Posts by FF22

Western Digital wonders why enterprise isn't keen on its solid-state drives

WD Warranty = Suxx

People don't buy WD drives anymore because of how they handle warranty. When their drives fail - in larger numbers than drives from other manufacturers - and you send them back in to WD for warranty replacement, they will send you out refurb replacement drives, that will die in a short time again. And when you send also that in, they send you sub-par refurb drives again.

Then you just give up and will never ever buy again a WD drive. Even if its an SSD, because... well... it's still the same company with the same - virtually non-existent - warranty service.

Facebook's React Native web tech not loved by native mobile devs

In other news

Grumpy old devs unable to learn new technologies are left behind and getting jobs at Walmart

Microsoft open-sources UI Recorder tool for Windows 10 developers

Fresh up. Right.

v1.0 Release @hassanuz hassanuz released this on Oct 19 2017 <-----

Security? We've heard of it, say web-app devs. 31 in 33 codebases have at least one big bad vuln

That sounds good

31 in 33 for web apps? That sounds pretty good compared to 33 in 33 for C/C++ apps.

How machine-learning code turns a mirror on its sexist, racist masters

Conclusion is wrong

Problem is: some attitudes or phenomena associated more closely or intensely with a race or a gender per se is not a proof of neither racism nor that of sexism - just like Paris being more closely associated with France than with England isn't the result of some form of nationalism either. It's just a pure fact and a valid observation. Which could very well be the case with any or all race or gender "stereotypes".

Only if they could prove that those associations were or are unsubstantiated, and are only the result of prejudice or discrimination - now, that could prove racism or sexism. But until they do that, the results do not actually mean and prove what they are trying to (falsely) conclude from them.

And do not even get me started about how the AI they were using (or any current "AI" for that matter) could possibly not have actually understood the true meaning of the textual resources it were fed to, and how it would have most likely classified even anti-racism and anti-sexism materials (which we, as humanity, have generated in large amounts in the last 50-60 years or so) as sexist or racist - at least in this analysis -, because simply and obviously these texts also carry heavy proximities in between of word (and generally an abundance of words), which are associated with sexism or racism, while the texts themselves being the antithesises of these ideas, and their pure existence in a large number the counterproof is these ideas being widespread and/or accepted in society.

Use ad blockers? Mine some Monero to get access to news, says US site

Re: Want me to visit your site?

Nobody wants you to visit their site, you dummy. They want to make money off you (so they can cover their expenses and get their paycheck at the end of the week/month, like you do). You visiting the site is not their goal and not what they ultimately want, but only a means to an end. So, if they can't make money off your visit, because you're blocking their ads/miners/etc, then they DO NOT want you to visit their sites. Get it?

Not that it wouldn't be dumb to say that it's THEY who would owe you, when in fact it's YOU who is using their services and consuming their content - so, it's you who should pay up. Just saying...

Amazing stupidity on part of the blockers

It just always amazes me how all these stupid ad blockers think that they can somehow "outsmart" the system and reap/rape it, for their own benefit. Like, you know, how they think they'll somehow "win" or gain something when they successfully block ads; when they put cryptominers into VMs with limited resources; or somehow bypass any new mechanisms and ways publishers might come up with and employ to generate some revenue.

Here's a news flash for all your morons: you can't outsmart the system. And that not only because you're too stupid to outsmart it in the first place, but also because you can't change the fact, that from nothing comes nothing. Whenever you somehow successfully thwart (usually by some solution developed by people far smart than you, and only taking advantage and using you, as their pawns) the publishers' attempt to generate revenue to sustain their publications (ie. to pay for their serves, their bills, their employees, etc), you're not actually winning anything, and you're not actually making anything better - not even for yourself.

Rather, what you do is force the publishers' hands to find new ways to make somehow money off you (because you know, servers just won't magically sell for free, paychecks won't write and pay themselves, etc. just because you are blocking ads, cryptominers, etc). Which in turns will not only give you now something new you will - not really have to, but want to - combat the same way you did with the previous thing (and thus arrive at the very same point you started off, to begin with), but because development, deployment and operation of more elaborate schemes to generate income will generally cost more, they will now have to make even more money off you, which in another turn will mean, that it will get even more costly and cumbersome for you to somehow try to thwart that new way of money generation. If you will be able to do that, at all.

So, with all that pointless and futile blocking, all you can achieve is even more problems for yourself in the medium and long term, even more wasted resources, without actually getting anywhere. And if somehow you could really stop any and all means the publishers might come up with for generating revenue to cover their costs, then the only thing you could ultimately achieve is, that you drive any and all honest publications out of business. So, you will have nowhere to go for the content and services you're otherwise obviously very much not only enjoying, but also depending on, on a daily basis.

How stupid you have to be to not be able to realize that? Obviously, very, very stupid.

An don't even get me started about how a lot of other major problems these days, like the proliferation of fake news, state-sponsored manipulation, etc. are all related to and the direct results of ad blocking, that's depriving independent and honest working journalists and other people of their well-earned and legal income, and only letting shady, state-sponsored publications to proliferate and spread propaganda!

PS: I'm keenly awaiting your downvotes, which I know will come in large numbers, as most of you simply can't face these facts - which, however, won't make them any less of a fact.

Re: The only reason that the ads get blocked ...

"That brought in more money than the supposedly individually targeted ads we get today."

That was because the ratio of demand and offer were different back then. Starting a publication required a lot of capital and up front investment, so there were only a few publications - and they all had limited spaces (pages) for the ads. However, nowadays anyone can start their publication (website, blog, facebook page, youtube channel) etc for practically free, and they can generate and add any number of pages, videos, etc. - which means that there's an almost unlimited increase in offers (for ad spaces), which in turns lowers prices dramatically.

So, it's not like targeted ads wouldn't work better, than untargeted ones - because they obviously do work a lot better. It's just that the rate they increase efficiency is just nowhere close to be able to compensate for the enormous drop in the prices of ads, that happened for reasons unrelated to them.

Re: So-

A clueless one has spoken again. Hosting ad servicing - or any web service for that matter - on their own is about the worst thing a publisher can do. Why? Because they won't have dedicated and properly educated staff for doing that - and that will leave them (and through them their readers) more prone to attacks by hackers, than if they'd just have let a far larger company, specializing in that stuff, do that for them.

The argument that every site should host their ads, because that would be somehow safer or better by any means is as stupid, as arguing that everybody should raise their own cattle or grow their own food, make their own equipment and tools, sew their own cloths, etc. It just makes no sense, not only in the economic sense, but also in regards of security. Because a single person or a few persons doing everything can't possibly reach the level sophistication at anything (including security) that a group of highly specialized experts can reach.

So, no, ads should be NOT be served locally, by every and each website, but by large ad networks - both because of economic, and also because of security reasons. Obviously nothing is and can be 100% secure, but a large company specializing in a niche field (like ad serving) can secure their servers magnitudes better and make them work more effective, than can Average Blogger Joe or even a medium-size media company could.

But then again, we all know, all this "ads are a security risk" is just a stupid excuse, made up by weak minded sociopaths, in an attempt to justify robbing honest working bloggers/journalists/publishers or their well-deserved income, so they (ie. the blockers) can deluded themselves in being control of and over something in their pitiful lives, otherwise hopelessly controlled by people a lot smarter than them.

No, Windows 10 hasn’t beaten Windows 7’s market share. Not for sure, anyway

Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

"It identifies individual machines and may differentiate multiple logins "

It does not. It counts page views. http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#page-views-uniques

StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

StatCounter

1. doesn't count unique users - let alone installations -, but page views

2. their statistics are not representative.

Because of that, their numbers are practically irrelevant and non-indicative, when it comes to market share of operating systems, browsers, etc. The fact they don't even know that, makes just it obvious how amateurish they are and operate.

X.509 metadata can carry information through the firewall

Who would have thought?

Bad code can do bad things. A communication channel can be used to transmit data. Who would have thought that? Amazing discovery on part of the researcher.

Firefox to emit ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test

"Firefox is corporation, even if it doesn't have investors. Has to pay the bills somehow, and with sponsorship deals with Google and Yahoo fading away (in different ways)"

In reality Mozilla made more money from these sponsorship agreements last year, than ever before (>half a billion dollars), and more money it could ever possibly spend on actual and useful development.

This latest attempt of their is really just about greed, and is anti-competitive anyway. Obviously a browser manufacturer should not be allowed to show ads of their own when at the same time they partially or fully blocking their competitors from doing the same.

Elon Musk says he's not Satoshi Nakamoto and is pretty rubbish at Bitcoin

Nope. He just grabbed it by its pssy.

Rob Scoble's lawyer told him to STFU about sex pest claims. He didn't

This article = manginism, at its best

So, your argument is, that if he admits to have done something he's accused of, he's guilty; and if he denies an allegation, he's guilty - because you know he did it anyway, right?

And don't even get me started how a proposition can't be a harassment per se, and if it ever will be, the human race will just die out.

'We've nothing to hide': Kaspersky Lab offers to open up source code

Worth nothing

Can we compile Kaspersky AV binaries from that source code, and run that on our computers? Can we do the same with any and all updates to the software? If not, this "offer" is worthless.

Also, I rather doubt that Kaspersky's update process wouldn't have the ability to run any arbitrary code (either directly or by loading a freshly downloaded executable library in memory), at which point they're proven to have built a possible backdoor into their software.

Google isn't saying Microsoft security sucks but Chrome for Windows has its own antivirus

Chrome just got his *ss whopped

And yet, Chrome's malware/phishing/social engineering attack detection works only at 70-80% success rate compared to Microsoft's, according to the just published NSS Labs report. Google "NSS Labs Conducts First Cross-Platform Test of Leading Web Browsers"

It's September 2017, and .NET lets PDFs hijack your Windows PC

It's September 2017...

... and Shaun Nichols still doesn't get it, that it's virtually impossible to create flawless software, and that because of that there will be always new vulnerabilities discovered in them, especially if they're as widespread, as large and their development is as fast-paced, as is Windows'.

Fake Newspaper steals Reg design to spruik storage upstart

"Design"

You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

G20 calls for 'lawful and non-arbitrary access to available information' to fight terror

Equal rights for everyone

I'm all for this - as long as every citizen in the world gets the same right, including access to all G20 governments' communication.

'Sorry, I've forgotten my decryption password' is contempt of court, pal – US appeal judges

Re: Actual case aside

"That's where you are absolutely wrong. Evidence on an encrypted drive is the same as evidence in a safe - you have no right at all to keep that evidence unknown to the police if they have a search warrant, and no right to keep it secret from the court."

Wrong. You do have the right to remain silent or claim you can't open the safe. The police then has the right to bring in a locksmith for the safe, but if he fails to open the safe or its contents get destroyed in the process, they can't assume you had child porn in there and convict you based on that.

The same goes with the drive. You (as the owner of the drive) can remain silent or even claim you forgot the password. And even though the police has the right to bring in a security expert for the drive, if he fails to decrypt the drive, they can't just go ahead with the assumption you had child porn on it, and convict you based on that.

"You would only incriminate yourself if the fact that you know the password is incriminating."

You, too, are applying circular reasoning here, basing your conclusion on things you'd have to prove first to be considered facts. Like that there's actually child porn on the drive - which we have no proof for. For all we know the drive could be full of random bytes. Or it could be full of illegal material despite being completely devoid of any child porn, in which case Doe would incriminate himself by revealing the password. Which he can not be forced to do.

That said Doe didn't invoke the right against self-incrimination, but simply claimed he can't remember the password. And unless they can prove that this is a lie, they've no proof for contempt of court either.

Re: Actual case aside

"So unless she's making it up and the other evidence doesn't amount to damning"

So how do we know she's not making it up? There's no evidence to prove that what she's saying is true. Can't she lie? For what we know, the drive could belong to her, have been planted by her, and Doe might possibly really not know the password to it.

Again, I'm not trying to take sides in the actual case, just trying to show, that there's no actual evidence against the man, just assumptions based obviously on prejudice (because they can't be based on proven facts in the absence of these).

"So unless she's making it up and the other evidence doesn't amount to damning, it seems reasonable to assume that Doe knows it's not in his best interests to unlock that drive. That's a motive."

That's again, circular reasoning. It's only a motive if you can actually prove that there's something incriminating on the drive. But until you can decrypt the drive, you can't prove even that Doe would have reason not to want to unlock it.

Actual case aside

This is just ridiculous. How could the judge have "found that Doe remembered the passwords needed to decrypt the hard drives but chose not to reveal them"? Obviously, he couldn't. He just assumed it, because of.... thought police?

Also, somehow wanting to force the accused person to reveal his password goes against all established principles of due process, like the accused not having to incriminate himself, or the right to remain silent.

"The appeals court found that forcing the defendant to reveal passwords was not testimonial in this instance because the government already had a sense of what it would find."

^ This is circular reasoning. As long as they don't know the password and can't decrypt the drive, they just can't know what's on it - let alone prove it.

Finally proof that Apple copies Samsung: iPhone 7 Plus halts, catches fire like a Galaxy Note 7

Water damage

That's obviously not a kitchen counter, but a bathroom sink. And the kid most likely dropped the phone into the water or spilled some onto it, which either caused short circuit or simply leaked into the battery (causing short circuit there, in the cells) - and that was what actually caused the burn.

Just my two cents.

Did you know? The FBI investigated Gamergate. Now you can read the agents' thrilling dossier

Lies

"In August 2014, gamers targeted game developer Zoë Quinn, along with Wu and Sarkeesian, with threats and harassment through chat and social media channels."

Indeed. They've "threatened" themselves with fake tweets: http://www.returnofkings.com/42602/did-anita-sarkeesian-fake-death-threats-against-herself

Not OK Google: Tree-loving family turns down Page and pals' $7m

Translation

"We don't need the money. Right now it's not for sale."

Translation:

"We want more money. We won't sell until you offer much more."

Ghost of DEC Alpha is why Windows is rubbish at file compression

Obvious bull

" Which is a fine way to match compression to a machine's capabilities, but a lousy way to make data portable because if a system only has access to algorithm Y, data created on an algorithm-X-using machine won't be readable. Which could make it impossible to move drives between machines."

Right. Because you couldn't have possibly included (de)compression code for both algorithms in all versions of the OS, and you couldn't have possibly used an extra bit or byte in the volume descriptor or in the directory entries of files to signal which particular method was used to compress them.

Web devs want to make the Internet of S**t worse. Much worse

Re: Wrong

"Straight away you assume that Bluetooth is being used for applications"

I did nothing alike. Not that assuming it would have been wrong. Just sayin'.

"Ok...so with all the current insecurities doing the rounds, opening up an attack vector that crosses strewn with malware web"

Over your head. My whole point was that with some or most Bluetooth access potentially moved to the browser the overall attack surface will be reduced, because now you won't need to download and install native apps permanently anymore for a lot of Bluetooth-related stuff, but can simply run them on-demand from the much safer browser environment.

"Ahh yes. And those security prompts will always be there? Because of, you know, no exploited bugs, malware being present. "

There might be bugs and exploits, but they will be definitely less available from a browser environment, than they were from the native environment. So, all in all - as already explained - the attack surface and the risks will be reduced, even then when there will be some new exploits and bugs introduced.

"I think the author was pretty clear what his problem was."

You're obviously confusing two things here. Being clear about something doesn't mean being right about it. I've questioned the latter, and you're talking about the former.

Re: Wrong

You "forgot" to supply any counterarguments.

Wrong

Author is simply wrong. Why? Just think about it!

You want to use Bluetooth - for whatever reason. If you can't use/access it from your web browser, then you will have to download a native app for that. Native apps have obviously far less restrictions applied to them, than anything running inside a web browser, right? Right.

So, providing access to Bluetooth from the web browser, too, obviously can not make things any worse than they are. Actually, on the contrary: it provides a more secure environment for running Bluetooth-based apps, than that was previously available. With this, you don't have to download and install an app for that purpose any more, but can use your far more secure and restricted browser environment to do some things over Bluetooth.

And don't even get me started about how obviously there will be tons of security prompts in the browser before any web site or app can actually access the Bluetooth API or transfer any data from or to a Bluetooth device.

So, then what exactly is your problem with it? Besides your limited understanding of the browser, the web and security, that is.

‘Andromeda’ will be Google’s Windows NT

Completely wrong

You couldn't be more wrong. Microsoft's unifying OSes were the Windows 9X family, not the NT line. Actually, it was the old, DOS-based world and the Windows NT world that they tried to bridge and unify, because those two were completely separate prior to them appearing.

Tim Cook: EU lied about Apple taxes. Watch out Ireland, this is a coup!

Just dumb

Tim Cook is dumb or just playing dumb. Contrary to what he claims there's nothing new about the ruling, and the EU has already a tax control code in place, which Ireland - in cooperation with Apple, Google, and co - deliberately ignored. The ruling adds nothing new there, it merely confirms that the attempt to get around the code - that has been existing for multiple decades now - was illegal and futile.

Cook is also wrong that Apple and Ireland would have the same interests. They do not. Ireland's interest are collecting all the back taxes from Apple - and the latter of course wants to avoid having to pay that.

Apple can try to appeal the issue, but really, the only thing they can achieve is that they'll have to pay even more interests on back taxes. The rules are and were always clear. Apple definitely tried to break the EU tax code (in cooperation with Ireland), and now they got caught and will have to pay for it.

A USB stick as a file server? We've done it!

Pointless

Did they also solve the flash wear-out issue? If they haven't, then they haven't done anything, that could not have been done for decades, but wasn't, for a good reason.

Microsoft promises free terrible coffee every month you use Edge

Wrong data

Edge is at over 5% (combined all versions), not at 3.91% in the referenced stats of Net Applications at https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0

Google AdSense abused to distribute Android spyware

Re: no additional clicks

The screenshot provided makes it obvious that this is not a silent install, but one that requires user interaction to actually run on the phone - if it's allowed at all. It's also doubtful that it has been really distributed through AdSense as a drive-by download, without actually requiring a click on an AdSense ad.

You realize that ads can only infect your computer the same way any web page can, and that if you block ads, malware can still get onto your computer for ex. through the very same page the you blocked the ads on, don't you? You probably also realize that ad server are generally far more secure than Average Joe's webpage, and that because of this, your chances of getting infected by ads are miniscule compared to getting infected by the web page the ads are run on (or any other web page for that matter), don't you?

Your ad blocker protects you from no malware. But it definitely harms small publishers and kills the free and independent internet.

Tesla's Model S autonomous mode may have saved a life

PR stunt

And how many times does such a "save" happen by human drivers? A million times a day? Will those be news from now on, too? And is Autopilot an exception feat, because it did now once what human drivers do million times a day?

YouTube stars shilled for Warner Bros, screwed up, and now the FTC has written an angry letter

Reap as you saw

That's what happens with rampant ad blocking. Ads will not be marked as ads anymore, because then they will get blocked, and there will be nothing left to pay for the production and serving costs of content. So, creators and advertisers naturally turn to formats where the ad itself is the content, which then in turn can't be blocked.

Don't expect anything to change till you keep systematically blocking ads that are clearly marked as ads!

'Digital influencers' must disclose paid-for content, says new guidance

Great idea

But what's next? Will these "regulators" propose to implement the evil bit? Morons.

FBI won't jail future US president over private email server

Whitewashing

> intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information.<

"In other words, sloppy but not illegal."

That's not how things work. Intent matters, but one can break a law even then, if they had not intended to do so - and will still get prosecuted. For ex. most traffic accidents do not occur, because the drivers want to harm or kill the victims - yet, they will be prosecuted for it, even criminally.

Clinton should be tried, for what she did. If she will not, then this will just prove again, that the so called American democracy is just a facade, where that law and justice is only enforced against poor people. Which most of us knew anyway.

Digital ad biz is fraudulent by design, complain big brands

Oh, the horror

So what they're practically complaining about is that online advertising suffers from the very same problems (albeit probably in a reduced rate and effect), than does traditional advertising or practically any real world business.

Where for ex. print magazines print more copies than they sell, or claim higher readership than they actually have, so they can charge more for the ads. And where sellers regularly try to screw over their customers for financial gain.

And that while they (ie. the adveristers) don't even try to shun "bad apples", but are happy to advertise on any illegal or semi-illegal site as long as it gives them the results they're looking for.

Also, when your ads don't work, don't blame the messenger for it! It's most likely because the product you're trying to sell is simply not competitive or even just good enough, and/or because your ad is plain out misleading. That's the primary reason why your clicks don't convert to sales - not because click fraud would be so rampant.

Ad-blocker blocking websites face legal peril at hands of privacy bods

Discussion over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but the discussion on this issue is practically over. Our dear activist has been proven wrong on all counts.

In short: he missed, misinterpreted or deliberately ignored all relevant technological and juridical facts, and built a dream world for himself, which however has nothing to do with how browsers, the web or EU data protection laws in the real world actually work.

To read a thorough analysis and summary on why he is wrong on all counts you just have to read this:

http://blockadblock.com/adblocking/claim-detecting-adblock-may-illegal/

No need to thank me. You're welcome.

Re: @ Alexander Hanff / Ian Thomson

"You seem to have missed the disclaimer "

If he'd have only missed that. But he obviously completely lacks even a basic understanding on how web technologies, browsers and even the EU data protection laws work. And that after he supposedly spent a year researching an issue. Ridiculous.

Re: @FF22

"So, you are saying I'm right but for subtly different reasons."

No. What I'm saying is that you're confusing advertisers, publishers and agencies all over the place, and are making false generalizations about them. You think ad blocking hurts advertisers and forces agencies to make better ads - but it does nothing alike. It's only killing the publishers and the free services on an independent web. However ads and advertisers will not be affected by it at all. That's what I'm saying, and that's what you're obviously failing to understand.

Re: Ad blocking is no win situation for everyone - both publishers and users.

"Well, it's an opinion. Apart from the "more costly" part, it is also demonstrably false."

And yet, you failed to demonstrate that. Actually, you didn't even made an attempt to. One wonders why? Could it be that even you don't believe and have no rationale for what you're saying? Could that be?

"The only thing going for the current model is cheap impressions. And it's killing publishers."

By increasing their costs through somehow forcing them to acquire and serve ads all in-house, you obviously wouldn't be helping them either. Not that it would matter - because as already explained, ad blocker don't differentiate between local and 3rd party ads, and are out there to block them all. Just saying, that your argument makes no sense whatever even then, if we're not considering the whole picture.

"Really, this is desparate stuff. Shop owners do not place their wares in a public space and invite the public to take as much"

They place their stuff in the public exactly as much as publishers do. You can walk into any shop, just like you can visit any website. But just as a shop, a website is also private property, where you have no more rights to be and consume stuff, than what the owner has granted you. And if you consume or are taking stuff, you're obliged to pay for it. Just like you do in a shop, in a restaurant. Everything else is just cheap excuses.

"It's a business model that is deeply broken, and that's not our fault."

It is your fault. The business model is only broken by you, ad blockers. And it's broken only as much, as is a shop's business model broken by thieves. The problem is not with the shop and not with the websites, but with the thieves and ad blockers. Get rid of them, and the purported problem with the business models also vanishes. And that's exactly what anti ad blockers are doing.

Re: One way online advertising might change?

You're making two mistakes in your argument.

1. You're falsely generalizing in many instances. You're treating all publishers and all ads the same, as if they'd be all reckless, bad and dangerous. Which they aren't. You want collective punishment, which is neither right, nor practical. By doing so you're just forcing even those entities (mostly publishers, but also ads) who tried to be honest with you to react to your recklessness the same way, and fit your definition of "every single of them bad" - because they have nothing to lose at that point. You already failed/refused to distinguish between them and already considered all of them bad. They just have no reason and no way to counter your judgement anymore.

2. You think that ad blockers and freeloaders have the upper hand. They don't. The services are owned and controlled by the publishers, and if they really want to lock you out of their services, they can do that any time. At last when they switch to a subscription model, you can throw your ad blocker into the trash bin, because it won't grant you free access to content any more. Or if they go out of business (because they won't be able to cover their losses any more because of your blocking) - your ad blocker won't help you to access their content and services either, because they will not be created and existent anymore.

You can also dream of ads getting certified, but it won't ever happen. First, because it's unfeasible and actually outright impossible. That has many reasons - the most prominent being that the internet extends across borders and jurisdictions, which make it impossible to apply one standard to all of it. The other being that bad buys will never adhere to the rules, and just as with crime, you can't eradicate them. You will never reach a state where all ads will be compliant with whatever rules there could be set. There will be always rogue ones and bad apples.

That said we all know that ad blockers are just freeloaders, and all the false generalizations they're using are only made up in their attempt to try to justify what even they know is wrong (ie. content and service theft). So, no matter how good ads would become, the freeloaders would always come up with false generalizations, and still keep blocking ads. Actually, the freeloaders wouldn't even see if and when ads have become better, because, you know, they're blocking them. That how you know they're just making up excuses, and don't mean any of it.

So, really the only way out of this downward spiral is simply to lock out freeloader ad blockers of service, and thus force them to become more conscious about their choices which sites they're visiting. Only this will establish a feedback loop which will also make ads better and weed out bad apples.

Whether said lockout will happen with anti ad blockers, or simply by switching to a subscription model, remains to be seen. One thing is for sure: until ad blocking goes in recess, the internet will be less and less fun everyone, the content and service quality will keep decreasing, and generally, it will cost more and more for users to use services and consume content.

This process or worsening is already underway, has been for years, and that's what you're actually complaining about. Bad ads are part of this. And ad blocking escalate this problem. And it will keep doing that until people realize this (ie. that ad blocking itself is a problem, not a solution).

Re: Hrrrmm.. this feels like a stretch....

"The inevitable conclusion of this, as we move to "native code" on websites like Google and Firefox etc. are talking about is websites having app-like clickwrap licenses... and the web becoming less interoperable and more silo based... and then we all go back to the beginning complaining about incompatible systems and needing a standard :)"

Exactly. That's why Hanff, even if he would be right (which he is not) would be not helping, but just damaging both end-users and the web as a whole with his ill-conceived crusade. Because really, what he wants and proposes would do nothing for the privacy of the users. It would give them no extra protection, and would not do anything in their interest.

It would just force the hands of publishers to set up "consent walls", which users have agree to and to click through first to gain access to content - even if they would not be blocking ads. So, all in all, the only thing he could achieve would be make the user experience even worse, not only for blockers, but also to decent users, with no gains and no benefits regarding privacy in the end.

Now, who else in their right mind would want that?

Re: Ok, just RTFC

You know, arguing for fingerprinting (per se) being illegal in spite of that document is like arguing for 2+2=5. You can do that, but it doesn't prove that 2+2=5, rather that you literally have no clue of what you're talking about, and don't even understand the basic concepts of the argument.

"All these costs. Would they be new as opposed to existing at present? Of course not."

Of course they would be "new". They would be extra cost on top of the costs that are already there and have to be covered. That's what I'm saying.

"There are ad sales people currently selling advertising space to advertisers."

No. Most small publications don't have that. They just join a big ad network, which does all that for them. The only thing those small publications do is embed some code in their web pages and print a bill every month. Ads are sold, acquired, run and served by the big ad network, which is a 3rd party in this case. if you would want to bring all ads in-hose, you'd have to replace all the sales people, all the infrastructure of that ad network with your own. Which wouldn't make sense and wouldn't be affordable for most small publications. Even if they would, they'd raise the costs of operation by magnitudes.

And even if publication have already sales people, if they would bring all the advertising in-house which is done now by third parties, they would need even more sales people, just to bring in the same amount of advertising. However, most big corporations just couldn't bother to negotiate with the small publishers, so these would ultimately lose out on these deals even then, when they hired extra sales people.

"The cost is there. Maybe not identical but it's there. "

The "maybe not identical" is the whole point. The current system with 3rd party ad acquirement and serving is magnitudes more effective, than could be a fully in-house system. It also lowers the barrier to entry, which again means lower costs because of greater competition. All this would be gone if all ads would have to be run in-house, which would simply not be an option for most small publications. And medium publications would have to show far more ads than they do not, just to cover their costs to the same fraction they do now.

"But there's one thing you haven't addressed in any reply. That's what the presence of ad-blocking is telling you: users are repelled by the ads."

Yeah. Some people are greedy, and want to have everything, but give nothing. So what? That's human nature for some. Doesn't mean it's acceptable and that it should be the norm.

"The more ads intrude the more they're disliked."

That's why ad blocking is generating a downward spiral. It does not solve anything, but only escalates the problem.

"It's the ads themselves and the reputation they've gained. The blockers are just the immunological reaction."

No. Ad blockers are parasites that are ultimately killing the host system. Which in this case is the free and independent web.

@Doctor Syntax You obviously keep missing the point, that bringing ad acquirement and serving in-house will not solve most problems with advertising, but will just deepen them and create additional ones.

For ex. let's take the problem of the amount and obtrusiveness of ads. If acquirement and serving will be brought in-house by the publishers, that will mean that they will have to employ now additional people to what they did previously, because they will now have to have ad sales people (or more of them than they did previously) that directly sell to advertisers. They will also have to invest into additional equipment (ad servers, which was done previously by a 3rd party), sysadmins who run those new servers, etc. These will all drive up their operating cost, which in turn will force them to display more and more obtrusive ads to cover those raised expenses.

But we can also take the problem of malvertising. This is caused by malicious entities hacking the ad servers or submitting covertly malicious ads to the ad network. Now, do you think that those thousands and millions of small publishers who should - according to you - bring their ad acquirement and serving in house, will be more capable or securing their ad servers and verify the ads submitted against hidden threats and abuse, than were big companies, like Google, who can pay the best network engineers, security expert, efficiently run a malware detection network, etc? Obviously they will be not. So by bringing ads all in-house, the problem of malvertising will also be worsened, not only from the cost side, but also from the threat side.

And I could go on with practically all the other issues with ads, and say the same thing about them: in-house acquirement can only make almost all of them worse.

So, no, what you propose is not a solution for these problems, but what would make them worse. There's a reason why the industry have switched away from that model, which it originally used, and why it's using centralized ad serving now. It's because the latter more efficient, more secure, and practically best in almost every single way, than in-house ad sales and ad serving. At least it is for the millions of small web sites that make up the majority of the web, and that already struggle to keep their costs covered.

And now take a moment to think about the fact, that if you couldn't judge this problem right, and proposed something as a solution that in reality just worsens everything, how good could you assess other issues with ad blocking, ad-sponsored content, etc, which you have a strong opinion on, but which are most likely just as misguided and wrong as your opinion on this issue?