ONLINE PRIVACY: Open a Tab and Make Some Noise.

Internet Noise acts like a browser extension but is really just a website that auto-opens tabs based on random Google searches. Schultz isn’t a hacker but a concerned do-gooder trying to get Americans to understand how much their online privacy is at risk. “I cannot function in civil society in 2017 without an internet connection, and I have to go through an ISP to do that,” he says.

To counter that threat, Schultz wants to make it impossible for ISPs or anyone they’ve sold your data to accurately profile you. The vote yesterday implicitly legalized such tracking by explicitly rescinding rules against it. By muddying your online identity, advertisers can’t accurately target you, and authorities can’t accurately surveil you. To create noise that blocks your signal, Schultz googled “Top 4,000 nouns” and folded the list into his code. When you hit the “Make some noise” button on his site, it harnesses Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to search those phrases, then opens five tabs based on the results. Every ten seconds it does another search and opens up five more. Within minutes, my entire browser history was a jumble. Internet Noise will keep going until you hit the “STOP THE NOISE!” button. Schultz envisions you running this while you sleep.

Even more useful if Internet Noise works in private tabs, which won’t clutter your personal browsing history with unwanted junk.