randrss/README.md

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What is randrss?
================
Normal RSS readers usually fetch all feeds more or less at the same time
at constant intervals. This leaves a signature for anyone who observes
internet traffic. By looking for this pattern, you are more easily
identified.
randrss fetches all your feeds at random intervals at an random order
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over a certain period of time. The feeds will be downloaded and you then
serve tjhem using you a web server. The added benefits of this approach are
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that you don't have to worry about how your client deals with cookies
etc.
Also, by having only one client fetching the feeds and your readers
pointed to the randrss's downloaded feeds, you avoid certain trackers
that may identify you across devices (google's feed proxy, cloudflare),
because it's very likely that the combination of feeds you read are
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unique. As your feeds are on a single server now, you can isolate your
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RSS reader to its own network container so it can only contact your
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server. This is probably what you should do to be sure your client does
not contact the feed servers in any way. In Thunderbird, set
browser.chrome.favicons to false.
The only drawback of this approach is that the time you get new feeds
is delayed, but that should be acceptable.
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By default, torsocks is used to fetch the feeds.
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Usage
=====
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Fetchers
--------
Scripts that request the feeds while trying to look like a normal client.
Config file
-----------
For each feed, an individual config file is used.
Example:
A simple example config file for kernel.org:
FEED_URL="https://www.kernel.org/feeds/kdist.xml"
FEED_OUTPUT="/var/www/feeds/kernelreleases.feed"
Launch
------
randrss [path to directory containing the config files] [fetchersfile]
fetchersfile: take a look at the example file in the repo. It lists
the paths to the fetchers that will randomly be used.
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optional third paramater: "syncnow". Do not sleep for random intervals.
Fetch all feeds and exit.
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