Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 207 posts

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

#51

Post by belthesar »

MattGaiser wrote: post #37
bcye wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is competition offering ad-free services, this would be an option. But for large parts, there isn't.

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

I really and truly do wish this wasn't true, but it is. Part of this is because we've built an expectation that the only thing one needs to pay for to use services connected on the Internet is access, and once access is paid for, the problem is solved.

But that's not the case. Products cost money, and we've established a pattern of free to play to freemium for much of the most popular services. This could change, but it would take the major players to flip the script, and they've invested so much into ad systems that they'd be hard pressed to abandon it.

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

#52

Post by costco »

bawolff wrote: post #11
guitarlimeo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, current ad blockers can't block ads from Widevine (DRM protected) streams, so I guess it's only a matter of time until Chromium team comes up with Widevine for webpages and then it's game over for normal consumers.

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.

Widevine has already been reverse engineered. You just need to extract a device private key and there are numerous methods for doing so. "Web Environment Integrity" will never work.

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

#53

Post by kedean »

Semaphor wrote: post #23
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.

Most captcha solutions are also hard for me, but easy for computers to solve. So I really hope their use doesn’t get expanded even further…

"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.

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

#54

Post by tensor »

didntcheck wrote: post #26
soco wrote: post #20

We're all complaining and blaming the big corporations for the pitiful state the internet got to be now but seems we are all contributing our little to bring it even lower. Because corporations pay, I know, but we are the ones pulling the trigger.

But also because we refuse to pay. Any attempt at monetization is widely demonized, yet people still feel entitled to free content, and refuse to put their money where their mouth is and at least abstain from consuming the content if they really don't think it's worth the price It's funny how scarce the "I'd be willing to pay for good content, but alas, there is no option" claim has become since websites have started…

I am willing to pay for good content, and do, but still often have little choice. E.g. I can't pay for google maps without ads. And no, it's not a reasonable take to suggest I not use any map app.

I also pay for online news, AND STILL GET ADS, so fuck that I block them. It's still the case today that most of the time you do not have an option to pay to get rid of ads, and often when you do it's some ludicrous amount like $10 a month for some blog you might read three times a year.

Part of being able to pay for content is to come up with a fair price for it.

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

#55

Post by bawolff »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #42
xyst wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until quantum computing becomes mainstream and then consumers can break drm on the fly!

You don't need quantum computing. You just need a debugger. The user already has the encryption key, else they would not be able to see the content.

Widevine has different levels. In level 1 & 2 the key is in a TPM.

Even for level3, i can only inagine that the amount of obfuscation must be pretty intense.

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

#56

Post by tensor »

golergka wrote: post #46
lakomen wrote: post #12

Just once and for all understand, people who do not want to see ads and you force ads on them, will not come to your site. All you're doing is making the user experience worse and decreasing your site's worth. And people will remember who was so rude to them. I've been there. Don't do it.

If your website is monetized through ads, why would you want these people to visit it in the first place?

They will share your website with others, post links to it on social media, etc. Websites are all about driving traffic to it. Also, "these people" are also often willing to pay for good content if it's priced right. Substack is a good example of this, even if some of the prices are still too high.

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

#57

Post by bawolff »

Semaphor wrote: post #23
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.

Most captcha solutions are also hard for me, but easy for computers to solve. So I really hope their use doesn’t get expanded even further…

Which is mostly because computers are good at solving them. A DRM based captcha wouldn't have that issue in theory.

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

#59

Post by michaelt »

Mindwipe wrote: post #38
guitarlimeo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, current ad blockers can't block ads from Widevine (DRM protected) streams, so I guess it's only a matter of time until Chromium team comes up with Widevine for webpages and then it's game over for normal consumers.

> As far as I know, current ad blockers can't block ads from Widevine (DRM protected) streams, so I guess it's only a matter of time until Chromium team comes up with Widevine for webpages and then it's game over for normal consumers. Only where the the adverts are embedded with an encrypted single stream. Hard to do targeted advertising that way though. It is a lever that you can pull that's better than nothing thou…

Most modern video formats allow you to splice multiple videos together without recompressing, so long as they use the same codec, resolution and framerate and you do it at an I-frame.

So long as you can run code on your CDN edge servers - which Youtube undoubtedly can - there's no technical reason this couldn't be done.

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

#60

Post by kedean »

TylerE wrote: post #44
deadbabe wrote: post #39

SMS is the next big frontier for ads, every few messages with someone you can see a little ad about something related to your conversations. Or if a conversation has gone stale and someone hasn’t replied in several days, inject an ad to wake it back up.

SMS is dead. The US is basically an abberation in still using it. Rest of the world has moved on to whatsapp/imessage/whatever.

Those are all closed-loop messaging systems. If anything whatsapp/imessage/whatever are more vulnerable to what was suggested because they aren't open/standardized protocols.
Post reply on HN