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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?

#41

Post by saagarjha »

inglor wrote: post #32
inglor wrote: post #31

Why is this surprising to anyone? It is clear that ads use tracking mechanisms and cookies and this is no different. Audio feature detection isn't even a novel techique. I've seen trackers look at download stream patterns to detect whether or not BBR congestion control is used, I have seen mouse latency based on the difference between mouse ups and downs in double clocks and I have seen speed-of-interaction checks in…

And as a fun fact networking timing fingerprinting attacks and work even if you don't have JavaScript enabled and I have been able to make a PoC that was very accurate (I did not release it but I did disclose some bits to relevant parties)

I hope "relevant parties" includes "browser vendors" and not "adtech companies" :)

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#42

Post by School-Cotton »

BonesJustice wrote: post #35
yoz-y wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The tech crowd is using adblockers to prevent spying and resource consumption. But majority of people running adblockers just don't want to see ads.

In most cases, I don’t think it’s ads as concept that’s the problem. If websites only had static ads in the sidebar, I question how many people would bother with ad blockers. But when ads block content; include flashing animations, audio, and video; and take up more layout space on a site than the actual content; then people have had enough.

Are you disagreeing with the person you replied to? Your tone suggests that you are, but the content of your post seems to being agreeing.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#43

Post by shawnz »

superasn wrote: post #22
apetresc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes I thought about it that's why "unless the user turns it off" comment in parens. I think out of 100 sites I visit everyday no website needs to access the audio api without my consent maybe except one or two which i can whitelist. Same for user agent, I don't think it should break if the container says I'm running firefox v65 or v67, etc.

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

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#45

Post by rkagerer »

rkagerer wrote: post #44

TLDR: A case of invasive fingerprinting triggered by a Microsoft ad delivered by Google.

Are all fingerprinting techniques used in the wild pretty generally well-known? Do any browsers have an option to blindly return a standard set of values regardless of actual client capabilities/metrics? (i.e. make it difficult to achieve more granular results than browser agent).

I know Mozilla made an anti-fingerprinting announcement recently but IIRC all it does is check scripts against a blacklist: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/04/09/protectio...

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#46

Post by pjc50 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #15
jackdh wrote: post #2

Has there been any serious thought / discussion about how the cat and mouse chase of the ads vs ad blockers is going to end? It would be interesting to see where we are in ten years.

I think ad blocking is a misnomer. What people are trying to do when blocking ads is prevent marketing people from spying on them. And the performance and resource consumption that comes from that. Personal opinion: Laws are needed to make what advertisers are doing illegal. Advertisers are spying on people to the extent where if the government did it they'd need a warrant.

I'm only mildly bothered by the tracking, since it seems so inaccurate, but the ads themselves always drive me to adblockers. Taboola were running pictures of rotten teeth for a while which was intolerable; Youtube ads are often louder than the videos.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#48

Post by johnwheeler »

I wonder if the top brass at alphabet ever worry that their trillion dollar empire is based on fragile foundations like web audio fingerprinting, etc.

that sure would keep me up at night.

obviously, i know google does more, but it seems like a large chunk of their revenue must be dependent on shady technical tricks like these working.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#49

Post by skellera »

pjc50 wrote: post #46
Gibbon1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ad blocking is a misnomer. What people are trying to do when blocking ads is prevent marketing people from spying on them. And the performance and resource consumption that comes from that. Personal opinion: Laws are needed to make what advertisers are doing illegal. Advertisers are spying on people to the extent where if the government did it they'd need a warrant.

I'm only mildly bothered by the tracking, since it seems so inaccurate, but the ads themselves always drive me to adblockers. Taboola were running pictures of rotten teeth for a while which was intolerable; Youtube ads are often louder than the videos.

They may be inaccurate when you actively block trackers but they are surprisingly effective if allowed to do what they want. The whole “I think they’re listening to me” effect is because of how effective these trackers are.
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