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Instagram Has Become SkyMall

clivethompson.medium.com

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Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#301

Post by stirfish »

FearlessNebula wrote: post #282
grishka wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short. The HTTP client Instagram uses (Proxygen) is written in C++, which means it needs JNI bindings, which means those classes are necessarily excluded from obfuscation. I decompiled the dexes into human-readable bytecode (smali) using apktool, compiled my own class with additional code to strip ads, converted it to dex, decompiled that into smali, added that to instagram smali files, added calls into my class i…

Doesn’t compiling the code into an executable inherently obfuscate it?

Good question, but no. Obfuscation is an additional step you can take to make it harder to turn that executable back into code.

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#302

Post by bellyfullofbac »

perardi wrote: post #53
novoblade wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've never seen those ads before. aren't instagram ads tailored based on your browsing history? if anything, those ads may just be indicative of your recent interests.

What could I possibly have posted that would trigger these ads? Oh. https://imgur.com/a/CXvySpa (Like I said. They know their audience.)

Wow, you've posted pics of yourself twice. Take that attention-seeking shit back to IG.

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#303

Post by stirfish »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #238
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely just you. Women go on Instagram to see fashion with links to shopping "the look".

Some people go to instagram for fashion, but that is definitely not all women nor just women. I personally just wear a black shirt and black pants almost every day, am not all that interested in fashion, and am a woman.

Are you on Instagram? If so, do you find the fashion ads annoying?

I just scrolled through Instagram and I think they changed the ads. I still want to shoot myself, but I'm not getting any ads for weapons anymore

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#304

Post by rareform »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #169
snowwrestler wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar experience on Instagram in that the ads often seem well-tailored to my interests there, which are exclusively outdoor sports and photography. But I have to say that I am disciplined about training the algorithm. I never click on content outside those interests (even if it looks interesting to me). And I occasionally go to the “discover” tab and click only the images that align with those interests. A…

> I never click on content outside those interests (even if it looks interesting to me) That’s a little sad isn’t it? We’re too scared to click on content that looks interesting in case it angers the algorithm :-)

Yeah I was thinking of this the other day with my YouTube usage. Me (and most I know in my generation) open any YT video with content we don't want marketed towards us in a private tab. Had someone comment on it when they were looking over my should the other day - and I realized that I just do it instinctively these days. Not even sure when I started or if it was a conscious decision... my generation just grew up with these algos and learned how to play them i guess

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#305

Post by throwaway3699 »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #184
throwaway3699 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a puritan by any means, but literally millions of kids use this app. It's not a good idea to have these things mixed.

The would you think of the children?!? Argument is so destructive for anything privacy or freedom related, it is politicians silver bullet for any issues. When anyone makes that point now I completely ignore it, as you can use it for anything to do whatever you want, specially curtail freedoms. Educate your children if you are so worried about them, that’s the best thing you can do.

Instagram is a closed source, proprietary app developed by a megacorp. Freedom has nothing to do with anything on that app. Or so I'm told...

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#306

Post by afavour »

sha256kira wrote: post #119
afavour wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I’m a little younger than you and I both post and consume Instagram Stories. It’s mostly of my kids and my friends kids. I like that the posts only last for 24 hours and there a no likes, etc etc. By contrast my actual Instagram profile and FB profile are very quiet. Maybe you have friends that are the same (but if you don’t care to watch endless videos of other people’s kids maybe give it a miss!)

I agree, I like the ephemeral nature of stories in theory at least (Mark Zuckerberg cackles in the distance somewhere).

Oh, for sure there are permanent copies, you can go to your profile to find them. But I actually kind of like that too, I like to be able to privately look back through my old memories. Just don’t want a permanent public record.

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#307

Post by dunnevens »

onion2k wrote: post #193
dunnevens wrote: post #183

I don't use Instagram much, but I am on Facebook too often. The limitations of the advertising algorithms are very interesting to me. For example: I participate in ex-evangelical groups because of my childhood experiences. Also follow pages which discuss American Christianity from a secular or journalistic perspective, and in Christian groups which interpret their beliefs from a left-ish ideology. "Liking" any post f…

At any rate, I suppose it's oddly reassuring Facebook is so inaccurate. Facebook's ad market tools give advertisers plenty of power to choose who to advertise to. If advertisers didn't want your demographic cohort to see their ad they could easily filter you out. Rather than seeing this as inaccuracy, it might be more prudent to ask why they haven't. It's probably just that the advertiser hasn't configured their ad s…

I still think it was inaccuracy. Once I was bored enough to dig through all the ad settings. For those who don't know, there's a section called "interest settings" that's buried inside of "category settings" in ad preferences. "Interest settings" has a list of interests Facebook has generated based on your activity.

My list contained things like "Calvinism", "angels", "church growth strategies", "sermon topics", "contemporary Christian music", "Southern Baptist Convention", etc. Based on this list, a Baptist church which embraced Calvinism might think I would be a huge fan.

I've never once interacted with a FB post which talked about these things positively. Only from the critical groups. But the algorithms aren't sensitive enough to pick that up. Had the interests listed "News about Southern Baptist Convention" or "Critiques about SBC", then that would have been accurate. But simply listing "Southern Baptist Convention" mis-labels me as being positively interested in the subject and their churches. Same goes for the other topics. While the list is more or less neutral, it implies positive interest.

At any rate, FB gives you the option to delete these things from your interests list. I did so. Religious ads went away for a little while. They came back as soon as I interacted with one of my critical groups. Apparently, FB is keeping a shadow list of interests I cannot edit. Which is a shame. They should listen to me. I occasionally click the ads when they're nothing but Raspberry Pi accessories or art books.

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#308

Post by grishka »

FearlessNebula wrote: post #282
grishka wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short. The HTTP client Instagram uses (Proxygen) is written in C++, which means it needs JNI bindings, which means those classes are necessarily excluded from obfuscation. I decompiled the dexes into human-readable bytecode (smali) using apktool, compiled my own class with additional code to strip ads, converted it to dex, decompiled that into smali, added that to instagram smali files, added calls into my class i…

Doesn’t compiling the code into an executable inherently obfuscate it?

Technically yes, to some degree. However, JVM and Dalvik bytecode retains enough information, compared to machine code, to recover the source with a good enough level of quality that you could sometimes modify it and compile it back.

In the context of JVM, obfuscation is an extra step where identifiers are renamed to various kinds of nonsense to make code more compact and supposedly hinder reverse engineering.

Re: Instagram Has Become SkyMall

#309

Post by Taek »

cmoscoso wrote: post #273
Taek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike the suggestion "just have better self control". It's you versus an army of machine learning experts all tuning algorithm on personal data about you to learn your weaknesses and bait you into spending more time on the app. Blaming the consumer ignores the adversarial role that the apps play in our lives.

Delete the app and the army goes puff.

Then I can't message my extended family. I have no way to reach the friends I made in Costa Rica. Some of my business contacts in Europe only use adtech platforms to communicate.

You can't just delete the app. You have to fully opt out of a significant portion of the global ecosystem.

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