Privacy through data poisoning

General
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I posted a while back a link to a tool called AdNauseam

Despite the understandable critique, I think what makes this tool interesting is the idea of “fighting back” by overwhelming data collectors with useless spam. Which reminds me of Operation Troll The NSA, that was launched right after the Snowden leaks.

I don’t think this is a well-covered topic. For example, I could only find this article: How to poison the data that Big Tech uses to surveil you | MIT Technology Review talking about it.

Example application of this is increasing the circle of people you do online payments with. i.e: if you start using Zelle more often for paying strangers/stores, then in case you needed to Zelle a friend, that friend will “mix” into that group of people and won’t be a conspicuous. Of course, you have to take care of other metadata collection methods like messaging, but it’s only a step in “fighting back”.

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In theory, it seems good. But in practice, I am also wondering to what extent, the positioning is possible. Data collection mechanisms are becoming too sophisticated, so this poisoning can also make us more unique like happening in extensions.

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Ad Nauseum works against trackers and CDNs

What about removing your self from the internet , then reappear in 5 different styles , all your name but different features and styles.

Basically polluting the pool with some LinkedIn and FB accounts that aren’t you.

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I think about this sort of this more along the lines of walking down the street with a very obvious carnival mask.
Sure they can’t see you’re face, but if you’re walking into each store in a mall and announcing yourself as a different person someone is going to notice. In large part because you’re behavior is nothing like anyone else’s.

The best case scenario here is that the ad platform can’t track the fact that you specifically are clicking on all of the ads and gets paid for each click. Which funds more advanced tracking.

Websites have access to hardware information used to render and size the browser. Combined with a handful of websites you use and whatever IP address you have for a browsing session it isn’t that hard to figure out a unique fingerprint that can link a great many of the things you do to each other over time.

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There was a website in the past that did that. I can’t seem to find it.

Basically, the gist of it was clicking a button, then it would open a random website on the same tab every 10 seconds.

Not sure what happened to it, but wouldn’t that work?

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I have been considering AdNauseum as a cover traffic generator (digital chaff).

  1. Build a dedicated virtual machine, and install Linux with Arkenfox and Firejail.
  2. Point Arkenfox at either a dedicated Tor client or at least a dedicated Tor SocksPort.
  3. Install AdNauseum, and let it generate cover traffic 24/7.
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Reading on adnauseum’s website, there seem to be another option as well that does something similar: https://www.trackmenot.io/

Problem with both is that they are browser extensions instead of a simple website. I don’t want to add extensions to reduce fingerprinting.

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TrackMeNot would pester the search engines, and I have no desire for that.

My intent was to have a dedicated virtual machine and browser for AdNauseum to run with no usage from me. It would see none of my personal browsing traffic.

The more I read about AdNauseum suggested that I was missing a piece for my plan. I have been reading about Selenium and xdotool for the automation necessary. I suppose this would be my step 2.5.

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