If you cannot hide from the online spies, perhaps it is better to flood those spies with lots of false data about you. “Garbage in, garbage out.” In this case, flooding an online spy with garbage results in better security for you than revealing only the truth. The spymasters will have difficulty separating facts from fiction.
The FANGo charger hijacks your phone and creates junk data by aimlessly clicking, searching, and scrolling through sites like Amazon and Youtube. Martin Nadal, an artist and coder based in Linz, Austria, has created FANGo, a “defense weapon against surveillance capitalism” that is disguised as a mobile phone charger. The FANGo phone charger is just a concept at this point.
NOTE: The photo to the right shows the FANGo device with a plug for European wall sockets. When and if it ever becomes a purchasable product, the product you receive probably will have the correct pins for the local wall power sockets used in your country.
On his page introducing the device, Nadal explains that the inside of the charger hides a micro controller that takes control of an Android smartphone by accessing the operating system’s Debug Mode. The device then makes queries and interacts with pages on Google, Amazon, YouTube, and other sites “in order to deceive data brokers in their data capture process.”
You can read more in Martin Nadal’s web site at: http://martinnadal.eu/fango/.
If you would like to purchase a somewhat similar device that is available today, look at the FREE AdNauseam software (a plug-in that clicks on all ads) and at TrackMeNot (FREE software that performs random searches on different search engines). Both will fill tracking web sites with trash. However, AdNauseam and TrackMeNot work on desktop and laptop computers and web browsers, not as cell phone chargers.
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Categories: Encryption, Online Privacy & Security
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Privacy Blog 
I don’t get it. How does vastly INCREASING the volume of ads one gets about products one is not interested in benefit the would-be purchasers of any of these projects?
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—> I don’t get it. How does vastly INCREASING the volume of ads one gets about products one is not interested in benefit the would-be purchasers of any of these projects?
Primarily to fight fake news and email messages that aim to influence voters, consumers, and most everyone else.
Facebook continues to help its customers (companies, not people) identify the personal interests and habits of Facebook users. One flagrant example was Cambridge Analytica, a company that used Facebook’s tracking data of Facebook users and in turn was paid by various political parties and foreign governments to influence the votes of citizens in several countries.
You can read more about the many illegal activities by Cambridge Analytica by starting at: https://duckduckgo.com/?ratb=c&q=%22Cambridge+Analytica%22&t=brave&ia=web
For example, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica together would identify millions of Facebook customers who were Democrats, then sending them email messages containing “fake news” that made the Democrats look bad but made Republicans look good. Then the same companies would identify Hispanics and send them”fake news” email message saying that one particular candidate was anti-Hispanic while his or her competitor paid for other “fake news” messages to be sent claiming that a different candidate (who paid for the advertising messages or perhaps a foreign government paid for the advertising email messages) was a friend to Hispanics.
The same thing happened to people who were Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, religious, atheists, low income, high income, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender), Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders, teachers, and many, many others. Many people were trageted by ZIP Coe or even by the neighborhood where they lived. Each targeted message provided false information that was either derogatory to one candidate or improperly promoted a different candidate who was more appealing to the advertiser.
Email message with “fake news” is only one method of influence voters and consumers. The same low-life companies pollute the Internet with fake information on web sites, message boards, and everywhere else they can think of.
The CEO of Cambridge Analytica openly bragged that his company changed the results of several elections in a number of different countries, including national, state, and local elections in the United States. If you think the wrong person was elected, you might blame Cambridge Analytica!
Products described in the above article are very effective by CONFUSING the data collection by Facebook and its “friends.” If your computer or cell phone posts thousands of contradictory snippets of information, Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and similar personal privacy harvesting services cannot determine if you are a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, religious, atheist, low income, high income, LGBT, a Boy Scout leader, a Girl Scout leader, a teacher, or anything else. The result helps keeps democracy free of “fake news” influence and undoubtedly makes America and other countries more secure and more in charge of their own destinies when they are free of foreign misleading influence.
Also, see “Your hacked Facebook account may be bankrolling scam ad campaigns” at https://www.cnet.com/news/your-hacked-facebook-account-may-be-bankrolling-scam-ad-campaigns/
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