Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#91

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #87

beaconstudios wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does ad blocking need to be a business? It seems like an ideal option for a community open source project.

I maintain an open source project. It isn't my day job though. Sometimes I accept pull requests right away, sometimes it takes me months to get to them. One advantage commercial projects CAN have is someone paid to do daily work on it. (Can is key, sometimes that person exists, sometimes that person doesn't get time)

an open source project that takes donations/patrons can also do that though.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#92

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #83

fjsolwmv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Users who refuse to think, work, or pay for quality, are not entitled to personally customized services. That would be an act of charity, which is affordable for the few who are far pooorer or sicker then the mainstream, but isn't sustainable for the masses.

i guess this is an unpopular position for some reason, but i'm inclined to agree. in pretty much every part of life you have to choose between effort and price. i can change my own oil or pay someone else to do it. i can cook myself dinner or pay to go out. why do people expect the internet to be different?

Surely you can see how these are different. The imposition of third party tracking and annoying advertising isn't inherent in the medium of the web; it's been/being altered to be that way.

Now, if in order to change your own vehicle engine-oil third-parties made it impossible without viewing advertising and giving personal information up would that be fine with you because some blind people who could disguise themselves were still able to access the oil without viewing the advertising and getting tracked?

"Well you have to make effort to change your own oil, if you don't want to use a white cane and custom printed dazzle-camouflage prostheses then you should pay for someone else to do it."??

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#93

Post by simias » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

It seems to me like the potential for abuse is relatively limited. Or maybe I'm just not creative enough.

What's the worst that can happen? If a maintainer starts blocking things that shouldn't be then it's easy to complain publicly (as we see in this GH issue) and get the change reverted. If it becomes obvious that a given maintainer doesn't play by the rules then their list will be dropped.

If a list fails to block some ads then people will complete it or create a new one.

Since as far as I'm aware these block lists can't inject or replace content I can't really imagine how one could take advantage of it in a non-obvious manner.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#94

Post by Cyclone_ » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #4

occamrazor wrote: post #2

Adblocking list should be what their name says: lists that match ads (and advertising-related trackers). There is no place in such a list for politically motivated blacklists. Content based blacklists have their place too. Users are of course free to create hate-speech-block, union-block, trump-block, liberal-block, nazi-block or any-other-category-block, but if these lists are distributed through an adblocker they s…

I really wish the internet would be client-side filtered by default, instead of centrally moderated. We'll end up with filter bubbles either way.

Adblock plus is a client side plugin, the issue was that the blacklist was maintained by someone who wanted to block more than ads. Perhaps there needs to be reviewers from multiple sources for when changes are made to these sort of lists.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#95

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

stevenjohns wrote: post #31

It's crazy that the maintainer of that list thought this would be a good idea. This is a huge breach of trust.

Just practically, anything that's going to have a political effect seems like it would stand out and get your meddling noticed.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#96

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

This isn't the first time bad-faith alterations have been made to filter rule lists. The maintainer of a popular porn site (can't remember off the top of my head which one) famously requested a special exemption for the ads on his site.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#97

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #77

sharpneli wrote: post #5

This is not precisely about the filter list but the whole shenanigans that led to it. Persons from other countries might be interested in this little quirk of Finland. Especially as it relates to workers rights in general. In Finland, unique among Nordic countries, political strikes are allowed. What does this mean? Let's say you're not happy about a decision made by Trump you can go to a strike. Sure the company doe…

The strike thing is complicated, but generally, democracy does not mean "1 person 1 vote, majority rules" or even any of the representative variations. Living under a tyranny of the 51% is not democracy for the 49%. Democracy means "rule by the people". Anything that devoLves power from leaders to individuals is democratic. And anything that shifts power from some individuals to others is a complex case to analyze.

Hmm. In the UK we have representative democracy - the people choose to devolve powers to the leaders on the principle that they work full-time to make the best decisions for the population they represent.

This is a huge shift of power. But perpetual referenda doesn't seem workable with present technology so rule by the demos is always going to mean devolving power to a small group, which has inherent difficulties.

I like the system of the demos being able to force a referendum with a substantial minority, eg 5%. Then perhaps require a supermajority to pass legislation. This works to limit the power of the chosen representatives.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#98

Post by seth__ » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

You could sell a better ad block list. The free ones are very good but could be improved providing bypasses for ad-blocking-blocking. A button to report a website showing ads to have somebody write new rules would be nice too

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#99

Post by leetcrew » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #92

leetcrew wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i guess this is an unpopular position for some reason, but i'm inclined to agree. in pretty much every part of life you have to choose between effort and price. i can change my own oil or pay someone else to do it. i can cook myself dinner or pay to go out. why do people expect the internet to be different?

Surely you can see how these are different. The imposition of third party tracking and annoying advertising isn't inherent in the medium of the web; it's been/being altered to be that way. Now, if in order to change your own vehicle engine-oil third-parties made it impossible without viewing advertising and giving personal information up would that be fine with you because some blind people who could disguise themsel…

okay you're right, the analogy doesn't fit as well as i thought when i woke up this morning.

at a very high level i do still think there are some similarities. people want to consume a tailored tech experience that costs time and money to put together. they don't want to put in any effort to improve their experience, and they definitely don't want to pay for it. what do we do with/for these people? i say we leave them be and document workarounds for people who are willing to do a little reading.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#100

Post by ezoe » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

I am becoming to doubt the value of adblock and the mindset of filter maintainers these days.

It cause a lot of issues on their side but the customer blame the server.

I've heard a story that web-based game not working for some people for no apparent reason.

The developer used their psychic power and change the file name of image files which was something like "foo_ads_bar.png"(the user supplied error log indicated they faild to fetch that resources which shouldn't happen) to not contains the "ads". And he got less bug report.

The image file was not AD but a essential resource for the web-based game. Blocking that, you break the game implementation.

Blanket blocking based on partial three-letter string match on client side? Fine do what you want. It's your computer after all. But don't come toward us crying for help because it's non of our problem.