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Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

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Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#51

Post by asquabventured »

nickbail3y wrote: post #15

According to the article, current adblockers like Ublock Origin aren't searching for keywords in the page elements for ads, they're just using human maintained lookup lists? That's very surprising. I would have thought that would be the first avenue of attack for adblockers. Also, who wants to help me retrofit this thing to actually block ads?

> According to the article, current adblockers like Ublock Origin aren't searching for keywords in the page elements for ads

That's not quite true, uBlock Origin has the ability to block Procedural cosmetic filters [1] first introduced in version 1.8.0 [2].

These filters don't stop the network request from loading, but they do have the ability to look for target words. e.g. facebook inline feed ads can be cosmetically removed with the following filter [3]:

    'facebook.com###stream_pagelet div[id^="hyperfeed_story_id_"]:if(span.uiStreamAdditionalLogging:has-text(Sponsored))'
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Procedural-cosmetic-f...

[2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/1.8.0

[3] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/233#issuecomm...

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#52

Post by JBReefer »

iamben wrote: post #45

At risk of being very unpopular, am I the only person that doesn't mind ads? I mean some are pretty intrusive, but largely I'm happy to make the trade off. I'll look at (and maybe click on) your ad, if it means you have the cash to bring me what I want to look at. It's fantastic to think we live in a world where the web can support itself without ads, but it's not really practical, is it? Some stuff I'd support - but…

I have 0 problem with websites that serve up ads that:

1. Are from their own domain 2. Are not flash/autoplaying video 3. Don't track me/aren't ad tech 4. Actually have something to do with the content

Run a homebrewing site? Great, run ads for stuff to do with that. I'll probably click on them, I am looking up homebrewing info! Run a homebrewing site that serves me ads for refrigerators, because I looked at one on Amazon three weeks ago? That's creepy, and that's getting blocked. Same with pop ups pop unders etc.

Advertisers seem to be moving in the same direction - Viacom has reported a lot of wins over the ad-tech insanity.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#53

Post by [deleted] »

flubert wrote: post #17
throwaway13337 wrote: post #2

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet marketing run rampant? It would sure be a different world.

How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? Is it essentially paid for as a marketing / recruiting aid out of ycombinator funds? Or is it a charity paid for by PG?

[deleted]

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#54

Post by Veen »

iamben wrote: post #45

At risk of being very unpopular, am I the only person that doesn't mind ads? I mean some are pretty intrusive, but largely I'm happy to make the trade off. I'll look at (and maybe click on) your ad, if it means you have the cash to bring me what I want to look at. It's fantastic to think we live in a world where the web can support itself without ads, but it's not really practical, is it? Some stuff I'd support - but…

I don't mind advertising in principle. The advertising from The Deck was fine by me. I do mind pervasive tracking, ugly webpages filled with attention gobbling trash, heavy webpages, malvertising, and the horrible morals of the advertising and ad tech industries.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#55

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII »

nickbail3y wrote: post #15

According to the article, current adblockers like Ublock Origin aren't searching for keywords in the page elements for ads, they're just using human maintained lookup lists? That's very surprising. I would have thought that would be the first avenue of attack for adblockers. Also, who wants to help me retrofit this thing to actually block ads?

Your question has been answered already, I'd just like to point out there is a second "advanced" mode in uBlock Origin: Basically, you disable loading of everything by default and a click on the icon shows you what servers the page tried to load stuff from. Then you can enable them on a case by case basis, temporarily or add your selection as a new permanent rule.

This is independent of and in addition to the lists, they are always used. It gives you much greater control. What I do is first load the page with everything disabled, then I enable piece by piece until I get enough of the page working. Most of the time it's obvious, for example when there is a big white space on the page where you expect a video to be and you see that youtube.com was blocked you know they tried to show an embedded Youtube video. If you want to see it you enable that domain and the page refreshes. Etc.

I used the default mode of just the lists for most of my life, but now I can't imagine my life without the advanced mode. (As a Chrome user) I don't miss NoScript any more (yes I know that does even more).

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#56

Post by aub3bhat »

Wait they don't even have a fully working implementation, and yet VICE is already proclaiming it as an end of Ad-blocking wars?

Color me skeptical.

Now I know that the original authors did not write the clickbait headline or even the article, but working on Ad blocker is a poor use of resources. On a longer time horizon websites that cannot be supported via Ads will turn into Apps that require multiple permissions + FB/Google login. This type of effort is frankly futile, you might win the battle on Ad-blockers but you are guaranteed to lose the War of economic incentives.

But hey in the meantime some clueless reporter writes a breathless article about your imaginary triumph on something everyone likes to hate, so why not.

Also as far as their scheme of detecting "adchoices" icon or container sizes, it can be trivially circumvented. When it comes to circumventing such algorithms, disorganized hackers routinely do that for far more secure things. Organized well paid engineers at Ad tech companies can probably beat them in couple of days if not hours. Worse their scheme penalizes good companies that opt-in into adchoices. So a site operator is forced to choose shadier ad networks (guaranteeing higher revenue) which this scheme won't be able to block. As a result the user gets a worse experience!

As much as it is in vogue to hate advertisers, crippling someone's business model (whatever your cute ethical reasons might be) while using institutional resources is not a great idea. Princeton CS might soon find itself on wrong side of a lawsuit, where upvotes and retweets might not count much.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#57

Post by wtetzner »

mdpopescu wrote: post #37

I think these guys haven't read pg's Submarine [1]. Assuming everything works as they claim (it won't), the ads will just pretend to be articles. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

At least it might prevent ads from causing sites to be unusably slow.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#58

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #40
downandout wrote: post #36

The article puts a significant emphasis on the idea that bulletproof ad-blocking technology, assuming that's what this turns out to be in practice, will work long-term becuase of legal restrictions imposed by the FTC. If Google, Facebook, or other multi-billion dollar entities detect an existential threat arising from this or any other technology, rest assured that the laws will change as quickly as is necessary to k…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#59

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII »

pmontra wrote: post #46
IIIIIIIIIIII wrote: post #29

This is not the end of the arms race. At some point we will have AI designing and AI delivering ads, and while we may have AI designed to prevent us from having to watch ads we don't want we will also have AI that watches everything, gathering and filtering information that is too much for us to handle but tuned to our needs since it's "our AI". Then the race will be that one AI wants to trick the consumer AI into gi…

This is an asymmetrical game because most ads are meant to be recognized as such (product placement and sponsored content are subtler than that). So the anti ad AI has an advantage over the ad publishing one. If an ad gets through because the adblocker doesn't recognizes it AI probably the reader won't notice it too.

You assume ads will be recognizable as such, but even today we have ads that few people recognize. From waves of reddit /r/funny posts about certain sitcoms or sugary beverages to product placements in articles, shows, films to magazine and news articles, not always recognizable as ads because often they are not actually ads but actual articles that only happen to mention some products. Very nice for publishers who get whole articles that they don't have to do much to produce.

So even today even 100% human "ad blockers" are unable to block a lot of ads because they are unaware they are looking at one.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#60

Post by jpambrun »

downandout wrote: post #36

The article puts a significant emphasis on the idea that bulletproof ad-blocking technology, assuming that's what this turns out to be in practice, will work long-term becuase of legal restrictions imposed by the FTC. If Google, Facebook, or other multi-billion dollar entities detect an existential threat arising from this or any other technology, rest assured that the laws will change as quickly as is necessary to k…

Not sure Anti-ad-blocking laws are practically enforceable. Even with the ad labeling requirements relaxed, unless it is truly deceptive, a CNN could identify it just as well (or better) than we can.
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