Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

howlroundmusic.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 53 posts

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#21

Post by visarga »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #19

As a simple rule, whenever I want to search something and minimize polution to my web history, I open the other browser I never use and then go into incognito mode. As a side note, this reminded me of the "Neo looks for Morpheus" scene (the one just before "Wake up Neo").

I changed my default search to StartPage, which uses Google under the hood.

But sometimes I can't find what I want in StartPage, so I added an extra button on StartPage to take me to the same search in Google (TamperMonkey script).

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#23

Post by optimuspaul »

A few years ago I devoted some time to screwing with Amazons recommendation engine. The results were interesting at first. They didn't seem to have much of an idea of the kinds of things I actually wanted to see. After a while I was just presented with dildos as recommendations, perhaps they saw through my schemes. I then stopped the campaign and things returned to "normal".

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#24

Post by veeragoni »

cooper12 wrote: post #20
veeragoni wrote: post #6

Google probably already knows our typing pattern and typing speed. They could probably detect whether you automated it or really typing. It wont be hard for them. "Google knows everything!"

Just because they have that information, doesn't mean they can determine what they need or do it in a scalable and computationally feasible manner.

I agree. I just gave them an idea just in case if people trying to fog their advertising data

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#25

Post by goda90 »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #19

As a simple rule, whenever I want to search something and minimize polution to my web history, I open the other browser I never use and then go into incognito mode. As a side note, this reminded me of the "Neo looks for Morpheus" scene (the one just before "Wake up Neo").

If I watch a Youtube video not logged in, in private browsing mode, in a different browser than where I am logged into Google, I end up seeing suggestions that are very much related to what I just watched when I use a logged in Youtube app on another device. And this is on a very shared Internet connection.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#26

Post by sysbell »

zhan_eg wrote: post #13

Well in fact if you check a section of your Google profile (Ads Settings) [0] you can turn off Ads based on your interests which will result it: You will still see ads and they may be based on your general location (such as city or state) Ads will not be based on data Google has associated with your Google Account, and so may be less relevant You will no longer be able to edit your interests All the advertising inter…

Very useful, but not entirely the same as the the author is demonstrating. What you referenced is just for ads; what he's trying to fog is the order of the actual SERP.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#28

Post by crystalPalace »

petulanta wrote: post #22

See the TrackMeNot Chrome extension which does the same thing (also supports multiple search engines). I don't know how it affects Google ads though. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trackmenot/cgllkjm...

I immediately thought of TrackMeNot. I wrote a similar but less complex program(https://github.com/torchhound/chaff). It originally used Google's Web Search API but that became deprecated and I switched to DuckDuckGo. I've been thinking about adding Faroo and Google Custom Search.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#29

Post by wu-ikkyu »

tedunangst wrote: post #11
eth0up wrote: post #2

Reminds me a bit of Marlinspike's Google Sharing: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/googlesharing-a... The concept of hurling garbage into the all-seeing-eye is a good one and I hope it gains sustained popularity.

Posit that the government wants to round up all the pressure cooker searchers. Now, instead of one searcher, they have a conspiracy of a dozen pressure cooker searchers. Are they going to just shrug their shoulders and say oh well? The idea that it's possible to overflow the governments secret lists is founded on the idea that the government cares if a list gets too long. I'm not sure that's the case.

>The idea that it's possible to overflow the governments secret lists is founded on the idea that the government cares if a list gets too long. I'm not sure that's the case.

It's not just about governments having extensive and precise information on us, it's anyone who might use it (i.e. hackers, insiders) for nefarious purposes.

Whether or not they "care" if the data is superfluous is unimportant, the goal is to make reliably narrowing down a target more time consuming.

Post reply on HN