Reply to post: Re: Lots of people hate adverts...

Re: Lots of people hate adverts...

The internet existed without advertising before, and it is possible for it to exist without it again. Ok, that isn't going to happen due to entropy and cat being well and truly out of the bag. But it's a nice thought.

Please see my earlier comment about my actually liking and freely accepting some advertising. It's just that I don't want Dr. Fred Mbogo's magical cancer curing pills pushed at me, when I am finding out how long my relative has to live. It's not only intrusive, it is abusive and totally unacceptable. THIS is what we are fighting against. That and malware. Ad pushers are one of the biggest vectors of infection. You don't even need to be a security researcher to know that.

You raise a very good point, but please do not conflate being Data-Raped with people trying to steal the rightful work of others. I am a content provider. I have my work stolen all the time. If everyone paid for those 20,000 downloads of my software mod (I didn't write the original software), even if they paid just 10p, then it would give me a large amount of money. People refuse to pay even a penny for that which will cost them over 20 quid elsewhere. So I gave it away for free in the end.This is hurting me, please take this into account.

Also please take into account, that my work is of such a quality, that I am being asked to sell through the original dev's site for that 20 quid a time, for which I will get a significant cut. But people would rather pay 20 quid it would seem, than pay me 10p (or even be polite and say thanks). Nowt so queer as folk. The tragedy of the commons and all that.

Ok, that covers the whole content creation getting something for nothing angle. What about the Data-Rape?

It works like this. And this has been covered many times. You go to a website. You go there for a reason. That website may or may not provide content (I'm talking more IP than 'content' here) that you are interested in. It may be the sole reason you go there, or perhaps you have other motives (can think of many). That website has every right to ask you: Can I please probe your system to give you a better experience? I have every right to say 'yes' or 'no'. That website then has every right to say: Well, we're sorry that you feel that way, but we just aren't going to let you play until you pay. Fair enough. No harm no foul. No one loses.

If I am that interested in the content, I will pay for it, believe me. But there are many content creators out there that are happy to give their work away for free. Hell, in the audio world, you can get some of the most genius programmers giving away virtual synthesizers and what not for free! Stuff that holds its own against paid software costing 200 euros even!

Sample content. Can't give it away. I know, coz I tried. Actually you can give it away, coz I tried that too. 20,000 downloads and only 2 people said thanks, but 20 people complained! Welcome to the wonderful world of content creation and dissemination.

This is not about ripping off the small content providers, be they writers, programmers, photographers. No, this isn't even about ripping off the big multi-national corporations, like the aforementioned Native Instruments, who canvas fingerprint your machine, and won't allow you to download the software you own, without it. I patronise them by buying their software and their hardware. They don't give a shit about their customers. Only what they can get out of them. It's called business. I get it. I really do.

Native Instruments do not care about software piracy, because they are not affected by it. In fact, it enhances their business model for reasons I shall not get into here. They simply do not care one bit. Because they are pretty much the biggest fish in the pond, plus they have hardware to push as well. So what possible reason could there be for them to insist on canvas fingerprinting? As I mention earlier, it is purely marketing. To the max. Cry me a river. They aren't doing this to survive, they are doing this to dominate because only the paranoid survive, right? But I repeat myself, it's just business.

In a way, I don't even mind with this company, because being part of the hive and the big data, it enables them to push certain products even more. This is an argument for another time.

Now, Canvas Fingerprinting (as I understand it) is even more intrusive than Ad-Blocker detection, because it takes a unique profile of your entire system without you even knowing it is being done. That will then be stored on a database, and even though many that use this will not sell that info to 3rd parties, the abuse potential for cross referencing is massive. Too big to be ignored.

Canvas Fingerprinting trumps TOR, trumps VPNs, Proxies, you name it. When someone has a unique identifier of your end point machine, it matters not a jot how encrypted or obfuscated the data was in transit. It has to come from somewhere and go somewhere and vice versa. That is the weakest link in the chain.

Let me give you an example. A site I go to sometimes for shits and giggles, is a conspiracy theory site, with lots of good info but is mad as a box of frogs, so they attract people who tell them how it is. This site uses canvas fingerprinting. When you go there via TOR, it tells you 'This site is attempting to extract canvas...' and do you want to allow it to, or not. Of course you click on 'no'. But people who 'troll' there are not totally computer literate and they believe that by using TOR that they are somehow magically invisible. They are not, not when they mistakenly click on 'yes'. This then uniquely identifies their machine. So if they go through TOR, Jon Donym (or any proxy), or a VPN, it doesn't matter, because their machine is uniquely identified to a 99 percent probability (made that one up).

The browser header information gives a bit away. But when you have OS, GFX card, HD manufacturer, amount of RAM, etc. etc. it isn't that difficult to absolutely forensically identify someone.

That guy that thought he was anonymous because he was using TOR to troll got his comeuppance at this particular site. But if he ever used the same machine to go back there, it wouldn't matter if he used a VPN or whatever - he would still get clocked. In fact, to get around this, all he needs to do is just connect via a different physical computer via TOR again, but disallow the canvas fingerprinting option. I think he could also connect through a virtual machine using TOR and that would have the same effect. Not 100 percent on that, but I think it would work - they would not have a clue who 'he' was.

I think I've made the point. I'm just a layman, so if I've made any mistakes, I am more than happy to be corrected.

As for the original point, those that provide useful content will find people more than willing to pay for it (or not), and like the rest of us, they will stand or fall one way or another. Data-Raping my personal life (it's not just my computer) helps no one. It results in absolutely NO extra sales to anyone, I promise you. Yes it is good way of controlling people, but that is the political side, which I will argue again. We are talking commerce here. I would also imagine the people that use the advertising services have to pay the advertising companies too, so they are also wasting their money.

You raise some good points about 'how do they promote their stuff'. I don't have an answer to that, like the hundreds of other small developers I know. I can make a post on one of the two biggest music producer forums in the world, and I can make their sales go through the fucking roof. I'm not a shill or even affiliated, but I help out and promote where I can. I get no free software for this. I don't need it. I already have a stupid stupid amount of the highest quality softs on the planet. I've actually been told by some of the most respected devs in the industry that my post helped to give them a massive sales boost.

Ta!

Shilling is a massive problem on the audio forums, and sometimes the devs get around it by being cheeky and just promoting themselves by giving their time. But someone lying about being given a free product, or even having beta tested for a company, can result in that person becoming persona non grata and losing whatever reputation they had (which is everything). If you've only got a few posts you will be outright banned.

Integrity is everything. I am only talking about my real world, small little subset of things. I'm sorry I can't answer further than this.

["We're not! - thank fuck he put a sock in it eventually" I hear you crying at the back :-). ]