data obfuscation
- “data obfuscation might be approached as an example of such a revised tactical response. These practices aim to regain control over one’s personal data,” ⤴️
- “Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum (2015) describe the goal of obfuscation practices as “mitigating and defeating present-day digital surveillance.” The goal of obfuscation is to disable or, at least, temporarily deny involuntary observation and capture of personal data. It is performed through “creating many plausible, ambiguous, and misleading signals within which the information we want to conceal can be lost” (ibid., p.7).” ⤴️
- “proponents of obfuscation suggest that instead of limiting, one should deliberately add to existing signals. Generating a bundle of random signals amasses a dense and noisy plethora of misleading patterns, among which one’s real presence might be temporarily concealed and unidentifiable.” ⤴️
- “intensely engaging in digital data flow.” ⤴️
- “tactically utilizing and playing with its inevitable mechanisms (ibid., p.55).” ⤴️
- “obfuscation, often described as “the weapons of the weak”(Brunton and Nissenbaum, 2015, p.55)” ⤴️
- “obfuscation tactics provide no long-term and sustainable solutions against data surveillance and involuntary capture. They do not lead to complete erasure of mediated life patterns or a complete protection of voluntarily constructed archival traces. Rather, obfuscation inserts “sand in the gears” of surveilling mechanisms, “buying time” to enjoy a temporary sense of non-identity, a partial autonomy that might be used to devise further tactics for circumventing the capture.” ⤴️
- “expenditure of time and energy on the constant renewal of obfuscating tactics” ⤴️
- “feeding his Facebook profile with false information about himself” ⤴️ as “counter-surveillance art (Remes and Skelton, 2010).” ⤴️ - makes it useless
- “As Brunton and Nissenbaum argue, “Bayesian Flooding is not meant to counteract and corrupt the vast scope of data collection and analysis; instead its purpose is to keep data about oneself both within the system and inaccessible” (Brunton and Nissenbaum, 2015, p.39)” ⤴️ - distinction between obfuscation and poisoning