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Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

ericdraken.com

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Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#511

Post by fbdab103 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #443
slacka wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network level ad-blocking like Privoxy and pi-hole have so many downsides like they can't handle inline adverts. My pi4 pi-hole is unplugged right now because it just didn't work well. After hours wasted trying to make it work with all the services, I've thrown in the towel. The time involved is just not worth it for a home network. What works are browser based ad-blockers and app patchers like ReVanced. As my saving…

What services are you having trouble with? My RPi PiHole has been working great for whole-house blocking for a half-decade now.

Airplane booking sites seem incapable of working with a Pihole. Presumably the entire travel industry is similar

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#512

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

notjoemama wrote: post #488
kentonv wrote: post #480

Cool hack overall, but some of the statements about protobuf strike me as odd. > Exploit a Protobuf Flaw to Easily Remove All Ads by Changing One Byte He's intentionally corrupting the tag on one field of the protobuf. The "flaw" is apparently that Protobuf ignores tag numbers it doesn't recognize. But that's not a flaw, it's a core design feature of Protobuf, designed to allow extensibility. > Notice how the Protobu…

Brilliant response and observations. I’m not sure I’d agree with this one tiny assertion though: “1.87MB is not that big“ I have lived in rural communities most of my life and unless I’m on my own Wi-Fi, this actually is a big file to download. Maybe they have a workaround for mobile? Mostly I just want to add that rural Wi-Fi still struggles with Web 2.0 architecture. More often we’re operating on 2-4G speeds. Altho…

It's a little weird on HN to see someone refer to "rural wifi". Unless you're talking about a relatively rare form of mesh networking, there's not really any such thing as rural wifi, at least not in the sense that its different from any other kind of wifi - a very local RF network designed to share an access point. I assume you're using wifi as a stand-in for "internet" or "broadband".

4G speeds are completely fine for watching video - I do this often in very rural locations using a Verizon hotspot (4G only). Sure, less than that is problematic for video, but 1.87MB is still small over 3G.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#513

Post by mwidell »

mission_failed wrote: post #245
jjallen wrote: post #122

I just subscribe to YouTube premium to support my favorite application out there. I learn so much from the people who spend hours and hours making videos every month that I am more than happy to pay a measly $13 or whatever it is every month to YouTube.

I'll pay Google when they start weeding out the utter garbage that is uploaded targeting kids. Things like frozen characters getting tired up and thrown in water, or their clay stomachs getting cut open. YouTube happily suggests these abusive videos when you are watching kids shows, and Google does stuff all about them

Just get the youtube kids app. It only contains preapproved videos that are fine for kids. Works great.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#514

Post by xp84 »

criddell wrote: post #447
l33t7332273 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary benefit that many pay for is to not see ads and to support creators you enjoy, not to avoid tracking.

And many of us don't care all that much about ads, we're mostly opposed to tracking.

I’m honestly not asking to be obtuse, but what difference does this “tracking” actually make? I block ads on the web because they’re so obnoxious and usually so utterly stupid (One weird trick to blast belly fat!!”), but I couldn’t care less if an ad profile exists on me or on some GUID tied to a browser I use[1]. What’s your pitch to someone who doesn’t care, that they should care?

[1] also, if tracking can help to replace idiotic ads like that with ones for some b2b software product I’d actually be interested in knowing about, please track me.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#515

Post by dragonwriter »

jefftk wrote: post #349
mission_failed wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll pay Google when they start weeding out the utter garbage that is uploaded targeting kids. Things like frozen characters getting tired up and thrown in water, or their clay stomachs getting cut open. YouTube happily suggests these abusive videos when you are watching kids shows, and Google does stuff all about them

Are you taking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate , which was fixed in 2017?

The last sentence in the Wikipedia article you link provides reason to believe that the extensive and largely unfocussed show of action Google made in 2017 did not, in fact, solve the problem.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#516

Post by venusenvy47 »

userbinator wrote: post #12

I've been MITM'ing my traffic to, among other things, strip ads and rewrite pages with things like custom CSS, ever since I discovered The Proxomitron over 2 decades ago. It does tend to get me profiled as a "bot" by CloudFlare and such, but there are not-so-trivial ways around that too. It also shows why things like remote attestation are hazardous for user freedom.

I haven't thought about Proxomitron in about two decades - are you still using it? I never used it for anything you described, but it was great to use as a proxy with our company firewall. Many programs back in the day couldn't connect with the Internet because our firewall back then required login information to make outbound connections.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#517

Post by SoftTalker »

sedatk wrote: post #491
notjoemama wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brilliant response and observations. I’m not sure I’d agree with this one tiny assertion though: “1.87MB is not that big“ I have lived in rural communities most of my life and unless I’m on my own Wi-Fi, this actually is a big file to download. Maybe they have a workaround for mobile? Mostly I just want to add that rural Wi-Fi still struggles with Web 2.0 architecture. More often we’re operating on 2-4G speeds. Altho…

If you struggle with 2MB payload, how do you expect to stream video, which is usually hundreds of megabytes? You’re right about 2MB being a large payload in some network configurations, but I think it isn’t that big in Youtube’s context.

720p or less.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#518

Post by Zuiii »

SoftTalker wrote: post #517
sedatk wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you struggle with 2MB payload, how do you expect to stream video, which is usually hundreds of megabytes? You’re right about 2MB being a large payload in some network configurations, but I think it isn’t that big in Youtube’s context.

720p or less.

I used to stream all my videos 144p less than 5 years ago because streaming any higher resulted in a stuttering buffering mess. Youtube was the only streaming service I could watch because most other sites didn't bother with resolutions/bitrates so low. Maybe that's why youtube won out. Much like how whatsapp made it their mission to run on every phone they could get their hands on.

Now we have proper internet I don't but don't for a second doubt that a sizable portion of the internet still suffer from slow speeds, even those living in developed countries.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#519

Post by Scaevolus »

kentonv wrote: post #480

Cool hack overall, but some of the statements about protobuf strike me as odd. > Exploit a Protobuf Flaw to Easily Remove All Ads by Changing One Byte He's intentionally corrupting the tag on one field of the protobuf. The "flaw" is apparently that Protobuf ignores tag numbers it doesn't recognize. But that's not a flaw, it's a core design feature of Protobuf, designed to allow extensibility. > Notice how the Protobu…

The trickiest part of decoding protobufs blind is how embedded messages and strings have the same tag type, but that's pretty easy to handle.

You can write a simple protobuf decoder in a couple hundred lines of code if you don't want to pull in the full protoc dependency: https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/blob/master/guberna... https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/blob/master/guberna...

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#520

Post by cbsmith »

kentonv wrote: post #480

Cool hack overall, but some of the statements about protobuf strike me as odd. > Exploit a Protobuf Flaw to Easily Remove All Ads by Changing One Byte He's intentionally corrupting the tag on one field of the protobuf. The "flaw" is apparently that Protobuf ignores tag numbers it doesn't recognize. But that's not a flaw, it's a core design feature of Protobuf, designed to allow extensibility. > Notice how the Protobu…

I had much the same points of confusion when reading this. It's not like the design principles behind Protubuf are a secret. This is all documented plainly.
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