citytree

Examples of passive defenses against surveillance:

• Privacy Badger
• uBlock Origin
• Using open source Linux rather than Microsoft Windows
• etc.

But why not actively combat surveillance instead of passively defending against it? Examples of active combat:

• AdNauseam
• ScareMail
• Emacs spook.el

We must poison the data of those who are violating our privacy. Let us waste their time, increase their data storage costs, and waste their processing power. Let them drown in an ocean of data. Let them search for tiny needles in huge haystacks, with no way to distinguish between needles and hay.

Some ideas:

• Sending fake data to Google Analytics (How does Google Analytics prevent fake data attacks against an entity's traffic?)
• Create fake contacts lists to mislead those who are building social network graphs.
• Encrypt lots of worthless data, store them in the cloud or send them by email. If the encrypted data is intercepted by any nosy entity, they will have to waste storage space while waiting to be able to break the encryption.

What are some other possible methods?

Let us turn the tables on those who have been violating our privacy. Why do we have to be on the defense? Let us waste their resources in the same way that they are wasting ours!

I am using Mozilla Firefox as my web browser. I have configured it to clear cookies, active logins, form & search history, and offline website data when I close Firefox. Should I also configure it to clear the cache? What are the privacy implications if I don't clear the cache?

EDIT: additional information:

• My goal is to reduce fingerprinting and tracking by websites.
• I use Mozilla Firefox on my personal laptop that almost never leaves my residence. The laptop has full disk encryption. I am the only user of the laptop.
• I don’t erase my web browser history. I want to keep browser history for my future reference.

Does user privacy when using WhatsApp Web (https://web.whatsapp.com) differ substantially from using WhatsApp on Android? WhatsApp on Android has end-to-end encryption and (optional) encrypted backups. If I use WhatsApp Web, will Meta be able to see the contents of my WhatsApp messages?

Is there any open source and privacy-respecting Android keyboard for Chinese input? I want to avoid proprietary keyboards such as Gboard and Samsung Keyboard. Unfortunately, the open source Android keyboards that I found only support alphabetic input:

• OpenBoard
• AnySoftKeyboard
• Simple Keyboard

For Chinese input I would like pinyin input for both traditional characters and simplified characters. Handwriting input would be nice to have but it is not essential.