Live data from Hacker News

Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

151–160 of 598 posts

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#151

Store a hash of the URLs instead of the URLs themselves.

URLs are matched via a regex or wildcard type syntax, to eliminate files served out of /ad/ paths (yes, people still do this).

This makes hashes somewhat less useful. And a distinct hash of a URL could likely be considered to be the URL itself for the purposes of a legal action.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#152
post #113

uBlock and uMatrix have a "page blocked" function when the entire page matches a filter, could something similar be implemented for these situations? Say, if a page requests content from these blocked domains, the ad blocker display an SSL warning-esque page that says something along the lines of "This page contains ad content protected by the DMCA. These ads may contain malicious material, and can not be safely view…

This is pretty much what I want. If loading sketchy third-party tracking images is a condition of reading your content, fine, but tell me in advance so I can pass.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#153
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad but true :( If we could only remove the logjam in congress right now to get some real work done... currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle and have completely forgotten why they're there.

> currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle You mean since about 1790? There have always been two parties in congress (minus the era of good feelings) and they have always had opposing ideology, and have almost always blocked one another's proposals. It is very naive to think the current Republican congress is anything different or new. Their inaction is intentional - they need to pass their anti-c…

There is way more money in politics now than there was in 1790. Hell, there is way more money in politics now than there was in 1970. It's the root of all evil, it really is. Name any malady you want of our current system -- at the end of the day I guarantee you it is in some way attributable to somebody buying influence at some point.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#154
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encrypted IP is still IP.

a url isn't and can't be IP - otherwise, how would anyone go to any website without violating copyright?

That's what I'm getting at. The DMCA complaint should have been rejected. It wasn't because the people filtering the incoming requests are using a simple high pass filter of "is this text on this page". So, if you encode the data, you remove the ability to use the DMCA inappropriately.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#155

I didn't get what the hell happened. So, Admiral—an anti-adblocker company—contacted EasyList and told them to remove a domain from their list. This domain was a server they needed for their anti-adblocker platform to work. EasyList told Admiral that they would only do it if GitHub agreed, so Admiral contacted GitHub and the domain was removed from the EasyList list after GitHub told EasyList they should comply. The…

IIUC, the DMCA says that if there's some technological mechanism X that's used to enforce copyright, and a tool Y that is (or can be) used to circumvent X, then making or distributing Y is itself illegal (as opposed to the act of using Y to circumvent X, which is already illegal even without the DMCA). The DMCA then provides a notice-based method for 'taking down' online copies of Y. In this case, X is the Admiral te…

Thanks, I understand better now.

If Admiral enables paywalls, then I kind of agree with Admiral.

If companies want to put paywalls, circumventing them is kind of like jumping the gate to see a concert for free.

I always hit the back button, but publishers should be free to put up paywalls (no idea why they don't do it server-side, but that's another story).

So, I guess the article or at least the title are a little sensationalistic?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#156
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright law doesn't care what technology you use to store and distribute material. If you have a blockchain that contains unauthorized copyrighted material, any host participating in that network would be legally subject to DMCA requests by the copyright holder. What would the defense look like in court, anyway? "We can't stop illegally distributing the plaintiff's content because that would break the chain?" In ef…

You are overlooking the fact that there is no actual DMCA violation in this case. The problem is that companies being bullied with frivolous DMCA threats will comply because it is easier than fighting it. Using a blockchain removes this as an option (and also makes the bullying pointless in the first place).

And when your DMCA-proof storage system receives a valid DMCA notice for an actual case of infringement, what's the plan?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what open in new tab is for. Close tab is way better than back. Easier, more consistent and faster.

Use the mouse wheel/middle button. Will open a new tab when you click on a link and will close a tab when you click on the tab. This changed my life.

too fickle: half the time I endup also scrolling. ctrl-click is far more predictable. Same result, less "trying to press a thing designed to roll".

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#158
post #95
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irrelevant because ipfs.io may act as a proxy but content is stored somewhere on the network and accessible via IPFS.

Still need some proxy for it to be accessible from the internet right?

No, you don't need one: you are supposed to run your own IPFS node. There are even browsers that supports IPFS out-of-the-box.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#159

It was admiral that did this: https://blog.getadmiral.com/dmca-easylist-adblock-copyright-... They even clearly state they used the only tool available to them, DCMA. From all the current summaries on this, DMCA does not apply to a line entry in easylist. A domain can be trademarked. This should be added back in. And if github cannot standup to DMCA abuse, then well, easylist and all other developers should be giving…

From what I can tell, the DMCA does apply (sort of) Admiral seems to be a paywall server basically. If blocking their domain gave access to paywalled content, then the DMCA seems to apply http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/circumventing-copyright-cont... However, that defense is a bit flimsy to me since the fall back to having the paywall blocked could/should be a "Paywall blocked, please disable your addblocker to gain…

I think it's worth mentioning that even if an easylist filter entry counts as "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access" -- which I think is debatable for multiple reasons -- the DMCA takedown procedure only covers copyright infringement. It does not apply to anti-circumvention measures.

As Admiral's blog post points out, Github recommends using the same contact procedure for anti-circumvention takedown requests as for normal DMCA takedowns. But as far as I can tell, they're doing so purely on their own initiative; such a takedown request doesn't have the force of law in the same sense that a claim of copyright infringement does.

Post reply on HN