Chaff

Digital exhaust poisoning - protect your data from AI scrapers and surveillance

Chaff is a browser privacy companion that helps reduce passive scraping and profiling risk while you browse. Chaff focuses on user-controlled protection actions: - Poison selected text with subtle perturbations - Fill forms with synthetic profile data on demand - Inject limited noise events only when you explicitly trigger it Safety-first defaults: - Safe Mode enabled by default - No always-on cross-site injection - Background noise disabled by default - Manual controls in popup and keyboard shortcuts Chaff is designed for defensive, user-side privacy hardening in your own browser context. # Chaff User Manual ## What Chaff Does Chaff helps reduce tracking by adding harmless privacy noise and text protections while you browse. ## Before You Start 1. Open Chrome and go to `chrome://extensions`. 2. Turn on **Developer mode** (top right). 3. Click **Load unpacked** and select your `chaff` folder. 4. Pin Chaff to your toolbar so it is easy to open. ## First-Time Setup 1. Click the Chaff icon. 2. Keep **Protection Active** on. 3. Leave **Protection Level** on **Medium** to start. 4. Turn on only the features you want. ## Protection Levels (Simple) - **Low**: light protection, least changes to normal browsing. - **Medium**: balanced day-to-day setting (recommended). - **High**: stronger protection, more aggressive behavior. ## Features (What They Mean) - **Homoglyph Substitution**: replaces some characters with look-alikes to reduce direct text fingerprinting. - **Zero-Width Injection**: inserts invisible characters into protected text patterns. - **Background Noise**: generates extra privacy noise in the background. - **Poison on Paste**: modifies pasted text patterns to make profiling harder. - **Form Auto-Fill**: fills forms using generated persona data. ## Persona Box - **Generate Persona** button creates profile data for form filling. - If it says **No persona**, click generate before using **Fill Form**. ## Whitelist Use **Whitelisted Sites** for pages where you do not want Chaff actions to run. ## Action Buttons - **Fill Form**: fills detected fields with persona data. - **Noise Now**: triggers privacy noise immediately. - **Poison Selection**: applies text protection to selected text. - **Reset Stats**: clears current session counters. ## Keyboard Shortcuts - `Ctrl+Shift+F`: Fill Form - `Ctrl+Shift+N`: Inject Noise - `Ctrl+Shift+P`: Poison Selection ## Recommended Daily Setup 1. Keep Protection Active on. 2. Use **Medium** level. 3. Enable `Homoglyph`, `Zero-Width`, and `Poison on Paste`. 4. Keep `Background Noise` off unless you want stronger protection. 5. Add banking/work portals to whitelist if needed. ## Troubleshooting - **Popup does not respond**: reload the extension on `chrome://extensions`. - **Feature not running on page**: refresh the page, then try again. - **Form fill not working**: generate a persona first. - **Too aggressive**: switch to Low or turn off individual features. ## Safety Notes - Use this tool for privacy and defensive protection only. - Respect site rules and laws in your region.