AI

they have algorithms for security cameras. tracks what you look at and how long, so they can do this. happens in every mall across the country, most stores as well.

wUt......rly?

Yeah casinos have had this for decades to spot cheaters too. This tech is so old its gone mainsteeam to advertise cheap junk

But how would the camera be able to identify the individuals actual identity to where they locate his personal computer and place the ad. Like woah that's creepy

This has happened to me as well--similar things.

About a month ago, I was walking by a restaurant..in a skyway, mind you.. and I said “have you been here? This place is great.” I didn’t even say the name. The next day there was an ad for it in my Facebook feed..

That's because of your location. Google persuades people to do this for their google guides bullshit.

So, Walmart was the first to use wifi and shelf location to target ads. All these people are talking here about the cameras constantly scanning, but I think it's geo-metadata that's really causing these coincidences.

They are using triangulation to see not only what stores you enter, but where you move about them. They cross reference that with store inventory. Hell, they might be introducing RFID into shit we're not even aware of, like shoe soles.

I travel a lot and this is likely the best answer.

I'll be testing this When I go to San Antonio next week.

It happened when I went to Seattle with all the coffee stuff and in Tampa with all the cigar shops. Wonder what I'll shop for in San Antonio..?

Plenty of shops here, can't say I've had an ad on my desktop before though.

The dude probably has a shitload of malware like most people do. Finding out what piece is delivering these ads would be key go uncovering the big picture.

Check out Coval Vapes in SA best shop in town by far IMO and iv had 0 vape adds thrown in my face after picking up juice if that makes any difference

Seconded, never been but have bought their juice online and it's fantastic.

Get ready for a lot of ky jelly ads because you're obviously not a steer.

How the fuck is this comment even warranted?

I'M ASKIN THE FUCKIN QUESTIONS HERE!

Except he's VISITING Texas, not from it, so you botched the joke, lamer.

Just ignore him. Obvious he's trying to stir shit up. Leave him be and he'll move on.

Margaritas & Mexican food. 😊 I was there a few weeks ago. I am still getting pop-up ads for San Antonio Riverwalk hotels, and Sea World.

This caught my attention... Any specific place you recommend?

This sounds like an innuendo.

Lived in San Antonio for a bit. Was a decent place

Welcome to 5G and the IOT.

No, welcome to having malware installed. The dude is freaking out that he got a well targeted ad...

That randomly pops up from the bottom right of Win 7!

He has malware obviously. Why is he not concerned anout the actual security breach hes obviously got?

Agreed. While I'm sure that camera technology exists, it isn't cheap, and I doubt your local vape shop has access to it. Most likely OPs phone connected to the stores Wi-Fi.

I've had this happen, but it was an ad for a product sold in the next store over in a strip mall. So it's not perfect.

I've had this happen, but it was an ad for a product sold in the next store over in a strip mall. So it's not perfect.

I've had ads pop up about stuff that I was thinking about, never googled, never spoke to anyone about, dont have FB, nothing at all. I'm starting to think google/FB/Twitter have thought reading tech no joke

Could be some kind of thought prediction algorithm. Like predictive text or Amazon's suggestions. People who searched for this are also thinking about this.... still spooky af.

Not just that but how effective could it be? Isn't your phone in your pocket or facing some random direction when you're shopping? It's not like I'm aiming my camera at everything I'm interested in.

I have a really hard time believing targeted advertisement knows the exact position of inventory inside some corner store vape shop. Anybody who works in a small retail environment will tell you that stuff gets shuffled around on an almost daily basis.

They know the shop inventory. The know the device owner's debit purchases.

How would they know the exact position of individual products inside of a small independent retail shop that moves their stock around on a day to day basis?

Deskpalm

Not to mention GPS/other location services aren't that accurate. At least not with any technology consumers have.

. The know the device owner's debit purchases.

This is what bugs me about the targeted ads. I'll look at shoes or something on Amazon, get targeted ads for a few days, finally buy a pair and the targeted ads still are recommending me shoes. The ones I just got too. Step your game up.

If you have a hard time believing it, then you've never heard of a planogram. Planogram data could be matched with wifi data - wifi data can be used to triangulate position within the store which would match up with the Planogram data. =D

Mom and Pop vape shops aren't drawing up planograms every day/week and uploading them to a global database so that Big Data can use them to push targeted ads on people.

hmmm.. yeah. pretty creepy then lol it's a conspiracy.

What happened to OP is probably that Windows knew he was interested in vaping and modding from his internet browsing habits and coincidentally threw him an ad for the mod he had been looking at in the store. It's not like he had never given his computer any information at all regarding his interest in those kinds of products.

You have nailed it.

Hell, they might be introducing RFID into shit we're not even aware of, like shoe soles.

Speaking of, I tend to get text alerts from amazon that my package was delivered. It could be in the mailbox all day, I wouldn’t get a text until I’m Actually checking the mailbox.

Anyone else experience this?

This. Can confirm, work in media strategy advertising. Use become technology etc to track foot traffic to retail and dealerships and what not

Stores like target and Walmart typically have a predetermined map of which items belong in precise locations within the store and in the shelves. If you place something (inventory) on a shelf it gets a location that is stored for all devices to find vim sure this information would be made available at a price.

Got all your points but what allows for the jump from phone to windows 7 desktop? The only honest thing I can think of is malware common to both machines.

And what mechanism within Windows 7 allows popup ads on the desktop? Last time I had that kind of behavior was Windows ME and some virus/malware crap going on...OP is either infected big time on both devices or Google has let the cat out of the bag on this one.

Its called malware and by the sound of it, very few people here have a clue about cybersecurity and opsec.

Yeah i hear that alot. "My Norton(or insert some other bullshit AV that does nothing or is a security vulnerability itself) says im fine! Never had a virus!" And their computer is actually full of malware when i check it.

Youre full of shit. Anyone savy enough to know AV software is ineffective (less than 1% of users) doesn't get infected.

I dont use conventional antivirus software 😂

Tell us mr cybersecurity expert, what are your best practices and tips for preventing malware and data breaches?

Tip 1: Never under any circumstances click anything that says "click here".
Tip 2: Never put anything in the cloud.
Tip 3: Do not trust the internets. Trust is for fools.
Tip 4: Dual Factor Authentication. Believe the hype. Be suspicious of anyone that says DFA is 'weak' or 'bad' or whatever.
Tip 5: Do not use credential managers. Post-its under your keyboard are more secure than trusting a credential manager.
Tip 5: Assume any email or text is NOT from who it appears to be any time money is mentioned.
Tip 6: Avoid Intel like the plague. I'm not talking about Meltdown, I'm talking about IME.
Tip 7: Do not trust representatives of government agencies to give you good computer security advice.

What do you do about zero day exploits that require nothing other than visiting a compromised but legitimate website? Thats a common way to get infected these days. Which is why i am not "full of shit" about people who do nothing really stupid getting malware abyway.

Agreed about 2FA and no password managers, cloud, govt does not have my best interests in mind.

Would put a backup of those passwords/recovery codes in a fireproof safe though.

This Microsoft page is full of malware/virus tools. I know it's in response to a Windows 10 question but all of those scans should have Windows 7 versions I'd think.

If this was my stuff, I'd just reinstall Windows and do a factory reset on the phone to save time. I just can't trust that the scans get everything, plus I think your phone is sick too...good luck.

Paging /u/flytape , I'm not that technical? I just got my 1st Windows machine in like a decade, cuz school gave me one fo' free.

I think pop up ads within the browsers is what he is talking about, not on the desktop. Like when paywall pops up on wsj, it's not a new window just a CSS trick or iframe or something.

Could this be a remote access hijack?

100% correct. How else does Google know which stores you've been in to offer reward points?

GPS, obviously. That's why you get less surveys if you have location services turned off. I've had it ask me if I've been somewhere when I was actually somewhere nearby, or driving past it.

Or maybe those bull shit bank cards they forced people to take?

Oh, yeah, the chips!

That sounds like a Walmart or target thing most vape shops I have seen are indie places where that would be retardedly beyond their budget.

That would explain why you cannot fully turn of wifi on Iphones from the front screen any more. The idea is, make it harder to turn of for the user, connects to any wifi available by default which allows them to pull this shit. tis getting crazy..

Target has been using video analytics to monitor customers for years now. It's not just about stopping theft. It's about watching exactly how you move in a store, look at a shelf, pick up or put down a product. The moment you walk into one of their stores a computer harnassing video is analyzing all of the things you do to sell you more crap.

Did you have your phone on you?

Are you, or have you been signed in to any account on the phone that you're also using or have used on your desktop computer? Like Google, Facebook, etc?

Hi, there are many AI algorithms running on top of security cameras, and phone camera (and many other things).

For example, this algorithm takes in all it sees (You staring at a Mod for a long time.), the AI comes to a conclusion, and serves YOU an ad, on whatever internet-connected device you are currently using.

How does it know which device you are using, or that it is serving the ad to the proper person? Well. It goes deeper than just camera's recording you, knowing that you wanted a Mod. It goes a lot deeper.

Some say they have tech that can remap on a screen anything seen by an eye, that they can see through someone's eyes basically. Some say they don't have that tech and use something like creating an image of a location by how it interacts with WiFi signals http://uk.businessinsider.com/wifi-camera-sees-through-walls-2017-5

Now, German scientists have found a way to exploit this property to take holograms, or 3D photographs, of objects inside a room — from outside it.

I think they use both. They created an artificial intelligence to control anything electronic globally (bodies are electric) and can perceive anything a human can by analyzing their brainwaves. Some targeted individuals report fake smells, tastes or holographic images being induced that only they can perceive.

I'm a targeted individual in Iran and experienced a voice to skull message sent to my head about something I was doing in the privacy of my home. One time they also induced an emotion along with a sound telling me to do something small and I automatically did it (sounded nothing like me but was supposed to, they do it to some people so they think it's their inner voice and they're going crazy, lol I never hear voices when I think at least not loud and clear like that and it happened once when they were trying lot of different mind control methods)

Advertising has been creepier every year. Here's some more info:

Swiping a loyalty card is an example of data capture. Every time the customer visits the shop the card is swiped, reading the unique number. This identifies the customer whose points total, stored in the database, is then updated. The tills use barcodes to identify each item bought.

When a customer signs up they provide basic details such as their name and address.

Loyalty cards provide companies with information about customer spending habits. This information can be used to target customers generally or specifically

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/implications/1lifestylerev2.shtml

Mastercard and American Express are selling your data to online advertisers who then use it to target you with ads. http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-data-to-advertisers-2013-4

Google has begun using billions of credit-card transaction records to prove that its online ads are prompting people to make purchases – even when they happen offline in brick-and-mortar stores, the company said Tuesday.

The advance allows Google to determine how many sales have been generated by digital ad campaigns, a goal that industry insiders have long described as “the holy grail” of online advertising. But the announcement also renewed long-standing privacy complaints about how the company uses personal information. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/23/google-now-knows-when-you-are-at-a-cash-register-and-how-much-you-are-spending/

Fact is google maps constantly tracks your location, even if you turn off history they still use that location data for various things like advertisement.

The vape gear was probably coincinence. I'll bet it was a smok, wismec, or vaporesso mod which are really popular.

Screenshot it next time. Check task manager to see where it's coming from

You have malware holy shit the well targeted nature of the ad is not the big picture here.

Not related to conspiracy stuff but I highly recommend the Suorin

Ever since I had to finally get a new phone I get google suggestions and ads that creep me out on my pc. Example. Just last week I'm talking about maybe trying to make honey chicken for dinner. I go to google and typed in H and honey chicken recipes came right up.

A thing I noticed recently is that it seems like google search's autocomplete function is assisted by your browsing history. For example, I might find out about something kinda obscure on the web, and when I go to google it for more info the autocomplete fills in that obscure reference within 2 letters.

I could see that. Some I could probably attribute to that but there are still others that make me go hmm for sure.

You can disable all that stuff in your phone and google account settings.

Your phone is an interactive corporate/government monitoring device.

I took a picture of a greyhound on snapchat the other day and all of a sudden my instagram was littered with greyhound posts. My groupme friends group was chatting about national parks and again my instagram started having national parks images. Usually my instagram recommended posts are relating to subaru wrx, soccer, and fitness.

Where was your phone during the visit to the shop? Did either camera on the phone have this item within it's field of view?

If the phone's camera could 'see' this item for a long time or if you took a picture to zoom in and try to make sense of the price, then things make sense. Scary sense, but this can be explained thru Android/Google account linking and app access to the camera or the phone's storage. If this is the case then this event takes the microphone eavesdropping to another level.

If no phone was with you, then I have no idea how this event took place. And that creeps the hell out of me.

Dang...

What apps did you have open at the time? I know Facebook is blamed for this kind of behavior. I have concerns on the pervasiveness of Google's reach across Android.

We bought our house from a very anti-computer/phone type of guy. He made the selling Realtor's job hard as most contact was leave a message on the answering machine. Maybe he was on to something...less electrons around us are better.

So what's connecting the dots from your phone to your desktop? Do you log into Google on both the phone and desktop?

If it's not Google, then what is it? Malware common to both devices? Or is the NSA trying to be helpful for ad revenue now?

For the record, this is totally unacceptable behavior from whatever caused this to happen.

Advertising has been creepier every year. Here's some info:

Swiping a loyalty card is an example of data capture. Every time the customer visits the shop the card is swiped, reading the unique number. This identifies the customer whose points total, stored in the database, is then updated. The tills use barcodes to identify each item bought.

When a customer signs up they provide basic details such as their name and address.

Loyalty cards provide companies with information about customer spending habits. This information can be used to target customers generally or specifically

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/implications/1lifestylerev2.shtml

Mastercard and American Express are selling your data to online advertisers who then use it to target you with ads. http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-data-to-advertisers-2013-4

Google has begun using billions of credit-card transaction records to prove that its online ads are prompting people to make purchases – even when they happen offline in brick-and-mortar stores, the company said Tuesday.

The advance allows Google to determine how many sales have been generated by digital ad campaigns, a goal that industry insiders have long described as “the holy grail” of online advertising. But the announcement also renewed long-standing privacy complaints about how the company uses personal information. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/23/google-now-knows-when-you-are-at-a-cash-register-and-how-much-you-are-spending/

An ad popped up on your Windows 7 desktop? Do you mean outside of your browser? You should run an virus scan.

Yeah too many people are focusing on the fact that the product was the same. The real red flag is you shouldn't see a fucking advertisement if you just sign into your desktop and are not browsing the web. Your shit is hosed OP. Reformat and start over.

Microsoft Lockscreen has embedded advertisements. This has not been the norm and is a new thing that came out last year. It's still being piloted.

Isnt that for SpyWindows 10 only?

Most of that shit can be disabled as well.

That makes me want to vomit.

Just take a screenshot of it

Please don't take shitty cell phone pictures of a computer screen ever when you can use PrintScrn.

did you have your cell phone w you? hubs says go back to the store and do the same thing again and see what happens? i read about this to much.

I don't believe your edit, FOR A SECOND.

You'd be surprised at how powerful adtech is. In 2006, one technology was real-time bidding. You'd connect to a website and in the first 100ms, your demographic info would be put out and bids were placed for who would spend the most to give their ad to you. Pregnant couples cost the most money to be advertised to. This company was sold to google for $1 billion.

That is just one company, and that was over a decade ago.

People think it's microphones listening, and maybe they are, but you'd be surprised at how much data you leak about yourself in other ways. The microphones would almost be worthless because of the processing cost, and how much data they already have on you from cheaper resources.

Dude I typed a comment on reddit yesterday containing "lease a Hyundai crossover" and hit submit. Before I even left the page, I noticed an ad on the side of the page featuring none other than a Hyundai Tuscon.

Yeah happens to me too. Started around a year ago or so. What a time to be alive.

Microphone. Facebook listens and throws ads at you at maximum speed

Camera, location, search results

You guys are kind of right. Google follows you and knows where you went. Guess how many people bought that mod after standing right in the same spot where you were? Probably plenty.

i was in walmart and was just killing time so i go over to the hardware section and pick up 3-4 drills just to feel if they;re lighter than the one i use.

next time i went online the adds were showing drills.

No. Never been in a vape shop. Don't like sucking on robot dicks.

I'm not joking when I say this, but it could be the CIA's AI bots attempting to scare you by showing you that every last thing you've ever done around your phone is compromised? Trump should have an NSA storage burn day - just for the sake of the people - of course that's speculation - but they definitely have bots doing stuff on the internet every second...

Maybe the algorithms knew you would be less vocal if you were on edge about people listening in... Could be the AI has done the math on it, and found out that whenever you increase the voice to ad ratio, or GPS to ad, they detect less social media posting, less keywords in your speech, through which they can deduce a time period in which the "posting less" trend started, only validating it's idea that blasting you with these subtly influences you macroly... hence I tape on all my shit and waiting anxiously until decentralized protocols are advanced so we don't have a whole NSA backdoor debacle again.

Hey man you should always buy online. Vapecrawler is really handy to find good deals. Just make sure it's a reputable site.

I’ve been putting my phone in old microwave. Helps a little.

If youre getting ANY ads on your desktop, you have malware. No OS randomly pops up ads. Most likely its a rootkit.

However its tracking you, if youre getting ads on your desktop, it may be somehow communicating with your phone. Perhaps you sync your phone and PC through an app like your browser. Most browsers have cross platform syncing.

If youre getting ads on your desktop you need to learn how to secure your shit.

Get Malwarebytes free trial and run a threat scan WITH rootkit detection enabled in settings. If you dont turn on rootkit scanning its useless to scan. See if you find anything interesting.

If you can determine what app or addon is giving you the ads then we may be able to attribute it to a specific threat actor or ad company.

Also turn off all the bullshit on your phone like NFC, bluetooth, phone visibility, and remove bullshit apps that track you. Might want to put mobile antimalware like Lookout on your phone too. Invest in a good VPN if you havent already.

If Malwarebytes doesnt find whatever is popping up ads try the following:

From Microsoft's website get Process Explorer and Autoruns. Run as admin and enable the Virus Total MD5 hash comparison option and signature verification for both.

Nuke anything sus directly through either program by deleting the .exe if necessary.

Run Adwcleaner or Junkware Removal Tool, Microsoft Security Emergency Response Tool or at least Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool. F-Secure's online scanner is also worth running.

If you find out what specific application is doing this TELL US. Best thing about a conspiracy is attribution to the conspirers. It could be a big deal if you have cross platform malicious software spying on you and advertising to you!

If you have ads popping up on your machine and you're not even using a browser then you have a terrible virus. Backup your files and wipe the machine fresh. Be more discerning about what you install.

Coincidence.

Your phone knew you were in a vape shop due to GPS and their Wifi access point showing up on your phone so you got an add for a vape. Coincidence it showed you that one.

I tend to go by that they are at least 30 years ahead of the general populations knowledge of technology. It's how they stay one step ahead always.

Were you carrying your phone? If so, all bets are off. With a phone you can figure out location. But now they all have motion sensors and angle sensors and shit along with mics and cameras. Tons of info can be deduced from that shit alone. Not rocket science.

I don't think this is the case in your situation but some stores are using deep learning systems linked with cameras. This allow them to track customers in the store and even detect items they are looking at and for how long. What items they pick up or how long they hold them ect.

Also did you by any chance have your phone out anytime while in the store its possible the phone could be activating the camera without you know and detecting products. This could also be a situation where your phone detected the wifi or geolocation and google ads was able add vapestore to your profile; this would link you with other people in your area or people that visited that store and what items they bought. Then gave you one of the highest rated or most bought items as an ad. Google can do this somewhat easy; it basically goes like this. Geolocation=vapestore->add's you to a profile with lists of other people that had visited the same store-> there google searches and items bought would dictate the ad shown (IE: if a lot of people bought coils or parts for say a kangertech and also visited that store it would know that is a hot item a lot of people buy that visit the store.) There is a lot of other factors it would also calculate to get the list lower like the item you already own, it can tell this from other searches you had made.

It's happening a lot to people I know. I swear, even stuff my daughter and I have talked about pops up. Not stuff we've searched for online--just talked about. I think even when your phone is off, it can be turned on--like your TV. Same with your computer. I began to wonder about AI listening and watching when I noticed Mark Zuckerberg's laptop had the camera and mic covered up in a picture. So I did the same on mine. And now there are fewer creepy popups.

It's happened to me several times in the past couple years. Almost too spooky. Does anyone remember the post about "in game advertisers" using mapping AI's to create 3d maps of the users enviroment? It was right before the fisa doc release. Maybe 3-5 days ago. User submitted captures of PowerPoint presentation.

Should be noted that on my phone this topic is several pages back where as on my PC it's on the first of conspiracy.

It’s called a coincidence.

You got an ad as soon as you signed in? That makes no sense.

I'd keep my sense of paranoia in check if I were you. Synchronicities are far more common than we suspect and we have a natural inclination to simply shrug them off and dismiss the fact that the Universe occasionally reads our minds and guides our footsteps in some of the most unusual ways to produce them.

Now I have a magnetic slate on my fridge that anyone in my family can write whatever we're out of or they'd like to have in the way of groceries for me to pick-up since I'm the chief cook, bottlewasher, and all round step and fetch it. Just the other day I was running low on cream and sugar for my coffee addiction and needed to take a trip to one of the six different supermarkets that are all within a five minute drive.

Before I set out I copied no less than eight other items in addition to those and strictly on a whim chose the store that I hadn't shopped in for several weeks. To make a long story short, I got through the usually busy streets at that time of day that for some mysterious reason weren't busy at all, nor was the usually crowded parking lot at the store. In fact the spot closest to the entrance was simply sitting there waiting there for me. The store itself was far less crowded than it usually is with several idle cashiers waiting for someone. I grabbed a hand basket and set out to get what I needed and actually found that every single item I went there to pick-up was on sale and I simply breezed right in and right out thinking "Now what are the chances of that?"

The answer, absolutely none as far as I can recollect and I've been doing those same kinds of errands that almost always entail some kind of run-in with something being out of stock, aisles I can only get down at snail's pace, line-ups with the person in front of me invariably having or making trouble that just went on and on and on, or completely unpredictable traffic fuck-ups coming or going.

I was out the door and back so fast it might have been a dream if it wasn't for the two bags of incidentals on my kitchen table. lol

Quirky stuff can happen when you least expect it. There are rare times when it seems that everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong and there are rare times and moments when just the very opposite can happen. Times when we're psychologically out of tune with what's going on in the world outside and others when we're perfectly aligned with nary a thought about it.

Ive had conversations face to face with my partner about when we might start trying for a kid and the same day IVF ads are coming up on my (male) facebook feed.

This was before we began texting or emailing on the subject.

I can only assume she was discussing it with a friend on facebook, which logs we are in lots of photos together etc and voila.

Clever if not scary stuff

Seconded, never been but have bought their juice online and it's fantastic.