If your ISP and/or Aspira were making any significant amount of affiliate commissions, I would be surprised if the merchants do not take action against them for fraud. This sounds like the same behaviour that Shawn Hogan got in trouble for with cookie stuffing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Hogan
I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
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Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#32If your ISP and/or Aspira were making any significant amount of affiliate commissions, I would be surprised if the merchants do not take action against them for fraud. This sounds like the same behaviour that Shawn Hogan got in trouble for with cookie stuffing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Hogan
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#33Very nicely done: reporting this as abuse to the companies offering these affiliate programs seems quite appropriate, and it sounds like they reacted appropriately. One person complaining to an ISP is noise; one person making an abuse report is all it takes to get that ISP banned from the affiliate program.
Thanks! I was in a state of hopelessness for a week or so till I had that idea.
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#34If anyone wants to do this in the future, I'd recommend just sending affiliate abuse emails with no notice to the ISP. Also, the future person may want to revise the [2] script to scan in a more surreptitious manner (change the order, add delays, simulate legit web traffic, etc).
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#35One a slightly related note, in Chrome extensions, it's possible to redirect DNS requests on a per-URL basis. This is how Media Hint works to allow non-US Netflix users access the US version of the site. I'm surprised we haven't seen similar behaviour from Chrome extensions. I'm sure it would be caught eventually, but this isn't exactly something that people tend to look for, so it would take a while for people to ca…
> I'm surprised we haven't seen similar behaviour from Chrome extensions The "Window Resizer" Chrome extension got a silent update a few weeks ago. It rewrote all the links on Google search result pages to point to a proxy that added affiliate links where possible.
I did a google search and realized something wasn't right. Uninstalled all the crapware apps that wormed their way in. And then I looked at the chrome extensions and low and behold there it was, more crapware.
I removed them and they re-added themselves. I had to run spybox s&d to remove it completely.
Moral of the story: chrome extensions are in some ways worse than toolbars.
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#36Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think so too, though CDN's will mess with the results a bit. It would be nice if DNS had a way to sign/validate/somehow know the record you got was correct. Especially on the apex record as it can happen before ssl.
It's interesting no one brought up DNSSEC[1]. Has anything happened there since 2010? 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Ext...
It is cumbersome to implement and maintain, requiring co-operation of registrars and frequent key regeneration.
It is also very, very chatty and imposes a considerable processing burden on the first-hop DNS resolver.
We need a signed DNS solution that isn't DNSSEC.
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#38Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a link to a usable encrypted DNS solution? I searched but didn't find anything actively used, but a lot of proposals.
DNSCrypt http://www.opendns.com/technology/dnscrypt/ This works well for me. But I have found that this is the kind of thing where an expert can pop in and say "have you considered risk X with solution Y?" and leave me dumbfounded. So use at your own risk.
Re: I fought my ISP's bad behavior and won
#40I decided not to proceed with it because it seemed like a support nightmare and tampering with non-malicious subscriber traffic crosses a line.
Their marketing affiliates (such as Cash4Trafik) are always reaching out to CEO types at small ISPs and the money they bring (particularly when you are small) can be hard to pass up.