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Author Topic: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.  (Read 30352 times)

IainB

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Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« on: September 04, 2011, 11:53 PM »
Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster:
I have been interested in maintaining my web privacy for years, wishing to defend myself from the continuing and increasing assault on that privacy, from the advertisers and the Google and other ad-click giants.
So, yesterday out of interest, I downloaded the Ghostery add-on that works in:
  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Chrome/Chromium
  • Opera
  • IE
(I am using it in Firefox and Chromium.)

I was so impressed with the initial results after installing it that I posted a review and gave it a 5-star vote:
Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster - Rated 5 out of 5 stars.
Great add-on! Since 1997 I had used JunkBuster to keep the junk out of my browsing and minimise bandwidth utilisation. It worked very well, up until the time when the JunkBuster project was abandoned. I later moved to Ad-Block Plus, then added NoScript, but they were never quite enough, and I have long missed having the fine degree of control over my web browsing that JunkBuster was able to provide me with.
However, with the addition of Ghostery, I think I have nearly got back to the degree of control I had in 1997 - 15 years ago.
Sadly, that is *NOT* a measure of progress.   :-(

You can see a summary of the Ghostery functionality on the website and the the settings tab for the add-on.
I am requesting that the developers consider adding some of the JunkBuster-like functionality to Ghostery.

JunkBuster: If anyone reading this is wondering why JB might be such a good comparison, it was because JB enabled you to generally reduce/stop the annoying useless content "noise" appearing on web pages in your browser and to selectively tell the web server to NOT send various items that would otherwise consume bandwidth (thus reducing bandwidth consumption).

It did this by using regex expressions and proxy technology to (for example):
  • Selectively block annoying or unwanted or bandwidth-consuming images, ad banners, advertisements. (So you could always see the ads you wanted to see.) This saved annoyance and bandwidth.   :Thmbsup:
  • Selectively block annoying or unwanted or privacy-infringing URLS or domains.   :Thmbsup:
  • Selectively block cookies.    :Thmbsup:
  • Accept cookies and quarantine them all in a "cookie jar", then periodically swap filled cookie-jars with other people, by posting them to a public forum set up for that purpose. (Thus defeating the purpose of cookies altogether.)   ;)
  • Send out other people's cookies from their imported cookie jar.   ;)
  • Generate "wafers" (dummy cookies) and send them out to sites that requested a cookie.   ;)
  • Insert false information about your brower or set a message - e.g., "Do not track me" into the http header - e.g., my http header declared that I was using an obsolete Apple Mac with the obsolete Mosaic browser.   ;)
  • ...and so on.

For interest, you can get a copy of the last known version of JunkBuster (executable and code released under GPU GP Licence - runs on Linux and as a DOS-based proxy for Windows), together with complete FAQ files, from here: JunkBuster 2.0.2 - ijb20.zip
Apparently, the JunkBuster client proxy did not play well with the changing SSL technology, and development petered out. The developers suggested you tried out Guideon (now defunct), then Ad-Block and/or NoScript (I forget which, but I have them both anyway).

The JunkBuster.com website now says:
Sorry, the Junkbusters.com web site is no longer maintained.
Related information may be found at the following sites:
    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) - http://www.epic.org/
    Privacy International - http://www.privacy.org/
    Privacy Rights Clearinghouse - http://www.privacyrights.org/
« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 05:32 PM by IainB, Reason: Changed title of the OP thread to better reflect the general context and content. »

iphigenie

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2011, 03:11 AM »
i used ghostery as a warning tool about tracking, havent noticed the blocking options...

IainB

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2011, 05:12 AM »
@iphigenie: Yes, when you look on its options page, you realise that its blocking functionality and resource are quite extensive. They seem to work too, so far.

IainB

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2011, 09:13 PM »
This blocker seems to be working quite well, with no hiccoughs so far.    :Thmbsup:
Just noticed that on this DC page Ghostery senses and blocks:
  • AddtoAny
  • Google Analytics

(Does that cause any problem or create an issue for DC forum site management, I wonder?)

xtabber

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2012, 10:57 PM »
I've started using Ghostery in the browser I use for most ordinary browsing (Opera) and have set it to block all tracking elements.  The results have exceeded my expectations.  It has pretty much stopped any advertising from following me across multiple sites, such as political ads on news sites and ads for competitors I have recently visited on shopping sites.

Since you can selectively enable or disable any individual tracking elements, I have considered unblocking Google Analytics to allow sites like Donation Coder to keep count of unique visitors. I'm just not sure I trust Google enough to do so yet.


iphigenie

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2012, 02:21 AM »
On Opera I noticed the occasional unwanted blockage on redirects, usually links from newsletters. Disabling ghostery makes the link work. That's a side effect of Ghostery plugging in Opera's content filters

Iain - you can allow things through for specific sites, either because it is needed or because you want to let that particular site have stats

Stoic Joker

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2012, 06:54 AM »
Hm...
Q. Will Ghostery affect my browser performance?

A. Ghostery initiates a scan and decision for several types of page elements, and in some cases, this scan may represent a slight increase in page load times. However, if users choose to block page scripts, our lab research suggests that pages load faster on average.
-Ghostery FAQ

Can anyone confirm, deny, or comment on this??


[edit] Damn that's a zippy install!

IainB

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2012, 07:01 AM »
...you can allow things through for specific sites, either because it is needed or because you want to let that particular site have stats
Thanks for that tip. I had left everything "ON" in Ghostery. Must spend some time fiddling with site-specifics now. ArsTechnica would like that, I think.

iphigenie

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2012, 03:34 AM »
Hm...
Q. Will Ghostery affect my browser performance?
A. Ghostery initiates a scan and decision for several types of page elements, and in some cases, this scan may represent a slight increase in page load times. However, if users choose to block page scripts, our lab research suggests that pages load faster on average.
-Ghostery FAQ
Can anyone confirm, deny, or comment on this??
[edit] Damn that's a zippy install!

I never noticed much difference in Opera - and i love installing extensions which do not require restarting the browser (hear that, firefox???)
I didnt notice any difference in the other browsers either but they are back up browsers so I would not necessarily have a feel enough to notice

iphigenie

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2012, 03:43 AM »
On Opera I noticed the occasional unwanted blockage on redirects, usually links from newsletters. Disabling ghostery makes the link work. That's a side effect of Ghostery plugging in Opera's content filters

Clarifying this one as it took me a while to figure out - mostly because it is rare and therefore first happened quite a while after I installed Ghostery.

- clicking on a link in an email newsletter, the page opens in Opera
- you see a message from Opera's content blocker telling you that the content has been blocked, with the usual hint as to how to open the settings and check the rules
- if you look into the blocker rules, you don't find anything that matches the URL in question (in my case it was obvious since I had no rules set up)

it seems that due to the way ghostery hooks up in the content blocking service (which is the right thing to do) means that sometimes ghostery trigger a block of a page that is a redirect to a further page.

Because ghostery is meant to happen on the bug elements loaded in a page it doesnt show any additional information (since you don't see these blocked elements) and just lets the normal Opera mechanism operate.

So when it triggers on a full page that is a redirect from one of these tracking/analytics email (because the whole page is a bug, in a way) you have no indication ghostery was involved.

It happens very rarely and it might puzzle others and now they might find this thread (also posted that on Opera's forums back in November)

iphigenie

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2012, 03:52 AM »
...you can allow things through for specific sites, either because it is needed or because you want to let that particular site have stats
Thanks for that tip. I had left everything "ON" in Ghostery. Must spend some time fiddling with site-specifics now. ArsTechnica would like that, I think.

On Opera Ghostery operates via the normal content blocking mechanism, so what is available is simply the right click standard option "exempt this site from blocking".

On Firefox there is an option called "whitelist domain"

On chrome you either go in the full settings and add URLs in the text box at the bottom, or, when on a site, click on "edit blocking options" and click the "dont block"  option

In each case ghostery uses the built-in blocking mechanism and enhances it to only apply on in page elements and use its additional rules, but it lets the normal mechanism do the blocking

I suspect it is a performance choice to only allow blocking/unblocking of a bug everywhere, or a site for every bug.

wraith808

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #11 on: August 18, 2015, 08:27 PM »
So, I've been using Ghostery for a while, and now I think that might change.

I noticed something called Ghostery Privacy Notice, and wondered what it was.. then started investigating.  I didn't like what I found.

Lifehacker summarizes it better than I can.

http://lifehacker.co...-data-to-a-514417864

So I've started trying Disconnect.  They seem more upfront... so I'm going to trial it for a while.  But figured I'd post the information, at least.

And I'm feeling pretty good about it after this sensational uninstall page:

https://apps.ghostery.com/en/uninstall

IainB

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Re: Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2015, 04:03 AM »
@wraith808: Very interesting. Thanks for the info. A bit disappointing too, though I am none too surprised, being skeptical of the motivation of anyone involved in any aspect of advertising after having spent some years working on computational analysis of market research problems, population surveillance problems, and modelling of "target audience participation demographics" down to the ultimate level of granularity - i.e., a single identifiable person. This has the potential to reach into every corner of our lives. The Nazi fascists arguably set the standard by example - tattooing a number onto the forearm of every Jew in the death camps was a brilliant bureaucratic idea for indelible audience identification - one that supposedly "freedom-loving" Western democracies seem Hell-bent on trying to imitate nowadays, through the implementation of the medium of a National ID card, or subcutaneous RFID tag, DNA registering, or facial recognition, or something.
"Ah, but that's justified in the "War Against Terror™" one might hear someone say. Well, yes, so it might seem, but then what about all those other "wars" that are often used as arguments to substantiate the loss of freedoms, liberty, or franchise in some way - "The War Against Drugs", "The War Against Poverty", "The War Against Malaria", "The War Against Climate Change™" - to name but a few?

If one feels that we seem to have been encouraged to forget/overlook these post-modern lessons of fascism from Nazi Socialism and Russian Communism from the Second World War, then it's probably because we have - it's all going "down the memory hole" as George Orwell put it (in the book "1984"). For example, the EU's so-called "right to be forgotten" is a relatively modern innovation of Orwell's "memory hole" (erasing/rewriting history in the Ministry of Truth), but now actually manifested as a legally enforceable law. You can see where that's heading. So much for freedom/liberty.

With the possible exception of JunkBuster, I suspect that most of the efforts - e.g., Ghostery - to make browsing more private have the potential to be used in a similar sort of "reverse-engineering" manner to improve the advertising delivery protocols/methods, and that's exactly how they will be used, even if they weren't designed for that in the first place. It's a kinda evolutionary process that is happening to market advertising targetting and delivery methods, and there's arguably nothing you can do about it. It is remorseless, driven by a cancer in the currently supreme form of tacitly acceptable fascism called corporate/capitalist fascism, the most virulent form of which seems to have been homegrown and husbanded in America. It's American-made, like Bud Light.
For example: SOPA? TPP anyone? "G8 Free-market negotiations"? Ah, the taste of freedom! Yeah, right. Look at all those people ROFL.

So, you've "...started trying Disconnect.  They seem more upfront... so I'm going to trial it for a while....".
Well, good for you. Let us know how that works out for you.
Arguably it won't make a blind bit of difference what you do, but one never knows...
...and where you say you're "...feeling pretty good about it after this (Ghostery) sensational uninstall page..." I have to agree. It's a moronic but classically fascist way to intimidate people through the use of propaganda. I reckon they should've also worked in the classic "It's for the greater good of our children and their children" too. I mean, it's not like it would've made it any more stupid than it already was, so why not go the whole hog?   :tellme:

IainB

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2015, 05:04 PM »
Quite coincidentally, I saw this in my bazqux fee-reader this morning. Looks like a pretty accurate analysis of some of the main problems/issues: Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web - The New York Times
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
AUG. 19, 2015
Photo Credit Stuart Goldenberg
Farhad Manjoo

The great philosopher Homer Simpson once memorably described alcohol as “the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.” Internet advertising is a bit like that — the funder of and terrible nuisance baked into everything you do online.

Advertising sustains pretty much all the content you enjoy on the web, not least this very newspaper and its handsome, charming technology columnist; as I’ve argued before, many of the world’s most useful technologies may never have come about without online advertising. But at the same time, ads and the vast, hidden, data-sucking machinery that they depend on to track and profile you are routinely the most terrible thing about the Internet.

Now, more and more web users are escaping the daily bombardment of online advertising by installing an ad blocker. This simple, free software lets you roam the web without encountering any ads that shunt themselves between you and the content you want to read or watch. With an ad blocker, your web browser will generally run faster, you’ll waste less bandwidth downloading ads, and you’ll suffer fewer annoyances when navigating the Internet. You’ll wonder why everyone else in the world doesn’t turn to the dark side.

Photo
“They’ll start telling all their friends about this amazing app that saves your battery, saves your data and speeds up the web, and it’s likely to go viral," said Sean Blanchfield, the chief executive of PageFair. "A lot of people are going to get accustomed to having an ad-free mobile experience.” Credit Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times

Well, everyone may be catching on. Ad blocking has been around for years, but adoption is now rising steeply, at a pace that some in the ad industry say could prove catastrophic for the economic structure underlying the web. That has spurred a debate about the ethic of ad blocking. Some publishers and advertisers say ad blocking violates the implicit contract that girds the Internet — the idea that in return for free content, we all tolerate a constant barrage of ads.

But in the long run, there could be a hidden benefit to blocking ads for advertisers and publishers: Ad blockers could end up saving the ad industry from its worst excesses. If blocking becomes widespread, the ad industry will be pushed to produce ads that are simpler, less invasive, and are far more transparent about the way they’re handling our data — or risk getting blocked forever if they fail.

“It’s clear to us that the ads ecosystem is broken,” said Ben Williams, a spokesman for Eyeo, the German company that makes Adblock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking software. “What we need is a sea change in the industry to get to a place where we have a good amount of better ads out there, ads that users accept.”

The industry may not have much time to wait. In a report last week, Adobe and PageFair, an Irish start-up that tracks ad-blocking, estimated that blockers will cost publishers nearly $22 billion in revenue this year. Nearly 200 million people worldwide regularly block ads, the report said, and the number is growing fast, increasing 41 percent globally in the last year.

Today ad-blocking is mostly restricted to desktop web browsers. But iOS 9, Apple’s latest mobile operating system, will include support for ad blockers when it becomes available in the fall. Several ad-blocking firms are already creating apps for the new OS; when it’s out, you’ll simply download an ad blocker and no longer have to see ads on the iPhone’s version of Safari and possibly in other apps that open web links.

“What’s likely to happen is that of the 200 million people who use ad blocking now, let’s say half of them have iPhones — they’re all going to install one of these things,” said Sean Blanchfield, the chief executive of PageFair. “Then they’ll start telling all their friends about this amazing app that saves your battery, saves your data and speeds up the web, and it’s likely to go viral. A lot of people are going to get accustomed to having an ad-free mobile experience.”

It’s important to note that PageFair has skin in this game, and some have accused the company of self-interested alarmism.

PageFair also sells technology that allows web publishers to determine if users are running blocking software — and then serves them ads anyway, going around the blockers. PageFair’s software, which Mr. Blanchfield said is currently being tested with a number of large websites, circumvents ad blocking by using “low-level networking” technology that he declined to detail in order to stay ahead of ad companies.

Showing ads to people who have downloaded ad blockers sounds a little spammy. But in a twist, it may also lead to better ads. Here’s how: PageFair’s canny strategy to mitigate users’ outrage is that it will only show ads that aren’t “intrusive,” Mr. Blanchfield said. That means the ads won’t feature animations, they won’t block content, and they won’t load “trackers” that monitor and report back to some unknown server what you do on a web page.

By requiring companies to run ads that are simple and transparent, Mr. Blanchfield said PageFair would return sanity to the ad business. “We as an industry have lost the trust of our users, who are right — there are a lot of very bad ads out there,” he said. “We have one shot as an industry to get this right.”

PageFair is just one of the firms trying to create an ecosystem that produces better ads. After wrestling with the implications of their software, the founders of AdBlock Plus created an initiative called “Acceptable Ads,” which sets out a standard for ads that the software will let users see despite having ad-blocking turned on. These ads are also low-fi — they can’t be animated or cover up a page’s content. (Eyeo charges some large companies a fee to show these ads; Google, for instance, pays Eyeo to have its search ads show up for Adblock Plus users.)

Then there’s Ghostery, which makes a plug-in that lets users find and block online tracking tools — the code in a page that sends data about your surfing habits to marketers. According to the company, the number of such trackers has exploded in recent years because marketing software used to analyze consumer behavior has become much easier to use. Ghostery reported 22 trackers on a page for Slate, 18 on one for Business Insider, 22 at The Wall Street Journal, and 26 for the New York Times.

Not only do these trackers represent efforts to profile you, but they also waste time — when you see a web page stuck loading, you can usually blame one of these trackers. Ghostery aims to fix that. For a fee, the company reports to site owners which trackers are slowing down pages — which in turn may improve how ads are served. It will also soon unveil a “Ghostery score” that will show users which sites to trust based on the trackers that sites are loading up.

The pattern here is ironic: PageFair, AdBlock Plus and Ghostery, which all depend to some extent on consumers’ interest in blocking ads, are also all pushing innovative efforts to create better ads.

Even some in the ad industry acknowledge this dynamic. Scott Cunningham, the general manager of the technology lab for the Internet Advertising Bureau, the trade group that comes up with online advertising standards, said his group had already begun to respond to users who are downloading the software; most recently, he said, the bureau has been working to create clearer guidelines for the trackers’ coded web pages.

“As we’ve watched the incidence rate of ad blocking, we’ve said, ‘O.K., it’s time for us to put the clamps onto some of the areas we haven’t addressed yet,’ ” Mr. Cunningham said.

That suggests another practical utility of ad blocking — it appears to be an effective form of protest. For better ads tomorrow, block ads today.

Correction: August 19, 2015
An earlier version of this column misstated part of the name of an online advertising trade group. It is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, not Internet Advertising Bureau.
_________________
Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @fmanjoo
« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 05:54 PM by IainB, Reason: Changed heading in line with revised OP heading. »

mwb1100

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2015, 06:01 PM »
I use two different adblockers:

  - at home I use AdGuard, which I got on some lifetime license deal (similar to the one that seems to run perpetually on stacksocial now). No complaints.

  - at work I can't install AdGuard, so I replace the hosts file with one from mvps.org.   This works amazing well for such a simple solution.  It does have the slight drawback that occasionally web pages will have a few somewhat ugly "red 'X'" boxes for content that can't be found, but who cares?  Also, once every couple of months I click on a link that doesn't work because it was an affiliate link that got blocked by the hosts file.  That can be mildly annoying, but I usually decide that i can live without going to wherever the link was going to take me or I figure out a way to get there without the affiliate link via google.

IainB

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #15 on: August 19, 2015, 07:44 PM »
@mwb1100: Many thanks for the tips.   :Thmbsup:
That mvps.org looks very interesting. It also gave me an idea for making greater use of the 127.0.0.1 proxy... Time to experiment, methinks.

IainB

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Interesting comment about the possibility that ISPs might enter the fray to secure themselves toll gate revenue for allowing advertising to pass through "their" networks. That could potentially disrupt things in ways we might not have expected.
Network users already pay a fee to their ISP for their access to and use of the (TCIP) network provided by the ISPs - i.e., users effectively unwittingly pay to be sitting ducks for advertising - regardless of whether they use ad-blocking.
So, if ISPs started to charge advertisers a toll fee for delivering advertising into the network, then would that mean that the toll revenue would defray the network costs to the users?    :tellme:
Enquiring minds need to know.
If it did, and if such a new pricing regime were introduced, then I for one might at least consider disabling my ad-blocking. I mean, why not? I'd be getting paid for being obliged to look at ads. Whether I would want to, or not, is a different matter.
Conversely, if such a new pricing regime were introduced, then I might elect to keep paying my ISP just to not have the advertising feed. "User pays", as now. That way, the ISP would earn his revenue either way.
That could get very messy. Thinking about it, there could be lots of room for unintended consequences in this.
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
September 30, 2015
How ISPs Will Royally Sucker the Internet, Thanks to Ad Blocking

Largely lost in the current controversies about users blocking ads from websites is a dirty little secret -- users are about to be played for suckers by the dominant ISPs around the world, and ad blocking will be the "camel's nose under the tent" that makes these ISPs' ultimate wet dreams of total control over Internet content come true at last.

There have been a number of clues already, with one particularly notable new one today.

The big red flashing warning light is the fact that in some cases it's possible for firms to buy their way past ad blockers -- proving demonstrably that what's really going on is that these ad blocking firms want a piece of the advertising pie -- while all the time they wax poetic propaganda about how much they hate -- simply hate! -- all those ads.

But these guys are just clowns compared to the big boys -- the dominant ISPs around the world.

And those ISPs have for so very long wanted their slices of that same pie. They want the money coming, going, in and out -- as SBC's CEO Edward Whitacre noted back in 2005 during their takeover of AT&T, when he famously asked "Why should [Internet sites] be allowed to use [my] pipes for free?" -- conveniently ignoring the fact that his subscribers were already paying him for Internet access to websites.

Now -- today -- ISPs sense that it's finally time to plunge their fangs into the Net's jugular, to really get the blood gushing out into deep scarlet pools of money.

Mobile operator Digicel announced today that they intend to block advertising (except for some local advertisers) on their networks across the South Pacific and Caribbean, unless -- you guessed it -- websites pay them to let their ads through.

And while their claimed targets are Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and the other major players, you know that it will never stop there, and ultimately millions of small businesses and other small websites -- many of them one person operations, often not even commercial -- who depend on those ads will be decimated.

Germany's Deutsche Telekom is known to have been "toying" with the same concept, and you can be sure that many other ISPs are as well. They're not interested in "protecting" users from ads -- they're all about control and extorting money from both sides of the game -- their subscribers and the sites those subscribers need to access.

Where this all likely leads is unfortunately very clear. No crystal ball required.

Some sites will block ISPs who try this game. Broad use of SSL will limit some of these ISPs' more rudimentary efforts to manipulate the data flows between sites and subscribers. Technology will advance quickly to move ads "inline" to content servers, making them much more difficult to effectively block.

But right now, firms such as Israeli startup Shine Technologies are moving aggressively to promote carrier level blocking systems to feed ISP greed.

Yet this isn't the worst of it. Because once ISPs have a taste of the control, power, and money - money - money that comes with micromanagement of their subscribers' Internet access and usage, the next step is obvious, especially in countries where strong net neutrality protections are not in place or are at risk of being repealed with the next administration.

Perhaps you remember a joke ad that was floating around some years ago, showing a purported price list for a future ISP -- with different prices depending on which Internet sites you wanted to access. Pay X dollars more a month to your ISP if you want to be permitted to reach Google. Pay Y dollars more a month for Facebook access. Another Z dollars a month for permission from your ISP to connect to Netflix. And so on.

It seemed pretty funny at the time.

It's not so funny now -- because it's the next logical step after ISP attempts at ad blocking. And in fact, blocking entire sites is technically usually far easier than trying to only block ads related to particular sites -- most users won't know about workarounds like proxies and VPNs, and the ISPs can try block those as well.

These are the kinds of nightmarish outcomes we can look forward to as a consequence of tampering with the Internet's original end-to-end model, especially at the ISP level.

It's a road to even more riches for the dominant ISPs, ever higher prices for their subscribers, and the ruin of vast numbers of websites, especially smaller ones with limited income sources.

It's the path to an Internet that closely resembles the vast wasteland that is cable TV today. And it's no coincidence that the dominant ISPs, frantic over fears of their control being subverted by so-called cable TV "cord cutters" moving to the Internet alone, now hope to remake the Internet itself in the image of cable TV's most hideous, anti-consumer attributes.

Nope, you don't need a Tarot deck or a Ouija board to see the future of the Internet these days, if the current patterns remain on their present course.

Whether or not our Internet actually remains on this grievous path, is of course ultimately in our hands.

But are we up to the challenge? Or are we suckers, after all?

--Lauren--
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently doing so.
All opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Stoic Joker

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #17 on: October 01, 2015, 04:00 PM »
It's the path to an Internet that closely resembles the vast wasteland that is cable TV today. And it's no coincidence that the dominant ISPs, frantic over fears of their control being subverted by so-called cable TV "cord cutters" moving to the Internet alone, now hope to remake the Internet itself in the image of cable TV's most hideous, anti-consumer attributes.

Well that sounds completely horrifying to me.

IainB

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #18 on: October 02, 2015, 09:25 PM »
^^ Absolutely, and I reckoned it sounded pretty horrifying too, but it was just someone's prediction, so I didn't let it worry me.
Things rarely work out as predicted, and it would be absurd to think we could predict the future, though some have tried with varying degrees of success - e.g., science fiction writers, one good example being the view of a possible future totalitarian state in the book "1984" by George Orwell (which seems to have been used by some governments as an instruction manual). Incidentally, there was an echo of that book in the BBC's rather good TV drama series about UK society under totalitarian state rule in "1990" (some of which which eerily seems to be coming to pass or may have already passed).

IainB

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Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2015, 10:16 PM »
Quite coincidentally, I saw this in my bazqux fee-reader this morning. Looks like a pretty accurate analysis of some of the main problems/issues: Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web - The New York Times
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The article at the link would seem to be based on what is arguably a not unreasonable assumption that the existing de facto business models used by ISPs and advertisers will likely continue and/or be reinforced by anticipated potential changes in a pricing regime, and that the ISPs would intend to plan for that because it will be easy "money for nothing" (i.e., they will not have not added any value/service).
However, the art of the possible might have already thwarted such possible plans, by demonstrating that there are alternative business models and pricing regimes that could come into play. This point struck home to me when I posted the comment LINE - the txt chat/audiocall/videocall friend contacts VoIP you always needed?

If you read the Wikipedia info - Line (application) - Wikipeda - you will see that LINE was created as an emergency response to replace a crippled telecommunications infrastructure after the Japanese earthquakes and tsunami in 2011. As such, there would have been little or no thought given to making revenue from it at the time. However, by offering it as a free service to the public, and then getting it subsidised by advertising revenue and with an emphasis on the needs of the user as a user, it has a business model that would seem to be quite different to the de facto business model of other "social networks" where the user is a tool whose demographic data is intentionally collected, copyrighted and then sold as such (monetised).
LINE would seem to be a disruptive technology and a potential existential threat to the business models of the market status quo.