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Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

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Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#131

Post by aqfamnzc »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #129
wrigglingworm wrote: post #87

I wouldn't even mind ads if most sites weren't malicious with how they serve them. Do not make a new window pop up, do not try to download anything to my computer without my explicit instruction, do not make me click an x to view the content, do not interrupt the content to serve an ad. Why can't they just have a nice little ad on the left and/or right side of the page that doesn't interrupt my intake of their conten…

The entire point of ad is to make you notice. As you said you "don't mind", this is not something ads would want. It's a raising bar as people are starting to learn to ignore ads more and more subconsiously.

I've successfully removed ads from basically my whole life, but now when I do happen to see one I'm less conditioned to ignore it. So boy oh boy do I notice. I kind of hate it. My eye is immediately drawn to anything flashy or moving, to the point where I'll make an effort to sit facing away from any TV screen in a restaurant.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#132

Post by YetAnotherNick »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #88

I really wish the pay-with-compute model stuck. Lending webpages some CPU-cycles (probably to mine crypto) in a controlled and safe way would be a win-win(-win) situation. Websites won't have to submit to their advertising overlords and still be able to incrementally monetize their content. Users won't have to deal with the downgraded experience — while sacrificing compute cycles anyway to download and display the aw…

Facebook earns $68/user/month[1]. Even if we assume electricity is free, crypto won't come anywhere close on even high end cpu.

[1]: https://i0.wp.com/fourweekmba.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02...

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#134

Post by freedomben »

jerf wrote: post #83
kedean wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Select every tile with motorcycles", shows an image of a single motorcycle parked on the street. Does the sliver of a tire that shows up in the bottom right tile count, or not? This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous.

"This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous." While those CAPTCHAs present a surface narrative of you having to get the problem correct, that's not how they really work. After all, it's not like they are creating those problems by hand. They're pushing the images through computers. You don't even know that what the CAPTCHA server considers correct is even clos…

Interesting, I guess this explains why I can never "solve" the damn things on my desktop. I use an Ultimate Hacking Keyboard which has a mouse layer, so I control the mouse cursor with my keyboard. It means that my mouse always travels in either perfectly horizontal, perfectly vertical, or perfectly diagonal patterns, and at very different timings than a human using a traditional mouse would.

But, it pisses me off to no end that I can't use my fucking keyboard the way it is supposed to be used (which is a far superior design to the "normal" setup) to view some websites because it doesn't "look" human to the fucking server who expects me not to be a statistical outlier. As someone who has always been an outlier, I kind of hate the algorithmic future we live in and are headed even further toward. This is why we can't have nice things.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#135

Post by freedomben »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #75
ghayes wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never successfully gotten a “click all motorcycle squares” to succeed. With a VPN, nothing usually works until “click until there are no more X.” It’s so consistent that I’m pretty sure it’s designed that way, since the final task is time-gated.

> With a VPN, nothing usually works until [...] Bots are very likely to use VPNs, so captcha services make things a real pain in the ass for anyone connecting from a VPN. It's the same story with Tor. Coming from a VPN/Tor is a strong signal that you're more likely to be a malicious user.

I'm guessing they also use failed CAPTCHA statistics as more "proof" that those users are malicious. How much should we bet that each time I fail a CAPTCHA because it's utter shit, and happen to be on a VPN, somebody somewhere counts it as a "blocked bot" or "blocked attack"? I guess I don't want to know as it will probably make me angry.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#136

Post by freedomben »

mvkel wrote: post #36
flohofwoe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet was just fine before it was turned into an ad delivery platform.

What year would that have been? The first dot com boom and bust was entirely ad-driven, and before that, the internet wasn't much of an internet.

Yep, when I created my first website in the mid 90s, ads were definitely already a thing. It was pretty bad even, worse than nowadays because there weren't any adblockers and ads would abuse the living hell out of frames and popup windows.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#137

Post by freedomben »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #63
MattGaiser wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy ad free services for a lot of them. Few pay.

On the other hand, surprisingly few "ad-free" service tiers turn out to actually be ad-free, which tends to undermine the whole concept. It's extremely common to get various kinds of "special" promotions that don't go through the standard ad platform. Sites have been known to forget the premium option when A/B testing changes to ad placements. Multiple streaming services have ads on some shows even on their top "ad-f…

Yep, thanks Paramount Plus aka CBS All Access. I paid for ad-free, yet for some reason still see ads (previews/promotions for Paramount content). Fortunately I cancelled because their app would let me watch Star Trek Picard and Discovery, but it kept fluctuating colors from heavy green to purple. It only happened on the newer shows, not on the older Star Treks. My best guess is that the DRM thinks something weird might be going on, but it's just a plain Chromecast with Google TV. Making the user experience for paying customers suck is what leads to people going elsewhere...

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#138

Post by freedomben »

jedberg wrote: post #72

My first question was "Why would someone do this and release it?" but it looks like they answered that question at the end of the README. :(

Classic security philosphical conundrum. Do you let the black hats figure it out on their own and weaponize it, or do you have a white hat figure it out and release it so it's common knowledge to the world?

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#139

Post by bawolff »

Adverblessly wrote: post #108
bawolff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i know its evil, i always wished widevine was an option for creating captchas. Most captcha solutions are defeated by services like 2captcha.net and generally aren't the most privacy respecting.

I'd prefer to see proof-of-work based captchas. I'd much rather give up 10 minutes of CPU time for a token that can be revoked as soon as I actually use it for evil than give up all of my privacy (and two minutes of my personal time) for the privilege of using your annoying website.

Proof of work captchas are pretty hard to tune. You need it high enough to deter spammers (who can pre-compute and dont care about latency), but low enough not to deter real users on low powered devices who are using your site live and get more frustrated every second they have to wait.

It might work for spammers who really are just making billion of attempts, but then again if they are making that many attempts then you can block on the IP level.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#140

Post by mondalaci »

freedomben wrote: post #134
jerf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous." While those CAPTCHAs present a surface narrative of you having to get the problem correct, that's not how they really work. After all, it's not like they are creating those problems by hand. They're pushing the images through computers. You don't even know that what the CAPTCHA server considers correct is even clos…

Interesting, I guess this explains why I can never "solve" the damn things on my desktop. I use an Ultimate Hacking Keyboard which has a mouse layer, so I control the mouse cursor with my keyboard. It means that my mouse always travels in either perfectly horizontal, perfectly vertical, or perfectly diagonal patterns, and at very different timings than a human using a traditional mouse would. But, it pisses me off to…

Gotta outsmart the algorithm by introducing some jiggle like at https://forum.ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/t/mouse-jiggler-ma...

The forum folks may be able to provide a solution.

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