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Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

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Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#141

Post by pdkl95 »

captn3m0 wrote: post #38

A little bit of corporate newspeak (and digging): Ad URL: https://static.adsafeprotected.com/sca.17.4.95.js JS Domain: adsafeprotected.com Domain Owner: Integral Ad Science, Inc[0] Google's recent stance on the matter of fingerprinting[2]: >Chrome also announced that it will more aggressively restrict fingerprinting across the web. When a user opts out of third-party tracking, that choice is not an invitation for com…

> Google has heavy cognitive dissonance

Perhaps, but I think some of that behavior only appears dissonant. Like the NSA, Google often uses carefully constructed language that is designed to sound like a statement about a topic of concern without saying anything actually useful. For example:

> Google doesn’t use fingerprinting for ads personalization

The only reason to add "...for ads personalization" is if they are using fingerprinting for for other purposes. This could include other ad-related purposes like attribution.

Google claims about not using specific data for a specific purpose are probsabl7 true. They simply fingerprint (and probably correlate) everything else.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#142

Post by iamnotacrook »

gortok wrote: post #78
iamnotacrook wrote: post #64

It's ok. SO's policy on abusive ads is to mention it on mets and hope a moderator notices and then acts upon it.

As a community elected moderator ( https://stackoverflow.com/users/16587 ) I can tell you with certainty that moderators have no control over ads; only the development (and maybe the community team). In this case we would do the same thing the OP did, in addition we would reach out in Stack Overflow chat to the community team do inform them of the situation.

Well perhaps you should get your story straight because on this page:

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329763/were-testing...

which is being prominently announced in a yellow "featured on Meta" box you can read:

"If you see any ads that are inappropriate or have any questions about this experiment, please let me know by starting a new question and tagging it with advertising"

and

"If you wish to report an advertisement, please take a screenshot of the ad and paste the URL (if possible) along with the site where you saw it to a comment or answer. I'll report it to the ads team and we can track it down to investigate."

Screenshots? Start a new question with a tag? Track it down? Shouldn't you cut to the chase and have a "report this ad" button built-in so you can immediately be alerted to malware/abusive/inappropriate ads? Perhaps it's not moderators who have the power here. As a non-moderator/employee I couldn't care less what you call the people who do it; it seems entirely inadequate. Run the ads now and if enough people complain or it gets embarrassing - like google and/or microsoft spying on users - then publish a theatrical apology. No, that doesn't work for me.

No, my ad-blocker is never coming off.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#143

Post by patrick5415 »

apetresc wrote: post #13
superasn wrote: post #8

Maybe it's to identify users behind a VPN as this is fingerprinting the device, not the connection. That's why I think the idea of running each site in a container is so effective. And while we're at it the container should just spit out random shit like different resolution, audio api, user agent, once in a while (unless the user turns it off) to thwart such attempts. Unfortunately when the creator and maintener of…

> And while we're at it the container should just spit out random shit like different resolution, audio api, user agent, once in a while (unless the user turns it off) to thwart such attempts. Wouldn't that break the legitimate feature-detection uses for these APIs? Asking the user to identify and whitelist each call is impractical, especially since the fail-case in this scenario would be subtle (you'd still see the…

I’d prefer legitimate api usage be broken than suffer through all the abuses.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#144

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

sergiotapia wrote: post #91

Is there something I can use to randomly fuzz every tab individually as I browse the web? They can track me through websites and I don't want that. Already using ublock origin.

NoScript + Decentraleyes + Random user agent + Self-destructing cookies.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#145

Post by keyle »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #76

"It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it." This encapsulates the entire problem with the current state of digital advertising in 1 simple sentence.

But you know, we wouldn't stop serving ads until we work it out... no no imagine the loss in revenues.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#146

Post by jimmaswell »

mikeash wrote: post #139
jimmaswell wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems melodramatic for something as trivial as an audio request.

It’s incredibly disrespectful. Nobody wants some random ad listening to their microphone. That they’re trying it anyway indicates that they’re hoping to get some people with browsers that don’t block it, or trick some people into saying yes. It’s not harmful, as long as you’re not one of the people who gets tricked. But it does indicate that they want to do you harm, and try to. That they failed doesn’t make it all b…

It's probably just a mistake and not actually trying to collect anything.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#147

Post by progval »

shawnz wrote: post #106
dmitrygr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good! Then maybe they'll go back to writing normal html and let my user agent present it to me how I like and how my device best does

If that's how you feel, why not disable CSS?

It was already possible to write CSS that adapts to various screen sizes before CSS became a privacy issue (ie. before CSS 3); except it was called regular CSS, not responsive.

My guess is the difference between "regular CSS that adapts to screen size" and "responsive CSS" is that the former only has a single set of rules while the latter has different CSS rules that get enabled/disabled based on screen size.

Conditional rules -> different content gets loaded -> server gets notified of what rules are enabled -> fingerprinting

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#148

Post by laughinghan »

apetresc wrote: post #13
superasn wrote: post #8

Maybe it's to identify users behind a VPN as this is fingerprinting the device, not the connection. That's why I think the idea of running each site in a container is so effective. And while we're at it the container should just spit out random shit like different resolution, audio api, user agent, once in a while (unless the user turns it off) to thwart such attempts. Unfortunately when the creator and maintener of…

> And while we're at it the container should just spit out random shit like different resolution, audio api, user agent, once in a while (unless the user turns it off) to thwart such attempts. Wouldn't that break the legitimate feature-detection uses for these APIs? Asking the user to identify and whitelist each call is impractical, especially since the fail-case in this scenario would be subtle (you'd still see the…

Have you heard of those projects trying to defeat behavioral tracking where, whenever you visit a page, it simultaneously opens a bunch of other random pages in the background, hidden from you, and simulates activity on them, the idea being that Facebook has no idea what actual websites you like to visit because it's lost in the noise? What if instead, whenever you visit a page, your browser or a plugin or a proxy server or whatever opened the same page simultaneously in a bunch of hidden background windows, with a random configuration of audio enabled/disabled, user agent, screen resolution etc fingerprinted characteristics?

That way, the page displays correctly for you, but the server has no idea your actual fingerprint.

There's some trickiness to get this to work right; the collection of fake fingerprints would have to have a certain amount of persistence, because if it was regenerated every pageload, the server could probably tell that only one fingerprint kept showing up repeatedly. Maybe each fake fingerprint should have a completely realistic-seeming browsing session, happening in parallel with your real one, with half the collection continuing on browsing even after you're done? Except wait, ads could just separately target every fingerprint, and it doesn't matter if 99% of them are fake as long as its accuracy for your real one is still good. To defeat that you need the randomized activity using your real fingerprint.

The ideal would be if this was done through a proxy server, which would then know every fingerprint ever sent to a website. It could then provide you with a random collection of past fingerprints that have actually visited the same website, so every visitor gets a collection of fingerprints randomly drawn from the same "bag", rendering visitors indistinguishable.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#149

Post by patrick5415 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #99
shawnz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If websites had to ask permission to enable responsive features like screen size detection, then nobody would use them

Good! Then maybe they'll go back to writing normal html and let my user agent present it to me how I like and how my device best does

Agree. I wish the entire internet looked like GNU documentation page.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#150

Post by mikeash »

nerdponx wrote: post #97
coldpie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you allowing arbitrary javascript to be served to your users?

Wish I could upvote this 1,000 times. It's ridiculous. It's a text-based ad. At worst, it's a clickable image. At what point did it become okay in your minds to let advertisers run arbitrary code? I've left ads turned on specifically on StackOverflow because 1) I want to support StackOverflow, and 2) I trust them not to run malicious ads. I don't even care that they're running ads network-wide. But if they're going t…

It’s completely insane. Can you imagine a TV station receiving ads on tapes and playing them to their audience without looking at them first? Can you imagine TV stations occasionally showing ads containing porn, urging people to kill, showing extreme violence during cartoons, or containing specially crafted audio that blows out your speakers, and the TV station just shrugs and says they try their best to stop these things but they can’t stop everything?

Imagine a TV ad that tries to make your phone call a 1-900 number so they can rip you off, and the station says they don’t know where it came from but they’re trying real hard to put a stop to it. And somehow watching the ads themselves before broadcasting them never crosses their mind.

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