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AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

kickstarter.com

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Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#11

Post by mibbitier »

webjunkie wrote: post #7

No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close the company.

If everyone got one of these, websites would just change a bit of code, and ads would work again. Thankfully, most people find advertising a useful part of their lives - adblock usage is still something like 1% of users.

blocking ads is as ridiculous as trying to block porn.

Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial.

Also I'm not convinced this method of removing ads would work on ads served over https, where they can't inspect the traffic.

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#12

Post by samstave »

PanMan wrote: post #8

Interesting to do this in hardware, as it will work for all devices on your network: also tablets and so on. However, I wonder how many people have separate modems and routers: Most providers (here at least) have modem/wifi AP combo's, which makes it impossible to put this in between. Also, I wonder if some sites will stop working: e.g. I can imagine a video with a pre-roll just never starting, when the pre-roll can'…

At home I have a cable modem attached to my d-link WAP/router.

24/7 I have a verizon MIFI device as a hotspot for work.

I have been wanting an in-line wire filter for a long time. While I am not concerned with ads as much, I'd love an inline wire FW that would be configurable.

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#14

Post by buro9 »

Interesting.

Would love to see how they work on picking adverts out of SSL pages.

Would also love to see how they deal with tracking and affiliates stuff in addition to banner adverts.

That latter one is an issue for me, I've found some sites to be simply unusable if AdBlock or Ghostery is running in my browser.

It's usually tracking code (LinkedIn Inbox is useless to me as are sites that add Omniture to their shop button), and occasionally I go to buy something which is an affiliate link and it gets treated as an advert click and stopped.

So it's important not to go too far and break the internet either (though in my view it is the sites that add all this stuff that are breaking it).

If this stuff is all in a black box without external configuration... then how do you correct the false positives?

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#16

Post by relix »

hyperbovine wrote: post #9
webjunkie wrote: post #7

No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close the company.

Radical new model: charge money in return for services. I'd gladly pay Google a nontrivial amount of money each month if it meant I could search and use Gmail without having to worry about them amassing enough personal information to predict the time and location of my bowel movements.

That already exists for Gmail and it's called Google Apps, $50 per year, http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#18

Post by kylec »

mibbitier wrote: post #11
webjunkie wrote: post #7

No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close the company.

If everyone got one of these, websites would just change a bit of code, and ads would work again. Thankfully, most people find advertising a useful part of their lives - adblock usage is still something like 1% of users. blocking ads is as ridiculous as trying to block porn. Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial. Also I'm not convinced this method of removing ads would work on ads served over https, wher…

Presumably they'll keep the devices continually updated to keep up with the changing code of websites. Plus, they don't really have to block everything everywhere - this would still be useful even if it only blocked most or even some ads.

Regarding SSL, they could have the device issue an SSL certificate that you install on your devices and it could intercept that traffic as well.

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#19

Post by dsr_ »

So this is a bridge-mode transparent HTTP proxy with Privoxy running on it? [Or the equivalent thereof?]

Or does it do an SSL MITM attack on all your traffic?

The former is interesting mostly because it doesn't require end-user configuration, so to a naive user it really is plug-it-in-and-works. The latter is, as several have now pointed out, horrendously awful.

What nobody seems to have mentioned yet, though, is that you can turn the first into the second with a code update.

Re: AdTrap removes ads between your modem and router

#20

Post by kylec »

This is actually a really interesting product, but there are very few details. My big concern is one of trust - if I'm going to literally route all my network traffic through this device, how can I trust that it's not doing something nefarious? Also, what kind of performance does this device offer? Given that it's inspecting every connection, this might put a limit on the throughput it can provide and/or add additional latency. Also, how transparent is it to the network? Does it do its own version of NAT or does it just passively inspect the traffic that passes through?
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