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Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

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Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#11

Post by bagacrap »

Doesn't this blocker still require you to load and render the ads so they can apply their vision techniques to them? You won't get any performance win and you'd still see empty popovers or blank space. I don't see how detecting that something is an ad is enough on its own to create an effective ad blocking solution.

The part about defeating known anti-ad blockers seems rather unfair. If this technique did gain popularity I'm sure there would be ways around it (like tricking it into thinking the button used to dismiss a popover is itself an ad).

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#12

Post by nickbail3y »

devy wrote: post #4

> Another technique used to hide the ad blockers' activities is even more impressive. They are able to "create two copies of the page, one which the user sees (and to which ad-blocking will be applied) and one which the publisher code interacts with, and to ensure that information propagates between these copies in one direction but not the other." So this ultimate ad-blocker would potentially consume twice as much r…

This was my question as well.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#13

Post by news_to_me »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #2

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet marketing run rampant? It would sure be a different world.

I'm hoping it would be something based on micropayments, maybe through a service like flattr. That would keep content accessible (for a small, affordable fee) and completely block out the bad actors (i.e. advertisers).

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#14

Post by news_to_me »

bagacrap wrote: post #11

Doesn't this blocker still require you to load and render the ads so they can apply their vision techniques to them? You won't get any performance win and you'd still see empty popovers or blank space. I don't see how detecting that something is an ad is enough on its own to create an effective ad blocking solution. The part about defeating known anti-ad blockers seems rather unfair. If this technique did gain popula…

It sounds like part of their premise is that won't happen because of legal reasons - to some extent, ads have to be identifiable.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#15

Post by nickbail3y »

According to the article, current adblockers like Ublock Origin aren't searching for keywords in the page elements for ads, they're just using human maintained lookup lists?

That's very surprising. I would have thought that would be the first avenue of attack for adblockers.

Also, who wants to help me retrofit this thing to actually block ads?

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#16

Post by jpmattia »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #2

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet marketing run rampant? It would sure be a different world.

> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like?

Probably a lot like the pre-ad-supported web.

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#17

Post by flubert »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #2

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet marketing run rampant? It would sure be a different world.

How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? Is it essentially paid for as a marketing / recruiting aid out of ycombinator funds? Or is it a charity paid for by PG?

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#18

Post by randomwalker »

devy wrote: post #4

> Another technique used to hide the ad blockers' activities is even more impressive. They are able to "create two copies of the page, one which the user sees (and to which ad-blocking will be applied) and one which the publisher code interacts with, and to ensure that information propagates between these copies in one direction but not the other." So this ultimate ad-blocker would potentially consume twice as much r…

Coauthor of the paper here. No --- this is not one of the three techniques that we implemented. It was a hypothetical suggestion for future work. Unfortunate that the article didn't make that clear.

Here is the paper http://randomwalker.info/publications/ad-blocking-framework-...

Here is our blog post about it: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/04/14/the-future-of-ad-bl...

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#19

Post by LeoPanthera »

nickbail3y wrote: post #15

According to the article, current adblockers like Ublock Origin aren't searching for keywords in the page elements for ads, they're just using human maintained lookup lists? That's very surprising. I would have thought that would be the first avenue of attack for adblockers. Also, who wants to help me retrofit this thing to actually block ads?

> they're just using human maintained lookup lists?

That's correct. The lists are maintained here: https://forums.lanik.us

Re: Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

#20

Post by ktta »

randomwalker wrote: post #18
devy wrote: post #4

> Another technique used to hide the ad blockers' activities is even more impressive. They are able to "create two copies of the page, one which the user sees (and to which ad-blocking will be applied) and one which the publisher code interacts with, and to ensure that information propagates between these copies in one direction but not the other." So this ultimate ad-blocker would potentially consume twice as much r…

Coauthor of the paper here. No --- this is not one of the three techniques that we implemented. It was a hypothetical suggestion for future work. Unfortunate that the article didn't make that clear. Here is the paper http://randomwalker.info/publications/ad-blocking-framework-... Here is our blog post about it: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/04/14/the-future-of-ad-bl...

Looks like you've accidentally repasted the paper URL for the blog post
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