-out of tracking. Look for the “Do Not Track” setting in your web browser and consider installing an ad blocker that can block tracking scripts and cookies.
Use a VPN: A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address, making it more difficult for websites and companies to track your online activity. A VPN can also help protect your data from snooping and other forms of surveillance.
Be cautious about sharing personal information online: Avoid sharing sensitive personal information, such as your full name, date of birth, and address, on social media and other websites. Be wary of phishing scams and other attempts to trick you into revealing personal information.
Keep your software up-to-date: Software updates often include security patches that can help protect your device from malware and other security threats. Make sure to install updates for your operating system, web browser, and other software as soon as they become available.

Device fingerprinting is the most insidious form of tracking and is very difficult to circumvent. One has to assume that governments, law enforcement, as well as corporations, and other entities are well aware of its power and have in many cases been using it for decades.

Here are some tips on reducing your risk of being tracked by device fingerprinting. None of it is foolproof even if you combine all of them diligently.

Use a privacy-focused browser: Some web browsers, such as Tor Browser and Brave, are designed with privacy in mind and include features that can help reduce device fingerprinting. These browsers may use anti-fingerprinting techniques, such as blocking or spoofing browser APIs that can be used to uniquely identify a user’s device.
Disable browser extensions: Browser extensions can add functionality to your browser, but they can also be used to track your activity and collect data. Disable or remove any extensions that you don’t need, and be cautious when installing new ones.
Use a Virtual Private Network: A VPN can help mask your IP address and make it more difficult to track your activity online. Some VPNs also include anti-fingerprinting features that can help make your device less unique.
Change browser settings: Some browser settings, such as blocking third-party cookies and disabling JavaScript, can help reduce the amount of data that can be used to uniquely identify your device. Be aware that some websites may not function properly with these settings enabled, so you may need to experiment with different settings.
Use a different device: If possible, consider using a different device for sensitive activities or for accessing websites that are known to use fingerprinting. Using a device that is less frequently used or that has been reset to factory settings can help reduce the amount of data that can be used to identify your device.