Obfuscation as a Privacy Tool

guest · Nov 5, 2019

Obfuscation as a Privacy Tool
November 5, 2019
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/11/obfuscation_as_.html

This essay discusses the futility of opting out of surveillance, and suggests data obfuscation as an alternative.

The secure browser Tor, which (among other anti-surveillance technologies) muddles our Internet activity with that of other Tor users, concealing our trail in that of many others.

The browser plugins TrackMeNot and AdNauseam, which explore obfuscation techniques by issuing many fake search requests and loading and clicking every ad, respectively.

The browser extension Go Rando, which randomly chooses your emotional "reactions" on Facebook, interfering with their emotional profiling and analysis.

Playful experiments like Adam Harvey's "HyperFace" project, finding patterns on textiles that fool facial recognition systems not by hiding your face, but by creating the illusion of many faces.

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I am generally skeptical about obfuscation tools. I think of this basically as a signal-to-noise problem, and that adding random noise doesn't do much to obfuscate the signal. But against broad systems of financially motivated corporate surveillance, it might be enough.
Click to expand...

Reality · Nov 5, 2019

The browser plugins TrackMeNot and AdNauseam, which explore obfuscation techniques by issuing many fake search requests and loading and clicking every ad, respectively.
Click to expand...

No thanks. I'd also be very skeptical of this and avoid these plugins like the plague.
FB? don't have to worry - avoid that like the plague also.
Anything that might upend facial recognition can't come soon enough.

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