prostheticknowledge: Scaremail Chrome extension by Ben Grosser...

prostheticknowledge:

Scaremail

Chrome extension by Ben Grosser adds additional algorithmic-generated passages of text as an email signature with dense NSA-sensitive words (therefore potentially making all email surveillance nonsensical) - video embedded below:

ScareMail is a web browser extension that makes email “scary” in order to disrupt NSA surveillance. Extending Google’s Gmail, the work adds to every new email’s signature an algorithmically generated narrative containing a collection of probable NSA search terms. This “story” acts as a trap for NSA programs like PRISM and XKeyscore, forcing them to look at nonsense. Each email’s story is unique in an attempt to avoid automated filtering by NSA search systems.

… ScareMail proposes to disrupt the NSA’s surveillance efforts by making NSA search results useless. Searching is about finding the needles in haystacks. By filling all email with “scary” words, ScareMail thwarts NSA search algorithms by overwhelming them with too many results. If every email contains the word “plot,” or “facility,” for example, then searching for those words becomes a fruitless exercise. A search that returns everything is a search that returns nothing of use.

More about the extension can be found at Ben’s website here

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