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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

#281

Post by turblety »

pjc50 wrote: post #103
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…

> It already helps many DRM applications to restrict what content you can play and how. [citation needed] - I'm aware of the hypervisor capabilties of ME but not aware of it being used for DRM yet?

Yeah using PAVP "Protected Audio/Video Path". Basically there are chunks of memory that are only accessible to the Management Engine. (Note at this point it doesn't work in reverse, there is no memory that is not accessible to the Intel ME. It can see and manipulate everything). When your media player wants to play protected video it sends the encrypted content to the graphic card which then sends it through ME for decryption.

But regardless of whether this was already in there or not, Intel could simply put any code in there to force the display of ads or media and there is nothing you can do about it. Also, although this hasn't been done yet as far as we know, they could remotely update your Intel chip the next time you are within range of a known WiFi router to include this new anti-feature.

EDIT: Adding source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Techno...

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

#282

Post by turblety »

filoleg wrote: post #180
gech wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Ryzen chips have this?

Luckily no.

@filoleg unfortunately you are wrong. AMD has equally invasive technology called PSP (Platform Security Processor).

"The PSP is a universal computer with it's own CPU, RAM, ROM, clock etc, that can run whatever software AMD wants it to run, hidden from the user. It could load software anytime without you even noticing. AMD controls the PSP by using unique cryptographic keys which are burnt into each PSP." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13781408

You get all that for free with every new AMD processor, including their new Ryzen chip.

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

#283

Post by NicoJuicy »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #275
magicalist wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google didn't create Android, they bought it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus You'd have a better point if you had pointed to the Linux kernel, the many open source libraries, etc that make it up > Metrics for this are pretty lame, but even they show this is wrong: https://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/09/15/in-your-face-goo... I doubt GP's claim is correct, but that article is terrible. Those counts…

Android, Angular, BoringSSL, Chromium, Dart, Go, Kubernete, TensorFlow. Not to mention the cash and services it ploughs into the OSS in various ways, from the Millions it gave to Firefox over the years, to people collaborating over Hangouts, to Project Zero. I don't think "unmatched" is unreasonable.

Millions to Firefox to be the search engine on the browser.

It wasn't a donation ;)

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

#284

Post by [deleted] »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #253
pducks32 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that distinction still goes to University of Chicago.

Right. There is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, computer science, or engineering, which are Google's primary fields. Although Google deserves an Economics prize for essentially inventing adtech

[deleted]

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

#285

Post by Nullabillity »

nyolfen wrote: post #243
zitterbewegung wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U of C has the most people that have won the Nobel prize historically which points toward people part of the university to win more Nobel Prizes.

is that because of the psuedo-nobel for economics? i don't think that should count towards the tally, and in any case i would have guessed it was the manhattan project edit: for those who are downvoting, you might not be aware that the 'nobel' for economics is not issued by the nobel committee but rather the swedish central bank, using the nobel name to appropriate prestige from the better-known prize presented by th…

> edit: for those who are downvoting, you might not be aware that the 'nobel' for economics is not issued by the nobel committee but rather the swedish central bank, using the nobel name to appropriate prestige from the better-known prize presented by the norwegian nobel committee. it is not affiliated with the nobel peace prize.

There are more Nobel prizes than just the economics and peace prizes, only the peace prize comes from Norway.

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

#286

Post by PostOnce »

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…

Anti-ad-blocking laws sound likely to be as effective as anti-piracy laws.

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

#287

Post by shinypotatoe »

ColanR wrote: post #264
gwu78 wrote: post #248

I do not have "block ads". I simply do not request them. Users do not intentionally make requests for ads or pixels from tracking servers. Browsers do. Automatically. People writing web pages that aim to cash in on advertising budgets depend on this "feature". However it is optional. I read hundreds of web pages and never see any ads. Because for eading the news I do not use a so-called "modern" browser. It seems the…

I'm guessing you use something like w3m or lynx? (if not, I would love to hear about it) The problem is that text-based browsers of that ilk are not user-friendly to the general population. If you have the knowledge to implement that kind of not-requesting of ads, I bet one of the fringe/experimental browsers (I'm thinking of Vivaldi) would be a great place to implement what you're talking about.

I use umatrix for not loading ads and for tracking protection. It is a tool to define from which domains a certain website may fetch resources. It is a bit less convenient than a adblocker, because for every new site you have to configure it, but I think it is great. It's really eye opening how many things some websites load that they do not actually need to show the content I am interested in.

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

#288

Post by pg314 »

Myrmornis wrote: post #260
visarga wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? It was possible, even though most people disagreed at the time, to make open source thrive and write the largest, most complete encyclopedia. Stackoverflow filled with answers without pay. An ad-free world would be ok, people are creative, we can make our own stuff. I, for example, read mostly comment threads, research papers and watch user made videos. We don't need t…

In an ad-free world, only the affluent members of society would pay for access to intelligent journalism. The rest of society would be a mixture of information-starved, and fed information by special interest groups that provide content more cheaply than the paywalls. EDIT: Just to be clear, my own opinion is that online advertising is a horrifically ugly, cynical blight on the human experience, which causes huge amo…

Isn't that what we have currently? Quality journalism seems hard to pull off with only online ads. Most of it nowadays is supported by subscriptions and/or print editions. They help subsidize free access to some of the content.

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

#289

Post by chrischen »

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 music industry failed.

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

#290

Post by zb »

nyolfen wrote: post #243
zitterbewegung wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U of C has the most people that have won the Nobel prize historically which points toward people part of the university to win more Nobel Prizes.

is that because of the psuedo-nobel for economics? i don't think that should count towards the tally, and in any case i would have guessed it was the manhattan project edit: for those who are downvoting, you might not be aware that the 'nobel' for economics is not issued by the nobel committee but rather the swedish central bank, using the nobel name to appropriate prestige from the better-known prize presented by th…

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is issued by the Nobel Foundation and chosen by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, just like the Physics and Chemistry prizes. The difference is that it was not endowed by Alfred Nobel in his will, but later by the Sveriges Riksbank.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econ...

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