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Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

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Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#181

Post by mi100hael »

pjc50 wrote: post #103
dTal wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is two mutually incompatible use cases: 1) trusted endpoint / untrusted network (laptop in a coffee shop) 2) untrusted endpoint / trusted network (chromecast/alexa/other corporate zombie on your home network) Which category a given scenario falls under depends on who you ask - to Google, Chromecast is in the first category. I don't know if it's possible to design a system that somehow always favors the ri…

> I don't know if it's possible to design a system that somehow always favors the rights of the individual. This is why people keep objecting to technological solutions to social problems. Adblocking is a stopgap technological solution (although very effective at the moment); properly protecting the rights of the individual requires a social and legal process.

I disagree. Technical solutions are largely preferable. Political solutions are feeble and can be changed on a whim.

If the NSA has the capability to sniff vast amounts of network traffic, encrypting that traffic is a much stronger defense than telling the NSA they aren't allowed to deploy the capability for the time being.

If Chrome insists on using its own DNS or removing the adblocking API for add-ons, one can just use another browser like Firefox that has the desired technical capabilities. Managing DNS lookups and HTTP requests are not "stopgap" solutions, they are basic functionality that any one entity can't eradicate.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#182

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #119
mkl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No use if e.g. Chrome hardcodes Google's servers and ignores the system ones.

Could you hardcode the ip addresses in your own NAT?

This is, in fact, already sometimes necessary since there are things that will hard code 8.8.8.8.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#183

Post by jqueryin »

jamesog wrote: post #157
jqueryin wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm slightly concerned about routing my traffic through a non-major player in Anycast when I don't control the routing or software. I'd be worried it's quite an easy target for someone to do some DNS hijacking or packet sniffing. There's a certain level of trust when I use 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8. I'm unwilling to take the risk for this solution. I'm not sure what would help in the trust department to legitimize a solutio…

This is why you should use their DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-HTTPS service instead of standard DNS. Route hijacks can happen to anyone, even Cloudflare or Google. If anything they're more likely to be targetted than a smaller player like Nextdns.

The difference is one has a dedicated security team and the other does not.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#184

Post by secabeen »

sbarre wrote: post #146
programbreeding wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 50% of my DNS queries get blocked by the pihole [0]; and I've seen it much higher. Like you said, it's one of the most prized devices on my network. [0] https://i.imgur.com/dPZzYjL.png

That's fascinating.. I would love to know what the averages are across a wider range of users.. In contrast, For my home network, it's just under 15% of queries that get blocked. I've got 3 Macs, a Windows 10 machine, an Apple TV (all connected 24/7) and a handful of iOS devices that hop on and off the network. My blocklist contains ~114k domains I believe.

Some of it may be various IoT devices that are aggressive in retrying when they can't reach their census servers.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#185

Post by josefresco »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #112
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #17

Pi-hole is my most prized addition to my connected home. It was simple to set up, easy to manage, and easy to access for whitelisting. Now, all of my devices throughout my network benefit from the service, as opposed to relying on locally installed solutions. If you aren't using it, you should!

I see it as an advantage for all the devices on your network. I mean, to block trackers from Windows computers, or Roku devices or android apps. But as an adblocker - I feel like I'm missing something. It acts as a DNS server for your local network and blocks what's essentially a host file. So how does it handle ads served through websockets? How does it handle ads that come from the same domain as legitimate content…

> Your wife downloads a game on her phone, and you get that look like "ok, why isn't this working.. what did you do now?"

THISSSSSS. The only thing stopping me from using Pi-hole at home are my family members and the inevitable "this isn't working!?!?" rant and then I need to figure out how and what to whitelist. No thanks. I have ad blockers on the kids' PC and when something doesn't work, it's one click to temporarily turn it (browser extension) off.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#186

Post by dsr_ »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

I have no idea how Netflix, HBO, PBS and C-SPAN make money without advertising, but I do know this: it's not my problem, it's theirs.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#187

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

ronjouch wrote: post #42

Also, owners or routers able to run OpenWRT (which is actively maintained and in great shape since the merge with LEDE), you have access to several packages providing the same technical solution (DNS-based blocking). As far as I know, the most common and maintained is https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/... . Super easy to install, full-featured, lots of lists to pick from, auto-updates lists,…

On similar note there are scripts which will enable host-based ad blocking via DNS for other open source router firmware like DDWRT, Tomato, Asus WRT etc.[1]

But I presume Pi-hole has automatic updates to lists, data visualisations, better community support than the routers with open source firmwares which are often quite bug-ridden (not to belittle the effort though).

[1]:https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Ad_blocking

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#189

Post by jerf »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #2

[tinfoilhat] Given that Chrome now became Google's weapon against adblocking, how long until it starts refusing to use Pi-hole specifically? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 [/tinfoilhat]

Conceivably we could take a harder line on this, if we get a little deeper into the routing. We could make it so we only whitelist IP addresses outbound if we saw them come back through our DNS server, and network block everything else. Then if you bypass my DNS server, you don't get to talk to the Internet, unless you directly pick an address that something else has whitelisted that way.

I'm thinking about this, and feeling like the PiHole is a nice start, and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically or dismissively, but what we need is a whole-house reverse firewall with that sort of capabilities, including everything the PiHole already does. If you did TLS interception, you could also pretty much implement uMatrix at the household level, for instance.

Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements

#190

Post by mikepasek »

Ad blocking via DNS is relatively easy right now because a content provider like CNN.com will use a domain like “ads.evil-surveillance-media.com” to load their ads into your browser. But what happens if all these companies switch to just using their own domain to load ads? If the ads as well as the content BOTH come from CNN.com then there will be no easy way to filter the ads out. This will be the next stage in this war between ads and adblockers.
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