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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

#221

Post by krakensden »

gech wrote: post #165
turblety wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already you have restrictive software/firmware running on your computer. Look into Intel ME (Management Engine) a likely backdoor into your computer you have no control over, don't know what it does, and can not disable it. It already helps many DRM applications to restrict what content you can play and how. Legislation to disable adblocking could be reinforced already be implemented into the next generation of Intel…

Do Ryzen chips have this?

AMD has a different but equivalent thing called PSP, or "platform security processor", which is ARM's TrustZone.

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

#222

Post by rvern »

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…

The United States is only one of the many countries that Google and Facebook operate in. They have to follow the laws of the other countries as well, and they have done so in the past. Furthermore, if humans are still able to recognize the ads as ads after they are not explicitly marked as ads, a perceptual ad-blocker might be able to detect them too.

If the adtech companies modify the ads enough that the ads are indistinguishable from non-sponsored content, this xkcd applies: https://xkcd.com/810/.

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

#223

Post by bdhess »

just2n wrote: post #184
skybrian wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given how common it is for members of Congress to become mega millionaires over a few decades on a job that pays ~$200k/yr, I wouldn't trust them in this capacity. How many of us would hold steady in our own ethics and morals if someone routinely offered something like a $2,500,000 payday and we had no risk at all of being fired or jailed?

> Given how common it is for members of Congress to become mega millionaires over a few decades on a job that pays ~$200k/yr

Can you provide a source for this? Don't know much about the topic but I've always assumed that, in general, Congressmembers who are wealthy were already wealthy before they were elected to Congress.

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

#224

Post by Pxtl »

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

Actually, I'm hoping this will be the future - ads hosted by the server instead of fetched by the client. Then when an ad service hosts malicious code it'll infect the server instead my my goddamned machine.

What with foreign tracking cookies and ads and whatnot, the ability to refer to content on another domain within a website seems to be a user-hostile feature in the end, as much as allows for creative infrastructure models for providers.

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

#225

Post by johncolanduoni »

derefr wrote: post #129
Chaebixi wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure Anti-ad-blocking laws are practically enforceable An anti-ad-blocker ad would probably be easy to enforce: arrest the people making and distributing ad blockers. However, I think the main threat is a repeal of requirements to label ads (which this technology relies on), not to ban ad-blockers outright. I bet that would cause less resistance. Quoth the OP: > Perceptual ad-blocking, on the other hand, ignore…

You assume everyone who writes an ad-blocker lives in the US, or a in country the US has coerced into joining WIPO. If an ad-blocked is written by a Chinese citizen, hosted in a Russian data-center, and attached to an Iranian domain name, what precisely is the US government going to do?

Don't you remember when libdvdcss was so illegal you had to run a script (that Ubuntu shipped) to download it? The horror!

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

#226

Post by Svexark »

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.

It's a felony to access a computer system without authorization, access a computer system to obtain unauthorized computer services, degrade or disrupt a computer system, take data without authorization, or to use data obtained through misuse of a computer system.

The law is so vague everyone technically commits a felony every time they load a web page. Did ycombinator give you explicit permission to use this server? No, they did not. If they want you punished for posting this and they can find a friendly district attorney, you're screwed.

I'm old enough to remember when the conventional wisdom was that sharing music on the internet wasn't stealing because nobody was being deprived of physical media. Give Google a few years to lobby and create PSAs and people will being going to jail for creating ad blockers.

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

#228

Post by andresgottlieb »

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…

You're forgetting about companies whose business is not ad based (eg. Apple), they will make sure not to allow those laws to pass.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

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]

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

#230

Post by microcolonel »

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…

I don't think it will get that out of hand. There is huge popular support for ad blocking, and many of the general public would show force on this.
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