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Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

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Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#221

Post by manigandham »

wlesieutre wrote: post #175
coldpie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you allowing arbitrary javascript to be served to your users?

Not just arbitrary JavaScript, arbitrary JavaScript where they can’t easily even see where it came from! Sheesh. Could we require advertisers to sign their ad code to have a trail of where it came from, prevent tampering, and make it easier to pull the plug on bad actors? The people bearing the costs of the internet ad economy aren’t the people in any position to do anything about it. So there’s very little pressure…

Large adtech demand/sell side platforms do not want to remove these bad actors because they make money on percentage of spend. They are incentivized to increase volume and ad spend at all costs, and there is no regulation to stop them from doing otherwise by continuing to deal with shady companies and known malware techniques.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#222

Post by josephg »

mikeash wrote: post #150
nerdponx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish I could upvote this 1,000 times. It's ridiculous. It's a text-based ad. At worst, it's a clickable image. At what point did it become okay in your minds to let advertisers run arbitrary code? I've left ads turned on specifically on StackOverflow because 1) I want to support StackOverflow, and 2) I trust them not to run malicious ads. I don't even care that they're running ads network-wide. But if they're going t…

It’s completely insane. Can you imagine a TV station receiving ads on tapes and playing them to their audience without looking at them first? Can you imagine TV stations occasionally showing ads containing porn, urging people to kill, showing extreme violence during cartoons, or containing specially crafted audio that blows out your speakers, and the TV station just shrugs and says they try their best to stop these t…

It’s worse than that. Imagine a TV ad which sends malicious code that gets executed to your television, which profiles the hardware in your TV and sends information about your viewing habits (tied to a unique ID) back to the advertiser.

In any other context we would call this a security vulnerability. I think that label also applies here.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#223

Post by _eht »

coldpie wrote: post #86
Nick-Craver wrote: post #68

I just wanted to chime in from Stack Overflow here and let people know: we are aware of the issue. And we're NOT okay with it. We're trying to sort out how to kill the audio behavior now. It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it. We've also reached out to Google for their assistance in tracking it down. If anyone can offer advice, we'll more than happily take it. - Nick C…

Why are you allowing arbitrary javascript to be served to your users?

Why are you allowing arbitrary JavaScript to run on your device?

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#224

Post by xkcd-sucks »

manigandham wrote: post #202
scarface74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stack Overflow has a known demographic and is not some unknown site. Are you really saying that companies like Amazon (AWS),Microsoft, JetBrains, Google (GCP), Slack, etc would ignore a sales pitch from SO?

It doesn't work like that is what I'm saying. You dont just pitch those companies. They have layers of agencies (a master agency of record, creative agencies, media buying agencies) that handle all the advertising duties. These shops create and traffic these ad campaigns in demand-side platforms (DSPs) which connect and bid on inventory in adexchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs). Then there's layers of targeting…

of course you pitch this way. you hire an inside sales guy who has personal relationships with c-level execs, and those execs make it happen because they're personally invested.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#225

Post by ceejayoz »

manigandham wrote: post #205
wool_gather wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They already do this . This is how ads have been run on SO forever. The new ad network ads that they've started with are an aberration from SO's own established practice .

No they don't. They use their own adserver (bought from adzerk) to physically serve the ads, but they have always come through RTB connections to ad exchanges. There are private marketplaces and "automated guaranteed" deals to isolate their inventory in its representation and pricing from the rest of the market but the actual campaigns they get exposure to, and the creatives delivered, aren't special to them.

I've seen plenty of SO-specific ad campaigns being run on the site.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#226

Post by Spooky23 »

josephg wrote: post #222
mikeash wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s completely insane. Can you imagine a TV station receiving ads on tapes and playing them to their audience without looking at them first? Can you imagine TV stations occasionally showing ads containing porn, urging people to kill, showing extreme violence during cartoons, or containing specially crafted audio that blows out your speakers, and the TV station just shrugs and says they try their best to stop these t…

It’s worse than that. Imagine a TV ad which sends malicious code that gets executed to your television, which profiles the hardware in your TV and sends information about your viewing habits (tied to a unique ID) back to the advertiser. In any other context we would call this a security vulnerability. I think that label also applies here.

You don’t need to, it happens already. Many TVs do screen grabs and send everything you do to the manufacturer or partners.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#227

Post by scarface74 »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #224
manigandham wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work like that is what I'm saying. You dont just pitch those companies. They have layers of agencies (a master agency of record, creative agencies, media buying agencies) that handle all the advertising duties. These shops create and traffic these ad campaigns in demand-side platforms (DSPs) which connect and bid on inventory in adexchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs). Then there's layers of targeting…

of course you pitch this way. you hire an inside sales guy who has personal relationships with c-level execs, and those execs make it happen because they're personally invested.

It amazes me that people act like Enterprise sales isn’t a thing.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#228

Post by colek42 »

Nick-Craver wrote: post #68

I just wanted to chime in from Stack Overflow here and let people know: we are aware of the issue. And we're NOT okay with it. We're trying to sort out how to kill the audio behavior now. It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it. We've also reached out to Google for their assistance in tracking it down. If anyone can offer advice, we'll more than happily take it. - Nick C…

This is exactly why I block third party advertisements for myself and everyone that uses my network.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#229

Post by thelazydogsback »

This issue (along with many others) is due to one simple fact -- the internet is still primarily about presentation and rendering not information. We had both client-side template-based rendering and Semantic Web initiatives -- these failed for various technical and non-technical reasons at the time, but I'm hoping we go in that general direction again at some point. Nobody else should be able to (definitively) decide what information I want and how it should be presented to me. We only get the Internet that the majority are willing to put up with.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#230

Post by hannasanarion »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #170
kylegordon wrote: post #93

And this is why, even with the best intentions of site operators, my browser will continue to use the best ad-block tools I can get, and my networks will be protected by tools like PiHole.

Exactly. Market solutions for market problems. I'd love to see the Raspberry PI foundation develop and sell a home router with PIHole for regular consumer use. Considering the alternatives, that sounds really appealing for me. I'd also buy it for my less tech-literate parents.

You can't profit your way out of a problem you profited yourself into. There will never be enough people setting up PiHoles to offset the value of spying, and it's publishing platforms like StackOverflow that suffer.
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