Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 598 posts

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#441

Post by jfoutz »

throwawaywonk wrote: post #251
jxramos wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if folks could get sneaky and change the design from a literal url to a regular expression tailored to single out that url but would also include additional sites that are just gibberish and could be relaxed if useful sites ever do fall into the URL overlap. This might be a new line of research to craft regExs to filter out a specific string while also throwing out a bunch of sister gibberish strings that wo…

Why is it that the tech set always forgets that CS pedantry != legal pedantry? Have we forgotten about intent? You can't just change the line to a regex that /just happens/ to match that URL and go "neener neener neener it's not the same!" Are you willing to argue in court that that line was changed and it /just so happened/ to match the domain from before? Do you have a plausible explanation for why that change woul…

The claim is about copyrighted material thus DMCA, right? the only reason that string appears is for matching. The intent is for identification, not stealing someone else's copyrighted material. If there's a better way to match than comparing to a literal copy then we should do that. Ideally, one regex that matches all offending domains and no others.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#442

Post by criddell »

throwawaywonk wrote: post #251
jxramos wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if folks could get sneaky and change the design from a literal url to a regular expression tailored to single out that url but would also include additional sites that are just gibberish and could be relaxed if useful sites ever do fall into the URL overlap. This might be a new line of research to craft regExs to filter out a specific string while also throwing out a bunch of sister gibberish strings that wo…

Why is it that the tech set always forgets that CS pedantry != legal pedantry? Have we forgotten about intent? You can't just change the line to a regex that /just happens/ to match that URL and go "neener neener neener it's not the same!" Are you willing to argue in court that that line was changed and it /just so happened/ to match the domain from before? Do you have a plausible explanation for why that change woul…

How about using ROT13 encryption for the list and then go after them if they circumvent your content protection scheme.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#443

Post by criddell »

anilgulecha wrote: post #38
whipoodle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say it's not an ad server but it sounds like one.

It's a "detect-adblocker" service.

IMHO opinion, this shouldn't even be necessary.

I use ad-blockers in every browser and I would have no problem if that were part of the headers my browser emits ( have no idea if it is or not). If websites don't want to serve me because I'm blocking ads, so be it.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#444

Post by warcher »

goodplay wrote: post #215
danarmak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What does ad-blocking have to do with copyright circumvention or copyright enforcement? The only think on that list is the domain name. I'm certain that including a name in a list does not fall under copyright (ample precedent that backs it up). In the unlikey (and unfathomable) case that it is protected under copyright, I bet it would fall under fair use. Trademark law isn't relevant to an entry in a machine databas…

I think the argument would be that, say, the New York Times wrote an article, and that article included ads for their sponsor. This third party tool is making unauthorized edits to the New York Times' copyrighted material.

I'm a hardline free speech dude, but I find it difficult to justify "We changed around your copyrighted work to remove stuff we decided we don't like." If you don't like ads, pay up or go elsewhere. You do not have a right to anybody else's IP.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#445

Post by badwolf »

djsumdog wrote: post #253
marksomnian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or D: add the popup asking me to disable my adblocker... to my adblocker. Only works on some sites, but where it does it's effective.

If I'm really interested, I might open the inspector and delete the offending div, but often scroll is still hijacked or I'll delete div after div up the stack only to accidentally delete the content too. It's a pain and it's often easier to use the cached version from a search engine or some archiving service.

I'm quite fond of the "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet

     javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#447

Post by [deleted] »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #186
danarmak wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMCA doesn't just let you request the takedown of copyrighted content. It lets you request the takedown of tools which can be used to "circumvent technological restrictions" on accessing other, unrelated copyrighted content. So for instance, when the CSS encryption on DVDs was broken, there were DMCA takedown requests issued to sites hosting the deCSS decryption code, even though the copyright of that code itself…

That could be, cite to the law or description of it? I'm interested in learning more. What I see in the law ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 ) is that a "notification of claimed infringement" must include "Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such w…

[deleted]

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#448

Post by sqeaky »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #340
nilved wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they would purge it from the repo. In fact, it's questionably the case that they have abided by the DMCA order, for the very reason that it still exists in the repo history. As far as I know, DMCA takedowns normally lead to closing the entire repo.

How about don't host the code at a location which has such hostile laws?

This isn't a legal issue in that the laws are bogus (I mean, they are but it is not the issue here). The real issue is that this company is bully and using the legal system as a bludgeon. These abuses should be penalized and they would happen less.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#449

Post by sbarre »

swang wrote: post #249
sbarre wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you understand the comment you replied to? The DMCA is not just about direct copyright infringement, but also about preventing the circumvention of technological protections for copyrighted content. No one is saying there was copyright infringement here. You can think that this is super bogus (I sure do) but make sure you understand the nature of what you're mad about. ;-)

again, what does a text file do to violate the dmca? what's next, a 128-bit number? IANAL, so i guess until it goes to the court and is decided, we won't know.

It was decided in court already actually (maybe you were being sarcastic here?) back in 2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

https://cyber.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/NY/appeals/opinion.htm...

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#450

Post by Gracana »

thecrazyone wrote: post #423
Gracana wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather just go a level up... You don't want users to tamper with your ads? Ok, we'll block your entire site. No tampering.

users of your list will not get this. And will stop using your list. This ending up not serving your purpose nor theirs. For instance, let me go out on a limb and point out how some distros of linux insist on shipping without any non-free software. So, a user ends up having to go through hoops to just get an audio of video file playing. I think the analogy Im going for is, you don't want to play by our rules (our lic…

You're definitely right. Our ability to ignore our ideals when we're slightly inconvenienced is why content paired with invasive ads is so effective in the first place.
Post reply on HN