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AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

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Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#61

Post by kardos »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #33
ubercow13 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think paying for things would stop you being tracked?

Very good point, I'd never considered that! OK, if you don't pay then money has to be found somewhere for the web to still work[1] which advertising seems to be the only source of. Payment provides that cash thus squelching the need for ads. If they don't advertise then they don't need to track AFAICS. If they do start advertising as well as accepting payments for non-advertising, they are going to get spanked by use…

> I'd prefer to pay, anonymously, but as people clearly won't cos they want free stuff at any cost, advertising will persist. It's a social problem not a technical one.

It's more of a content quality issue. There are examples where large numbers of people will pay for quality content (example [1]). Large swathes of 'content' is junk (clickbait, listicles, submarine articles, actual fake news, etc) and few will pay for that.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul/24/guardian-media...

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#62

Post by kardos »

abc-xyz wrote: post #17
dymk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You honestly think clearing cookies makes it hard to identify a user/browser pair? Or detect automated clicks? Does this extension change your IP? How bad at their job do you think these data scientists are, to make companies like Facebook and Google such great money printing machines?

Yeah, I do think it's very difficult to build a profile of a user that automatically clear cookies when closing a tab and often change IP. I'm not saying it's impossible, but certainly difficult. And it would become even more difficult if we encouraged everybody to take steps to protect their privacy rather than dismiss efforts as useless. This extension doesn't change my IP nor does it auto clear cookies, but are we…

> Yeah, I do think it's very difficult to build a profile of a user that automatically clear cookies when closing a tab and often change IP

Your browser leaks a lot more information than just cookies and IP.... canvas fingerprinting for example is particularly pernicious. Check this [1] for a demo of the known leaks (there are probably more that aren't in this project yet)

[1] https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#63

Post by SanderSantema »

SanderSantema wrote: post #35
0xADEADBEE wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I upvoted you - I'm not sure why you're being downvoted without explanation since you've axiomatically added an interesting viewpoint to the discussion.

A quick heads up: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." From the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Have I interpreted the guidelines incorrectly?

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#64

Post by jammygit »

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #21
bad_user wrote: post #19

This extension apparently simulates clicks on blocked ads. I'm not comfortable doing that. First of all I don't see the point. I don't click on ads, so there is no profile that advertisers can extract from that. Having an extension that simulates clicks would only link to my supposed profile shit that I don't want, plus in my experience from when I worked in the ads industry, the user profile often gets compiled from…

A couple of quick points: - Your ad profile will be built based on pages you visit as you indeed note, not just things that you click. Any noise you can introduce surely has to be a win for obfuscation? Would be interested in your thoughts here because you have more experience than I do! - I'm not certain that paying for content makes any difference from a data mining perspective. Loading a NYT article causes uBlock…

There is one news site that does better: Ars technica disables trackers if you buy a subscription

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#65

Post by na85 »

dymk wrote: post #9
abc-xyz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If it's so trivial and costs ad companies nothing, then why would Google go out of their way to ban the extension when it's essentially just an ad blocker that clicks on the ads in the background? 2. How would you filter out AdNauseam ad clicks with genuine ad clicks?

It’s banned because it’s made by people intentionally trying to not just subvert, but inject fake data into Google’s core business model. It’s like asking “why doesn’t Apple allow Cydia in the App Store?” AdNauseam clicks occur far more often than normal ad clicks, aren’t associated with other ad load events, timing is all similar, ads are clicked regardless of predicted relevancy. There’s dozens of obvious, and hund…

So what would be effective?

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#66

Post by magduf »

chaz6 wrote: post #15

Apart from actual malware, this is the only browser extension I know of to have been blacklisted by Google. If you want to use it in Chrome you have to jump through hoops. For the record, I approve of AdNauseam. I have every right to browse the internet how I choose. My computer, my control. I am firmly against the corporization of the internet.

I just want to say that I think "AdNauseum" is a brilliant name for this software.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#67

Post by magduf »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #33
ubercow13 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think paying for things would stop you being tracked?

Very good point, I'd never considered that! OK, if you don't pay then money has to be found somewhere for the web to still work[1] which advertising seems to be the only source of. Payment provides that cash thus squelching the need for ads. If they don't advertise then they don't need to track AFAICS. If they do start advertising as well as accepting payments for non-advertising, they are going to get spanked by use…

All the stuff you wrote about people paying, or wanting free stuff, is patently false. It was proven false by Cable TV. The promise there, when it was introduced, was that by paying a subscription for your TV, you wouldn't have any ads. So people bought into it, and pretty soon, they just added the ads back in, so now they were making money both from advertisers and the viewers at the same time. And this didn't cause them to be "spanked by users" by them canceling their cable TV subscriptions. It's been decades now, and cable TV is still here, and only now is it waning, but only because of online services like Netflix, not because people were fed up with ads.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#68

Post by magduf »

dymk wrote: post #9
abc-xyz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If it's so trivial and costs ad companies nothing, then why would Google go out of their way to ban the extension when it's essentially just an ad blocker that clicks on the ads in the background? 2. How would you filter out AdNauseam ad clicks with genuine ad clicks?

It’s banned because it’s made by people intentionally trying to not just subvert, but inject fake data into Google’s core business model. It’s like asking “why doesn’t Apple allow Cydia in the App Store?” AdNauseam clicks occur far more often than normal ad clicks, aren’t associated with other ad load events, timing is all similar, ads are clicked regardless of predicted relevancy. There’s dozens of obvious, and hund…

>Literally legions is PhDs study this attack vector and work at Google and Facebook.

You know a society is in decline when their smartest and best-educated members dedicate all their efforts to advertising crap to people to buy, instead of something more constructive like medical technology, space exploration, etc.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#69

Post by abc-xyz »

kardos wrote: post #62
abc-xyz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I do think it's very difficult to build a profile of a user that automatically clear cookies when closing a tab and often change IP. I'm not saying it's impossible, but certainly difficult. And it would become even more difficult if we encouraged everybody to take steps to protect their privacy rather than dismiss efforts as useless. This extension doesn't change my IP nor does it auto clear cookies, but are we…

> Yeah, I do think it's very difficult to build a profile of a user that automatically clear cookies when closing a tab and often change IP Your browser leaks a lot more information than just cookies and IP.... canvas fingerprinting for example is particularly pernicious. Check this [1] for a demo of the known leaks (there are probably more that aren't in this project yet) [1] https://panopticlick.eff.org/

That's true, besides NoScript then it's difficult to deal with canvas fingerprinting.. I do follow/use most of the settings/addons recommended at https://restoreprivacy.com/firefox-privacy/

In any case then I still think the goal should be to recommend AdNauseam to as many people as possible, because it does work against most ad networks, especially when it's accompanied by extensions such as Privacy Badger that will block a lot of tracking domains.

Even the most sceptic users (with regard to AdNauseam's ability to hurt user tracking ad networks) will still benefit from using AdNauseam as an alternative to uBlock Origin, because uBlock Origin is still running under-the-hood. There's nothing to lose and a lot to gain, especially when we in the future figure out how to defeat canvas fingerprinting without disabling JavaScript.

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