The greatest fear for anyone living in the 21st century is that a stranger will find out that your Internet search history is at least in the top five.
If so, you may want to take a look at the recent trending videos posted on people’s For You pages and lock your browser history before connecting to your friend’s Wi-Fi network.
TikToker Mark Roberts says he was stunned to discover what he and his friend’s roommate had in common during a group video game session. According to the TikToker, her roommate kept casually bringing up topics that Roberts had been thinking about or Googled days before.
Roberts recorded his story in a video posted Tuesday. This account has already garnered him a staggering 3.5 million views so far.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me that you could access someone’s Internet search history over Wi-Fi?” an upset Roberts asks viewers at the beginning of the video.
He went on to describe going to a friend’s house for a video game session. He then talks about meeting his friend’s roommate, whom he didn’t really know. He says he was surprised to find out how much they had in common.
“I thought this was my new best friend,” Roberts admits.
He said his roommate told him they were going to see a movie that Roberts himself had recently seen. Then Roberts brought up a town in France he wanted to go on vacation to. Roberts said things started to get weird when he started telling her that his roommate’s recent meal was the same as the one he ate the night before.
Roberts says the conversation went from improbable to creepy when his roommate identified his car model, even though Roberts himself didn’t say it.
“For some reason, the first thing that popped into my head was, this guy is magic,” he says.
But in reality, Roberts added, his roommate knew all the facts about his social plans, his travel plans, and even the type of car he drove once he logged into his home Wi-Fi.
Roberts said a friend exposed her roommate’s prank. “He can’t read minds,” he reportedly told Roberts. “He’s acting a little weird. I can see your search history through my Wi-Fi network.”
Roberts said he “got out of there” shortly afterward. When I looked at my phone, I noticed that all of the things I “shared” with my roommate were in tabs on my phone.
He confessed, “I hope we never talk because there was a tab open that we weren’t talking about.”
@mmarkroberts Use this as a reminder to always check your internet search history and close all tabs.
♬ Original song – Mark Roberts
Many of Roberts’ viewers may relate to this nightmarish situation.
“I’ll never use anyone’s Wi-Fi again,” Jay (@chlosprices) wrote.
Another viewer said: “If my family saw my search history, I wouldn’t actually exist.”
“It feels like you’re looking into someone’s dairy farm.” Another asked how this could be done.
Another viewer admitted: “This information would have dire consequences for my mental health.”
In the video’s caption, Roberts advises viewers to “always check your internet search history and close all tabs.”
According to ProtonVPN, a virtual private network (VPN) service, anyone with access to your Wi-Fi router can use it to see your internet history.
“Anyone with direct access to a router is usually the router’s owner (or administrator in a commercial or educational context), but could also include a hacker who has compromised the router in some way. “You can see and record your entire browsing history while on your router, how long you spend on each website, the exact time you connected to a website, the total time you were online, and your device’s MAC address,” the site says. It has been.
Of course, this includes public Wi-Fi.
There are several things users can do to protect themselves from security threats (not to mention Snoopy’s roommate). This includes clearing her cookies and browser history before joining the network, using incognito mode on her browser, and installing and using a VPN.
In response to the Daily Dot’s request for further comment, Roberts wrote: “I think the Internet provides an illusion of privacy where people think they’re completely anonymous, but in reality they’re being watched.”
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*First published: February 7, 2024 at 9:00 PM CST
Beau Paul
Beau Paul is a freelance writer from Austin, Texas. Bo also wrote stories and dialogue for the gaming industry for several years before becoming an entertainment journalist.
