This is WEIRD!!! (VERY weird!!)

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You seem pretty well versed in IT security.

The only way you could have been already logged in when going there is via cookies or something in your browser cache.

Do you regularly clear your cache and delete cookies?

Do you always use the same browser from that laptop?

On a final note, if you're not already using it, TOR or other quality anonymizer work really well for most things...

Have you completely dismissed your wife in this?
Maybe she is stealing your mother's identity unbeknownst to you, and has just been really good at hiding it? Maybe she just got sloppy this time? I'm not trying to say anything bad about your wife or anything...but the simplest solution is usually the correct solution.

originally posted by: Martin75
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
I think what is happening to you let's us know how well they are at analyzing our voices.

You say that your job is to keep people secure. I do not know you so this part I will take you at your word. And assume that you are good at your job.

Now, what is the one thing that you are not protecting? Your voice...

Okay then. An incredible coincidence that I even read this thread – and I don’t believe in coincidence.

Last week I was on the phone with my Sister – she has an I- phone and I have a Samsung. Just chat, chat, and chat. No texting , no pictures, nothing but voice.

My Sister said that her daughter (my Niece) has apparently inherited my love of shopping for cosmetics and said that my Niece’s bedroom looks like a mini *insert name of big box cosmetic store here* and that she even has a jar of the same hand and foot cream that I have used for years.

Conversation ends. I go to my laptop. On a different network. Guess what popped up? An ad for said Big Box Store AND an ad for said cream. I don’t shop on line for this store – I go to the actual location.

This literally happened within 2 to 3 minutes of myvoice conversation. Freaked me out.

This World is wacked and privacy (no matter how mundane] is dead and buried.

ETA: I did have a gmail account like 15 years ago. I haven’t used it in probably ten years…maybe a connection?

a reply to: Missmissie173

Wow.

And I don't believe that was a coincidence or synchronicity. Especially since your samsung is running some version of Android.

And we all know who owns Android, right?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Your mom's google account is probably set up with their evil default privacy values that enable them to associate anyone with anything and make guesses based on algorithms to "enrich" your experience.

Google Privacy Invasion Policy

We may combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other Google services – for example to make it easier to share things with people you know. Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google’s services and the ads delivered by Google.

They collect mountains of logs and other data shared across partners that link persons, places and things.

I hate the Google.

a reply to: Missmissie173
We did a test one day using Samsung Galaxies.

Set the phone down and started talking about goat's milk. How we wanted to try it buy it taste it smell it, ,etc.

Sure enough we started getting goat milk ads. We picked that because we knew it was something NO ONE had ever typed.

I am dumb for IT. That being said, is your laptop Apple? Connected to cloud, like your phone I pad etc?

Little I knew but my internet history on my phone showed up on my laptop and I pad right away, until I turned cloud off completely.

I am probably wrong, just my 2 cents

EDIT: what I mean, if you used your personal device when you showed your Mum the steps

a reply to: Zarniwoop

That's entirely possible. I thought I turned it off, but not certain. This would explain her end, but not mine. This computer has no such similar identity for associate with. This is really the crux of the whole matter really. I could understand how all manner of crazy stuff happened on her end (and frankly, this is exactly one of the reasons why I never associate accounts like that, it's a common slip up for many). Any accounts I do have are all independent, and none bear any resemblance to any of my personal information.

Plus, in looking back through the logs I can find nowhere where there was ever even an attempt to log into you-toob. It just came up that way when I clicked on the video.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Somehow, somewhere, the GOOG put two pieces of information together that made them speculate that you might be your mother when hitting ytube and your mother's privacy settings are somehow set up to allow that. It's sort of futile to try and figure out how it happened. I've spent hours trying to navigate their privacy settings to figure out how to keep them out of my life... to little avail.

The only thing I could suggest is accessing her Google account from another computer not associated with you and locking down her settings so it doesn't get any worse.

a reply to: Zarniwoop

Right. That's probably not a bad suggestion, I will verify.

originally posted by: Martin75
a reply to: Missmissie173
We did a test one day using Samsung Galaxies.

Set the phone down and started talking about goat's milk. How we wanted to try it buy it taste it smell it, ,etc.

Sure enough we started getting goat milk ads. We picked that because we knew it was something NO ONE had ever typed.

Well, that is sinister. I wonder if Flyingclaydisk has Samsung products in the house?

a reply to: Martin75

Interesting

If you have an android device, and share your phone provider/account with your mother, there ya go! You tube is a standard app on any google powered android. Go ahead. Try to delete it!
If the accounts in her name, Android just recognized another device and signed her in

Just to recap a couple things here...

So there are several elements of the OP which are troubling. I don't believe I've spelled them out specifically, and I probably should have for clarity as each one of them has a troubling aspect...

1. Upon clicking on a you-toob video on my personal laptop I discovered I was logged into you-toob. I hadn't logged into you-toob. Logging in is a specific conscious and tactile event, not something which "just happens". That I was logged in at all, as anyone, wasn't something I initiated.

2. The alleged you-toob account I was logged into doesn't even exist, not on you-toob anyway. I was logged in with a user account created by me for my 92 year old mom roughly one year ago. It was a g-mail account (and yes, I realize google owns you-toob and they are closely related).

3. I created the gmail account on another computer. I've never accessed or manipulated this account from any computer other than the one it was created on. My only interaction with the gmail account was a test email sent from my business phone, on a different domain. The account itself was never accessed from my phone, only an email sent. The phone is completely independent of my own personal devices...AND, is not even owned by me. It is a company phone, paid for by a large multi-national corporation. The accounts are paid out of a pool of minutes, not by specific number or phone.

4. I have never typed my mother's name into my personal laptop, let alone have I accessed her (or anyone else's) gmail account.

5. I do not have a gmail account. Nor do I have a you-toob account. None.

Of all the things listed above, troubling as they all are, Item #1 is probably the most disturbing. That would require a conscious effort, and it is not something which would happen by accident.

If something can log a person into an account, one which doesn't even belong to them, without any input there is no limit to the bad possible permutations which could occur as a result.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

If you are logged into your google account on your clever phone, can it log you into youtube with the same credentials? Maybe your phone syncs with your home computer?
You stated in the OP that you sent message from your phone to your mother's gmail, but I still can't understand how her login info would be on your compy.
Curious.

a reply to: Brian4real

There was no sharing of anything on my phone. Not the phone number, email addresses or anything. The only thing sent from my phone was an email, from MS Outlook, on a completely separate domain from google. The phone never accessed her google account, only sent it an email.

a reply to: Olivine

No, the phone does not synch with my home computer. There is no connection between the two at all. This I am certain of because I have taken specific measures to NEVER permit this to happen in any way, shape or form. The only thing my phone synchronizes with is the cellular provider and an exchange server behind a firewall and through a DMZ. From there, access to the internet is provided via reverse path through another set of routers (and firewalls) out to the internet. Everything goes through the firewalls and DMZ. You can't even download an app on the phone without it traversing this path (and being scanned in the process). (and how I know this is because it drives our cellular provider crazy as a result...the security is extreme). This is one of the reasons I set things up exactly how I did. I don't trust anything.

ETA...the credentials for my phone are vastly different from any other credentials I use (intentionally so).

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I know you said you didn't link any of the emails to yourself, however, were you using the same browser? Some browsers will store profile info and SYNC that to any of the same browsers that you are logged into on other machines.

Just a suggestion. ( I use this feature to sync my bookmarks and cookies across the 4 or 5 computers I regularly use.)

a reply to: kelbtalfenek

That's a good point, but no I wasn't. The email generated from my phone was generated using a non-browser based email application (MS Office / Exchange). The browser was only opened on the PC where the account was set up. The gmail account has never been accessed from any other browser. And, even if it had been it would have been by someone who doesn't know me, or any of my particulars (say a hacker for example).