The Atlantic

An Algorithm That Hides Your Online Tracks With Random Footsteps

Can “polluting” browsing history with fake traffic make it harder for ISPs to spy on you?
Source: Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Last week, President Donald Trump signed a controversial new law, allowing internet providers to continue gathering sensitive information on their users and selling that data to advertisers. News sites erupted with recommendations for keeping browsing history private—but because all the data people send and receive online goes through their service providers, that’s easier said than done.

Many news stories recommended setting up a virtual private network, or VPN, to shield browsing data. Using a VPN re-routes all your browsing data through an encrypted tunnel, keeping it private from your provider, but it requires from your internet provider to often-sketchy and unaccountable VPN companies. Another option is Tor, a browser that routes web traffic through a random network of.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related Books & Audiobooks