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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

#191

Post by grangerg »

eropple wrote: post #49
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…

For a long time I didn't adblock, because I do believe in paying it forward. But--set aside the psychological battery enacted to make you Believe In The Brand and still , at this point, advertising is a threat vector. Text ads? Don't mind them. Image-based ads like Project Wonderful? Also fine. But I block a lot of ads now just because I can't evaluate effectively the safety of their payloads.

This is the only reason I use an ad-blocker. They are often an attack vector for 0day exploits. They remove that risk and the block comes off.

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

#192

Post by lol768 »

bagacrap wrote: post #11

Doesn't this blocker still require you to load and render the ads so they can apply their vision techniques to them? You won't get any performance win and you'd still see empty popovers or blank space. I don't see how detecting that something is an ad is enough on its own to create an effective ad blocking solution. The part about defeating known anti-ad blockers seems rather unfair. If this technique did gain popula…

> Doesn't this blocker still require you to load and render the ads so they can apply their vision techniques to them?

Definitely seems that way from what I understood. Seems like a novel technique, but not something I'd personally flock to use unless my network/element based rules suddenly became ineffective.

Rather than being used via an extension in the client's browser though, this technology looks like it could be incredibly useful for automatically figuring out rule changes and updating e.g. the element hiding rules automatically.

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

#193

Post by the8472 »

aub3bhat wrote: post #80
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…

Or simply a hardened browser DMCA, with signed write-or-execute JS VM that ensures that integrity of the page as rendered cannot be messed with by some pesky extension.

You mean EME? They could basically deliver a single-frame video containing the ads, text and image of the page. With some hitboxes layered over the element so that when the user clicks on something it still is interactive.

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

#194

Post by the8472 »

derefr wrote: post #134
imglorp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covering is not as good as not loading. Loading brings all the malware, the tracking, and the bandwidth/load times.

"Not loading" doesn't make sense in the case where the ad is inline in the response body (i.e. "part of the site", like Facebook's ads are.) Which is the case where this ad-blocker uniquely shines. Besides which, the algorithm involved is a computer-vision one, so the ad needs to be rendered before the algorithm can recognize it as an ad. The best solution here, if you want maximum privacy, would be to use a traditio…

> where the ad is inline in the response body

That only applies to the HTML, which generally is fairly lightweight. They still load additional images, videos, do XHRs for tracking etc.

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

#195

Post by narrowrail »

brianwawok wrote: post #186
oh_sigh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it within a musicians rights as a copyright holder of their own work, that you can't play their music on <$1,000 speakers?

If a musician clearly put that on the package of a CD, why not? I dont have a constitutional right to buy an artist's CD.

Instead of making shit up about what you think makes sense, please familiarize yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

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

#196

Post by andrepd »

skybrian wrote: post #123
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…

This is too cynical. You can be sure there will be lobbyists involved making the case for companies affected, but this does not guarantee results . Any business plan where there's government involved is risky. Heck, even with a Republican-controlled Congress, the Republicans can't always get their agenda passed because they don't even agree among themselves what it is. Nobody can rest easy that Congress will do what…

And don't forget this affair of lobbyists and whatnot is mostly an American phenomenon. The EU is far more adept at defending consumers, and has not shied away from drastic measures in the past.

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

#197

Post by adventured »

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…

If you were right, they'd have already done it. If they can so easily get laws changed to what they prefer, ad-blocking would be illegal right now. It costs Google a lot of money. I haven't seen an ad on their search, adsense or youtube platforms in years.

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

#198

Post by RangerScience »

kalid wrote: post #84
RangerScience wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out "General Adversarial Networks". It's basically training a two-part AI via an arms race; one part is trying to fake out the other, the other is trying to detect the fake.

Small fix, I believe it's "Generative" Adversarial Networks.

You are correct sir.

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

#199

Post by daxelrod »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #169
bduerst wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The audience isn't obligated to listen, but it's also not entitled to use content in a manner that the copyright holder doesn't want them to either. If a copyright holder (like Forbes) stipulates that their content is paid for using ads and they won't let you consume it without looking at the ads, then you're neither obligated to or entitled to consume it.

Website terms of service are not law, no matter how people have abused the CFAA. You can't control how a browser displays content, whether it does so with a browser, screen reader, or musical interpretive dance. I look forward to seeing that battle play out.

You may be interested in MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.[1] (the WoW Glider case).

World of Warcraft's Terms of Use prohibited bots. The court found that users who used the Glider bot with WoW were violating the Terms of Use and therefore were not licensed to use WoW in that way. Because users running WoW must copy its content from their hard drives to RAM to run it, the court found that using Glider with WoW constituted copyright infringement.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar....

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

#200

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

bduerst wrote: post #162
JoshTriplett wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisements, like any communication, are a form of free speech, but it'd be unprecedented to demand that anyone provide an audience for your speech. You can speak all you like; nobody is obligated to listen.

The audience isn't obligated to listen, but it's also not entitled to use content in a manner that the copyright holder doesn't want them to either. If a copyright holder (like Forbes) stipulates that their content is paid for using ads and they won't let you consume it without looking at the ads, then you're neither obligated to or entitled to consume it.

Then take away Forbes' safe harbor protection for hacking my computer with unauthorized exploits.
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