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Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

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Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#31

Post by userbinator »

eva1984 wrote: post #17

The war of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers will be ugly, I suppose. Say, if Youtube is going to enforce anti-ad-blocking across the site, and I believe the could do that-their Chinese copycat, Youku, has already done this long time ago, will you give up watching? That might be a hard question to answer.

The answer is that anti-anti-ad-blockers will start to exist. As long as users still have control over the software they run on their devices, they will have the advantage in this war. That control seems to be slowly disappearing, unfortunately:

http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#32

Post by kuschku »

sandworm101 wrote: post #18

IP addresses can be geolocated. Big deal. This article seems a little out of date when it comes to what an IP address means for home users. (For mobile users, there are far easier means of tracking than via IP address.) For instance.... "One important thing to note is that most consumers probably have a “dynamic ip address” meaning that your internet service provider probably rotates this ip address ever 24-48 hours.…

Eh, for most people, the IP changes every 24 hours, and the most ISPs assigns IPs not by city – today you could have 86.131.1.1 and tomorrow 86.127.254.254.

Only some providers in the US have actual static IPs and NATs. Or restrictions like "you can not run a server", or restrictions like blocking port 25.

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#33

Post by kuschku »

userbinator wrote: post #31
eva1984 wrote: post #17

The war of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers will be ugly, I suppose. Say, if Youtube is going to enforce anti-ad-blocking across the site, and I believe the could do that-their Chinese copycat, Youku, has already done this long time ago, will you give up watching? That might be a hard question to answer.

The answer is that anti-anti-ad-blockers will start to exist. As long as users still have control over the software they run on their devices, they will have the advantage in this war. That control seems to be slowly disappearing, unfortunately: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html

Already existing.

After https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock was invented, and I got annoyed,

I reported https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26

and wrote this solution to the issue https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26#issuecomment...

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#34

Post by signaler »

If you think AD blocking alone is enough to protect your privacy, think again. I think the real problem is fingerprinting. You are always going to be tracked on the web, and one can tunnel their traffic through a hardware-based TOR router, and surf with Lynx browser and still get tracked. Also blacklisting entire classes of AD networks is not thorough enough as a lot of publishers are doing 'roll your own' ADs. You can't block an 80x80 banner graphic with a link yet (well you could if you block images, but we're not all neckbeards who surf with Lynx). You could thwart low hanging fruit stuff like 1x1 pixel beacons, but AD serving technology is ambiguous and also one of the many hard problems of the web.

Shameless plug, I wrote about how to thwart browser fingerprinting here: http://blog.higg.im/2015/04/29/do-ad-blockers-and-anti-track...

My current solution is use any number of things on privacytools.io and try not to centralize browsing to one device and one network. A bit obvious, but you would be surprised how many people just use their phone to navigate the web.

Like all hard problems, there is no sweeping silver bullet that will solve this. You have to get smarter about your browsing. The 'mixing effect' of cities is a great idea, and cheap $10.00 internet enabled burner devices for surfing the web are awesome too

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#35

Post by georgebarnett »

qopp wrote: post #28
georgebarnett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly expect there will be a war - a highly asymmetric one. The cost of developing 'anti-ad-block' tech will exceed the cost of updating filters for some time. It will also lead to more intrusive ads in a world where user expectations have changed. Users will become used to a "quiet" web and might just prefer to hit the back button. Another point worth making. If your content is good enough for me to turn off m…

Not really, a site can just proxy ad content through their servers. How can an ad-blocking service tell the difference between an image needed for the site and an image that's an advertisement?

It will be more challenging but not a big issue. Ads will still contain signals they're an ad (I'm reminded of banner ads on the Web 20 years ago).

Back hauling traffic through the site may happen, however that's a huge latency penalty and also will reduce the amount of data leakage. Networks will no longer have carte Blanche access to end users. Also worth noting is that it increases the complexity of the technical implementation from 'drop in this code' to 'get your backend team to change your architecture in this way'.

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#36

Post by JD557 »

A note about the IP addresses: Some ad networks/analytics software does not store your IP address, but an anonymized version of it (eg. drop the last octet[1] or an store only an hash). I believe that they must do this in order to operate legally in certain countries.

They can still store the geoIP information without storing the IP, though.

[1]: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#37

Post by sologoub »

This is pretty low quality description of a very complicated industry: http://www.lumapartners.com/lumascapes/display-ad-tech-lumas...

And the best part, nothing is said about the fact that blocking inside apps is not on the table, so Apple is simply driving more dollars to where they stand to capture the most from them.

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#38

Post by tobltobs »

icebraining wrote: post #22
greggman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't it a sufficient reason? If they say "don't watch my video unless you pay $5" are you okay with that or do you just think whatever they made you're entitled to it, you never have to give what they ask in return? Isn't it up to them to decide what they want to charge you (pay $$, watch this ad, etc.) and for you to decide not to watch if you don't want to pay whatever they are asking? How is this any differen…

I hope you realized you've proved my point by replying to my copyrighted post, in which I revoked your right to download it (which happens after you reply to it). When the demands of copyright holders are not reasonable, we are not ethically required to comply. Your words say you disagree, but your actions show otherwise.

Aren't you a bit childish today?

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#39

Post by euske »

It's funny how both sides of the argument think that ads are something people has to "put up with". If ads are really that good, not watching would cost you (either money or a nice opportunity for good products). For now I don't really see that much of benefit of seeing them (it's the absent of benefits so it's really hard to measure though). I hope web ads companies one day start producing ads that are actually pleasant to watch (some TV commercials are doing a good job here). Until then, you can't really stop people blocking ads.

Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address

#40

Post by icebraining »

tobltobs wrote: post #38
icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you realized you've proved my point by replying to my copyrighted post, in which I revoked your right to download it (which happens after you reply to it). When the demands of copyright holders are not reasonable, we are not ethically required to comply. Your words say you disagree, but your actions show otherwise.

Aren't you a bit childish today?

Not just today :)
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