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An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

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Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#221

Post by [deleted] »

zagrebian wrote: post #209
tomudding wrote: post #31

I think this sounds more like some sort of fingerprinting attempt. It good to see that random access to these kind of resources fails due to new(er) browser controls. However, this does not mean that the fingerprinting actually failed. There is probably some way to determine if the request was denied automatically by the browser or manually by the user (e.g., time to get "response"), which is definitely something whi…

> this does not mean that the fingerprinting actually failed When does fingerprinting ever fail? Maybe in Brave and/or Tor, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

[deleted]

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#222

Post by ineptech »

jefftk wrote: post #204
ineptech wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather have ads than paywalls. No offense but I've heard people who work at ad companies repeat this like a mantra, and it's a false dichotomy, akin to a coal company who dumps slag in rivers saying, "Well we think it's better than letting everyone freeze to death." We're not asking Google to stop advertising altogether and close up shop, just to make the internet ad ecosystem a little less awful and Orwell…

> We're not asking Google to stop advertising altogether I think my parent was: "No one needs ads. Not arbitrary JS ads, not declarative ads, not personalised ads, not any ads."

Fair enough, though the suggestion that Google engineers take up farming was probably not very serious. However, the idea that we have a choice between no ads or the most pernicious ads imaginable is certainly a false one.

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#223

Post by SahAssar »

eloisius wrote: post #34
SahAssar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard similar stories many times but every time it seems to be baader-meinhof effect/frequency illusion or that the linking is not via audio but something else. People have man-in-the-middle checked advertising traffic to see if they either stream audio or send spoken keywords to ad servers and they do not seem to do that. It's more likely that it saw your phone and your friends at similar locations and your fri…

That's almost scarier. Seems like it could leak embarrassing information about what you've been searching or buying to your friends.

> it could leak embarrassing information about what you've been searching or buying to your friends.

Yes. Say no to tracking, regardless of if it listens to your voice. Even if it does not leak this way it's probable that one of the major ad brokers will leak data in the future.

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#224

Post by danachow »

hetspookjee wrote: post #206
mschuster91 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animations, tracking and fraud detection are the big areas. Ads were historically one of the strongest drivers of Flash, given how easy it made for creatives to implement animations without needing a frontend developer - ad buyers these days would instantly protest against any attempt to remove either of the three use cases. And given that we are talking about sometimes eight figures worth of ad buying... no network…

I still don't understand it. I was under the impression that animations are also able to be served through HTML5? Both CSS and HTML should be sufficient. ~We're in the age where we're able to serve an entire sqlite database over a static website, yet an animation does require javascript?~ EDIT: I am wrong to think that serving and interacting with a sqlite database goes without javascript.

> We're in the age where we're able to serve an entire sqlite database over a static website

Making use of the SQLite database is entirely client side and requires JavaScript or WASM (the distinction is unimportant) - it requires running code on the frontend. This is not a great way to state your case.

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#225

Post by [deleted] »

vultour wrote: post #210
ratww wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company is now giving us those to use in our company laptops: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61l+gnZORVL._AC_SY355_.j... They're pretty convenient and look nice

Our HP laptops have that built in

[deleted]

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#226

Post by greenyoda »

d4mi3n wrote: post #157

I have to wonder if anti-fingerprinting is the wrong approach to privacy invading advertising. There’s an inherent asymmetry between the resources available to those who build these systems and those who try to stop them. I’d love to see more stuff like CCPA. As a California resident I can simply tell Google that my data is not for sale, and they’re obligated to respect that regardless of what fingerprinting happens.…

Laws take a long time to enact, especially when there are companies with almost unlimited money lobbying against them. Technology (such as browser updates and ad-blocking extensions) can be deployed immediately and can adapt quickly to changing threats.

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#227

Post by javajosh »

denton-scratch wrote: post #180
jefftk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is allowed; that's not a part of the business I know much about. Since ads can run arbitrary JS it's hard to enforce policy programmatically. On the other hand, it's not clear to me that whatever this advertiser is trying to do is having any real effect, aside from causing a console message that it is being blocked. Access to the mic and camera from cross-origin iframes is blocked by default, and you…

> Since ads can run arbitrary JS it's hard to enforce policy programmatically. It's not that hard, at least not at my end. I just don't run ads. Why on earth does goo think that running arbitrary JS on their visitors' computers is OK? I mean, I know this is the policy, and I assume the policy of other ad networks is at least as "liberal". So I'm sorry, chaps, but no ads run on this screen. I wonder if this is a race…

>Advertising to poor people has traditionally been a pretty bad pitch

Is that true? It seems like poor people spend, in aggregate, more than rich people and they tend to buy the cheaper, more mass-produced stuff. The grocery business alone must be build on the commerce of poor people, right?

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#228

Post by Ensorceled »

userbinator wrote: post #217
archsurface wrote: post #90

They recently changed their meet application for some reason. I use it without video, voice only; recently it has started trying to force me to use both - I have to refuse both, then once in the meet go and enable voice only. I loathe all things google but am forced to use meet for work.

I doubt you actually work there given your last sentence, but have you tried proposing an alternative (along with some reasons why it would be better) the next time someone asks you to use it?

> I doubt you actually work there given your last sentence,

What is your logic? My company uses Meet and it's "mandated" in the sense that it is used for all company meetings. I'm in a position that I might get us to switch if I pushed it, but Teams and Zoom aren't much better. I assure you I work at my company.

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#229

Post by jefftk »

ineptech wrote: post #222
jefftk wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're not asking Google to stop advertising altogether I think my parent was: "No one needs ads. Not arbitrary JS ads, not declarative ads, not personalised ads, not any ads."

Fair enough, though the suggestion that Google engineers take up farming was probably not very serious. However, the idea that we have a choice between no ads or the most pernicious ads imaginable is certainly a false one.

> the idea that we have a choice between no ads or the most pernicious ads imaginable is certainly a false one

I agree with you. I spent a large part of 2018-2019 trying to make ads declarative, and am now working on (among other things) increasing the isolation of conventional ads [1] and implementing cross-site advertising without cross-site identity leakage [2].

But it sounds like you and my parent have very different views: there's a lot of space between "ads should be a lot better" and "ads should not exist".

[1] https://github.com/WICG/webpackage/issues/624

[2] https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE.md

Re: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

#230

Post by tomrod »

charcircuit wrote: post #199
tomrod wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the question. Why allow any thing on any advertisement, regardless of network, that is not image or text? Anything else opens up security issues.

He just told you? "Ad networks need to be able to do their own attribution and click spam detection."

This doesn't answer why the end product (the person receiving the ad) is exposed to anything but images and text, which was the question.

Step outside technical approach mode and look at it from the highest level possible -- why are end users ever given more than images and text, or, why are ads anything more than a very simple a href tag.

Spam detection and other protection of the ad platform should be done long before this information ever goes to the eyeball product owners.

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