REDUCE EXPOSURE
SHRINK YOUR FOOTPRINT
// NETWORK LAYER
- 01 Use a trusted VPN or Tor. Your raw IP maps to your ISP, your city, often your street-level area.
- 02 A VPN hides your IP from the site — not from the VPN provider. Choose one that does not log.
- 03 Tor Browser routes through three relays. Slower, but no single hop sees both who you are and where you go.
- 04 Disable WebRTC if not using Tor Browser — it can leak your real local IP behind a VPN.
// DEVICE LAYER
- 05 Randomize your Wi-Fi MAC address. Phones do this by default now — verify it is on.
- 06 Your screen size, GPU, fonts and timezone form a fingerprint. Tor Browser normalizes these to a common profile.
- 07 Canvas and WebGL rendering are near-unique per machine. Anti-fingerprint browsers spoof or block them.
- 08 Fewer extensions = smaller fingerprint. Each one you add makes you more identifiable, not less.
// BROWSER LAYER
- 09 Block third-party cookies. They follow you across sites to build a profile.
- 10 "Do Not Track" is advisory — most sites ignore it. Don't rely on it.
- 11 Use a hardened browser (Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser) for sensitive sessions, a separate one for daily use.
- 12 Compartmentalize: different identities should never share the same browser profile.
// HABIT LAYER
- 13 Consistency is a fingerprint too. Same login times, same writing style, same devices link your activity.
- 14 Metadata in photos and documents reveals location and hardware. Strip it before sharing.
- 15 Assume anything sent unencrypted is readable in transit. Default to end-to-end encryption.
- 16 The strongest OPSEC is collecting less to leak: minimize accounts, minimize footprint.