

Ask HN: automated random browsing against profiling? - Lucadg

Many people complain that all we do online is tracked and that governments, ips or even private people know too much about our interests, political views, purchasing preferences and so on.
To balance what we do, we could to the contrary: if a read a left wing blog, and then I pretend to read a right wing one..they won't know my views!
What about an app which "balances" all we do online?
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fauigerzigerk
It's a funny idea but not too useful I'm afraid. Poisoning your own profile
may help in the long run if many people do it because it destroys the value of
mining personal data. But if you are one of a few doing it, you just come
across as weird and it could even be counter productive.

Your affiliation with the NRA will not undo your wikileaks donation. Adding a
right wing blog to a left wing blog will not make you look like a moderate.

To mislead a data mining algorithm in a desirable way requires very
specialized knowledge of what the algorithm does. There is no such thing as a
generalized notion of a compensating action.

But I still think there is demand for tools that help "sanitize" public
profiles.

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Lucadg
Any action going into the direction of "hiding" what I do online will be seen
as hiding something and will rise suspicions. While "balancing" seems harder
to spot, because it all goes under the "normal traffic" category. I don't know
if the implementation is even possible, but the idea to put some smoke in the
face to who is spying me is intriguing :)

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jasonmcalacanis
It's a fine strategy to do if you are very paranoid about your privacy.
However, using a VPN that you switch every year or so, and using something
like www.disconnect.me, to not load every Facebook Like button, would do much
more with only the setup time (< 1 hour a year).

or you can do what a friend of mine does: signup as a 12 year old girl from
Texas for every service out there. :-)

