

Paranoid Browsing - cyberviewer
https://github.com/Xodarap/Paranoid-Browsing
Many organizations attempt to build a profile of you based on your browsing history. Paranoid Browsing confuses that effort by browsing the internet randomly in the background.
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drunkenmasta
Is there something similar to this for Firefox? The closest thing I have found
is the TrackmeNot extension [http://trackmenot.org/](http://trackmenot.org/)
[http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/](http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/)

" TrackMeNot runs in Firefox as a low-priority background process that
periodically issues randomized search-queries to popular search engines, e.g.,
AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and Bing. It hides users' actual search trails in a cloud
of 'ghost' queries, significantly increasing the difficulty of aggregating
such data into accurate or identifying user profiles. To better simulate user
behavior TrackMeNot uses a dynamic query mechanism to 'evolve' each client
(uniquely) over time, parsing the results of its searches for 'logical' future
query terms with which to replace those already used."

Here's a paper they wrote on resisting surveillance in web search.
[http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/TMN-Howe-
Niss08-ch23.pdf](http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/TMN-Howe-Niss08-ch23.pdf)

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andrewcooke
this is cute, but it's not going to help against the kind of things we've seen
from the nsa recently. the analysis there (and the stuff from palantir etc) is
simply looking for a positive signal - a single connection. the kinds of
algorithms used (graph based) don't normalise by the total number of
connections (it's not statistical, it's structural). so having a bunch of
"normal" stuff won't change anything.

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tadfisher
OK, so add in searches for bomb-making and forums that a terrorist would
likely visit. Get lots of people to use your extension and generate lots of
false positives.

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swombat
Again you fail. Those who will truly abuse this system will not be looking for
true positives. They will be looking for excuses. Such a system would provide
them with excuses aplenty to drag someone away and lock them up for a while,
until they show the proper love and respect to the system.

~~~
ar4s
I completely appreciate what you're saying here, and I think you're absolutely
correct... However framing your insight with "Again you fail" makes me respect
your opinion less. As someone who had a similar idea to the person you replied
to, and as someone who comes to HN to have "smarter people in the room", it's
this kind of condescension that keeps me from commenting on HN.

Sorry for the mini-rant, your three word comment doesn't really warrant it but
hopefully you can respect why I took the time to type it.

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nkurz
Voted up, but I think (hope) he meant it in the sense of "And even that is not
enough."

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ar4s
Reading it again, you might have it right... in which case I feel bad for
offering up criticism when it is surely better deserved elsewhere.

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swombat
Yes, sorry - I did not mean it in a derogatory sense, more like "Even with
these changes the idea won't work". In hindsight, a far too aggressive way to
state it, mea culpa!

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Ihmahr
This is one of the reasons I am running a Tor exit relay.

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dmix
Plausible deniability assuming you have a competent lawyer/judge?

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Ihmahr
Well, I don't have a lawyer (or a judge for that matter...)

And I wouldn't use my own ip (exit node) to do anything that isn't boring. I'd
switch to Tor.

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Radle
The Idea sounds good, but lately I was downloading a lot of plug-ins to go
"anonym".

How 'bout a combined plug-in that contains the following:

-No-script

-No-cache

-Clearing browser history every x days -Entering random results into history

-Disables tracking (I'm not sure what how normal tracking works on a technical side, so sorry if that's a double with some function above)

Additionally you should be able to make exceptions from the restrictions, for
specific websites. (Like you can in the No-Script add-on, that you might know)

I believe most of it can be done using multiple plug-ins, but there seem to be
space for new inventions.

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consciousness
This has been done many times before. One such example:

AntiPhorm Lite -
[http://tweaks.com/forum/Topic239854-59-1.aspx](http://tweaks.com/forum/Topic239854-59-1.aspx)

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officialjunk
what if this puts something in your history that is illegal?

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logn
Can the environmentalists please start lobbying for sensible Internet laws
now?

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dxm
Wouldn't disconnect.me be a better option?

~~~
sirsar
As I understand it, disconnect.me handles tracking cookies and the like, which
is fine for protection against third parties, while Paranoid Browsing throws
chaff at the ISP, NSA, etc.

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jyz
haha this is glorious!

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hoers
How do I turn this into a chrome extension?

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skeoh
Visit chrome://extensions/

Check 'Developer mode'

Click 'Load unpacked extension...'

