Info Tutorial: Privacy Badger EFF Attacks Do Not Track Deniers

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Privacy Badger EFF Attacks Do Not Track Deniers

Lately, Ive been bashing away at all the applications and add-ons that seek and destroy Evercookies, those evil code danglers our web browsers leave exposed to the world, allowing nefarious marketing morons (vs marketing mavens) and #MyStupidGovernment to TRACK us wherever we go and whatever we do on the Internet.

I for one condemn our surveilling overlords.

One fun browser add-on that just hit my radar is Privacy Badger, from my pals at EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Its currently in alpha testing, which means its guaranteed to be broken and annoying. But I think its going to be fun to test it out.

There is one big fat problem at the moment:
Privacy Badger is Apple Safari illiterate, and so apparently are its developers. Thats really bad IMHO. So lets nag EFF to figure out how to make the two compatible. Or as EFF put it:

If you have an idea for how to make Privacy Badger work for Safari…, please let us know!

Heres the Privacy Badger page at EFF:

https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

Heres an article about Privacy Badger and its hope for the future:

Watch out, Yahoo! EFF looses BADGER on sites that ignore Do Not Track
Browser plugin nudges companies toward compliance

Me: Ill be trying out Privacy Badger on Firefox. Yes I know, Firefox for OS X can be an awful PITA to use, ruining web page rendering, requiring frequent cache dumps and page reloads. But it does have some lovely tools for wrestling the dark side of the Internet into total submission. I like that.

(I recently dumped Chromium as I am sick of it nagging me to log into Google every time I run the thing. I now consider Chromium to be nagware, which I never abide).

Some day in the future Ill be comparing the two prominent cookie control applications as well as the safe and reliable browser add-ons that kill tracking cookies dead. I also have this great idea for a new add-on for all web browsers that sends a header to all tracking websites that says "HA HA! YOU CANT TRACK ME!" What a glorious day that would be.

In case you didnt know: Privacy is a natural human right. Here in the USA, we have the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution that spells it out quite elegantly and simply. But as we all now know, #MyStupidGovernment enjoys pretending the US Constitution doesnt even exist. Thats a bad thing.

Total end-to-end encryption of everything on the Internet is now the goal. #MyStupidGovernment brought it on themselves.

For reference purposes:

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Some relevant quotes:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
- Theodore Roosevelt - Kansas City Star, 7 May 1918

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