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AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

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Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#141

Post by xwdv »

CodeSgt wrote: post #82
coldtea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One that has us pay for websites would be far better. Including services like Gmail and such. We would be paying customers, not eyeballs for sale, and only websites deemed worthy of that level of loyalty would survive. Any websites that prefer it could still be free then, but the costs to host them would have to be paid by their owner (like most personal or business websites today), not sponsored by ads.

You’re speaking from the position of someone clearly privileged enough to afford all the services you’d like to continue using. There are vast swaths of t people for whom an additional monthly subscription to watch YouTube, have access to email, read the news, browse social media, etc just isn’t financially tenable. Especially in the year 2023 where technology and internet access is so crucial to survival, I’d prefer…

This is a good thing. By requiring paid access to more websites, you might find there’s less people spewing garbage in comments sections etc, since they can’t really afford a bunch of accounts to just troll around.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#142

Post by ryandrake »

demaga wrote: post #128
MasterYoda wrote: post #127

I have never really understood AdNauseam. I understand it clicks all ads so there would be no useful tracking profile that way. But if you have an adblocker and tracking protection like in uBlock Origin and Firefox, it feels it then does not make any sense. You would just send alot of data to trackers, even if its just garbage, and it would just waste your broad band. It clicks on things that would be blocked with an…

Why would you want ads but not personalized ones? It doesn't make any sense to me too

I don’t want ads at all and will not click on them, but if I had to choose, I would rather have a non-personalized ad, because it is less likely to have been produced by violating my privacy.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#143

Post by gruez »

tempestn wrote: post #102
gruez wrote: post #65

> https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnause... >AdNauseam 'clicks' Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions the is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a 'click' on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further i…

I'm not sure what headers you're referring to, but it would be easy for a browser extension to open urls Ina way that would be indistinguishable from a user click. That said, it should be fairly straightforward for ad networks to detect large numbers of clicks from a given device and treat it as bot traffic.

>it would be easy for a browser extension to open urls Ina way that would be indistinguishable from a user click.

If they actually opened the page as a tab and rendered it, it would be pretty convincing. However, they specifically decided only to send one XHR request, which is easy to detect because a bunch of behaviors associated with normal browsing (eg. loading css fonts, javascript) doesn't get executed.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#144

Post by gruez »

stephenr wrote: post #100
gruez wrote: post #65

> https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnause... >AdNauseam 'clicks' Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions the is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a 'click' on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further i…

> XHRs are easily detectable through various headers Are they though? The most common one (X-Requested-With) isn't inherent to XHR, it's added by js libraries by convention.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Se...

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Se...

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#145

Post by stephenr »

gruez wrote: post #144
stephenr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> XHRs are easily detectable through various headers Are they though? The most common one (X-Requested-With) isn't inherent to XHR, it's added by js libraries by convention.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Se... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Se...

Huh, interesting. Thanks for the reference.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#146

Post by hiatus »

rpbiwer2 wrote: post #98
jethro_tell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, don't use Gmail, or use a domain that you can move to any provider and keep a backup of you're email. If you put yourself in a place where someone can take everything from you than it's a real risk that they might.

> use a domain that you can move to any provider and keep a backup of you're email. And which ones are those? Once I've selected the right provider, how do I reliably implement my backups? > If you put yourself in a place where someone can take everything from you than it's a real risk that they might. I'll just go ahead and stop using every major software product created in the last decade. Despite my sarcasm you're…

> But to follow your advice is not easy, especially for the average user.

The average user doesn't even use an adblocker, so they won't need to worry about Google blocking their account for suspected clickfraud or whatever.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#147

Post by hiatus »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #91
jethro_tell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, don't use Gmail, or use a domain that you can move to any provider and keep a backup of you're email. If you put yourself in a place where someone can take everything from you than it's a real risk that they might.

registrars can take your domain if they don't like you

Do you have an example in mind that is not a government enforcement action?

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#148

Post by bryan_w »

curionymous wrote: post #109
xwdv wrote: post #8

Of all the ad blockers, AdNauseam is the one that is feared the most. If everybody used it, it would kill the industry.

> If everybody used it, it would kill the industry. Fingerprinting and click fraud detection says NO! Seriously, are we in 2000s where ad platforms couldn't detect malicious patterns and fake clicks and I could join a ad click group on facebook to make 100s of dollars? Even in a case of everyone using an adblock, do you think they're not going to serve ads through first party domains making it very difficult to block…

> why are the supposed users of "Hacker News" site oblivious to these things?

Because some people on this site aren't hackers and aren't even technical. They're from old media and are looking for "useful people" to help take down Google and Facebook.

Think Rupert Murdock browsing here globbing onto any anti-tech thread with the understanding of a typical 80yo.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#149

Post by dooglius »

jedberg wrote: post #117
memefrog wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Violating copyright doesn't actively harm the copyright holder. Of course it does. It violates their rights. > This is basically stochastic terrorisim on a small scale. "Stochastic terrorism" is a nonsense concept anyway.

Your intellectual inconsistency is amusing. You believe in intellectual property but not stochastic terrorisim, even though both are just created concepts to explain things that people believe exist.

Does someone have to believe in all concepts or in no concepts whatsoever?

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#150

Post by nradov »

jedberg wrote: post #72
CapsAdmin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think using the cultural stigma of a "terrorist act" to make an analogy like that isn't very productive. It's as effective as saying "People also do bad things for ideological reasons", simply stating as fact that violating copyright is bad ignoring any of the nuance that was provided.

Violating copyright doesn't actively harm the copyright holder. Clicking on ads consumes actual real world resources of the ad network (which is passed on to the advertiser). This is basically stochastic terrorisim on a small scale.

There's no such thing as stochastic terrorism. It's an imaginary problem invented by people looking for a plausible excuse to restrict freedoms that they don't like.
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