Since the new Bill concerning American’s online privacy has arrived, people are looking for ways to hide their browsing history, change their IP addresses, and generally bring any sort of protection and privacy into their online lives. One of the ways to do this is being brought to the eye of the public, and that is RuinMyHistory. The question is, does it really do the job, and are you safe with it, and that’s what we will try to answer.
Several days ago, one of Github contributors called ‘FascinatedBox” has come up with and released a script called RuinMyHistory. Apparently, this script was created in protest, after the new privacy bill was voted in by the US Senate.
The creator of the script said that the protocol will pollute everyone’s search history and thus make it worthless to anyone wishing to pry. Even though no one doubts the nobility of this attempt to help the public protect its privacy, unless some major improvements are done on the script, this won’t be nearly enough to protect anyone from the ISPs.
How it works
So, let’s see how this protocol was designed to work, and why won’t it be particularly useful if not improved.
Let us start the process.
RuinMyHistory was designed that, after you run the script, bring up a popup window that will then cycle through several different sites in order to pollute your search history as much as possible. That way, if someone were to try and check out your online activity, they’d be completely confused by all of the random websites that you seem to have visited.
What seems to be the problem?
That’s all well and good but, as we said, it won’t work, and there are several reasons for that.
Let’s start with the fact that it won’t encrypt the search history, and everything would still be perfectly visible. Reddit users discussed this method as well and pointed out several flaws.
For example, the popup window will go through 133 pages, and it’ll do this over and over, about every several seconds, and it won’t do anything on those websites, so basically your search history will only show that you visited them. There is no real randomness and that makes it easy to see through, especially for ISP’s filters.
They can use those filters to determine the top 100 sites from your history, and then all they need to do is focus on those that didn’t make the list. Besides, they don’t really care that much about which sites you visit. They care a lot more about what you do once you enter those websites, so basically, quickly visiting plenty of sites and then not doing anything on them is an easily dismissable diversion.
Some suggested a way deal with this by submitting your search history. It could go to a central hub and there it could be combined with the searches of other people. After it returns to you, it’d be a combination of several histories and that would truly make it useless to anyone trying to figure out any patterns.
Basically, even though the idea and the will to help are admirable, the concept still needs changes in order to work.
So, what’s the alternative?
If you truly wish to protect your privacy and prevent ISP, other companies or hackers from getting to your data, you should re-route your online traffic, and make it go through a secure tunnel. This can be achieved by getting a Virtual Private Network, otherwise known as VPN. Your ISP will still be able to tell that you connected to a VPN, but other than that, they’ll be in the complete dark about what happens and where you go from there. VPNs are encrypting all of your internet data as soon as you start using them, and they also change your IP, which gives you complete privacy.
They provide several features, including no logging activity, updated VPN protocols, advanced encryption, apps for Mac, iPad, iPhone, PC and even Android, as well as fast servers for you to exploit. There are also many of the VPNs for you to choose from, including TorGuard, IPVanish, ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access and more, each with their own servers, user packages, different features and alike.
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Multi-platform Compatible | ||
| 256-AES Encryption | ||
| PRICE | $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" | $6.95 a month |
| Website Rating | 9.9 | 8.8 |
| 24/7 Live Chat | ||
| Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access | ||
| Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support | ||
| Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques | ||
| Visit VPN Provider | Visit TorGuard | Visit PIA |
So, even though organizing this can be quite a bother that is the cost of your online privacy these days. It’s the opinion of many that it is better to simply set this kind of security up and never have to worry about being spied on by your Internet providers again, but in the end, as always, the choice is yours.
