Firefox Users - Plug in hides your serches in a bunch of other serches.

[Ioo]

So last night I was tweeking my FF and I ran accross this...

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/TrackMeNot/

TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that protects web-searchers against surveillance and data-profiling. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one's tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines, e.g. AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, and requires no 3rd-party servers or services.

How It Works
TrackMeNot runs in Firefox as a low-priority background process that periodically issues randomized search-queries to popular search engines, e.g., AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. It hides users' actual search trails in a cloud of 'ghost' queries, significantly increasing the difficulty of aggregating such data into accurate or identifying user profiles. TrackMeNot integrates into the Firefox 'Tools' menu and includes a variety of user-configurable options.

*Note: TrackMeNot employs a static list of search terms from which it is can generate millions of unique queries. While a sizeable #, it is unlikely to deter serious data-profiling by those aware of the system. As a first step toward addressing this concern, the current version of TMN allows users to supply their own query lists. Future versions are likely to include larger (distributed) query databases, dynamically generated and/or web-harvested queries, as well as grammar-generated natural-language queries. Suggestions for other ways of improving TMN are always welcome!

Why We Created TrackMeNot
The practice of logging user search activities and creating individual search profiles – sometimes identifiable – has received attention in mainstream press, e.g. the recent front-page New York Times article on AOL's release of collected data on individual searchers; also this front-page New York Times Business Section article describing the User-Profiling Practices of Yahoo!, AOL, MSN & Google.

[rodeodance]

1. has anyone had experience with this plug in?

[Ioo]

3. I am using it now...

I like it very low over head...

It also shows you the search it is doing in the status bar, and some of funny as hell
"Scags"
"Pathological Chicken McFearson"

[msongs]

2. it could also be tracking yer every move surreptitiously

as in, what is your anti-virus software REALLY doing besides anti-virus things? it could be a direct conduit to the NSA for all we really know :-) surf on!

Msongs
www.myspace.com/msongs

[mccoyn]

4. Yeah, I wish it were open source.

If it were open source it could be independently verified to not do that. I looked around a little and I didn't see any source code for it. You could check it with a packet sniffer or possibly a software firewall. I have a software firewall and the virus programs I use seem clean, but a lot of Microsoft stuff seems to call home a lot for some reason.

[Ioo]

5. I think that that is the whole point to this thing...

Everywhere you go it is being recorded somewhere, every post, what you post, where you go, all of it, by your ISP... that is a fact... So the point of this is, to make so many just crap searches that if Bush again strong arms Yahoo and MSN (Both folded to Bush) and your serch data is turned over then your real searches are just part of a bunch of others you searched for, in short making SO much data for them that it is hard to tell what is real and what is not...

that is all, just a public service...

and if you think that your surfing is not being recorded anyway, then I have a bridge to sell you...

THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE YOUR PC SAFE FROM THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS TO UPPLUG IT FROM THE WALL.