Ad blocking is under attack

[Batu69]

Well, this is huge, so I'd like to attract people's attention to what's happening right now. This is a very dangerous precedent, and it concerns every ad blocker user.

Brief introduction into ad blocking

To understand better what's happened, you should first learn a bit more about ad blocking. Every ad blocker work is based on using so-called filters lists, which are maintained (mostly) by volunteers. That said, whichever ad blocker you use, credits for actual blocking ads belong to the filters lists maintainers. The most popular filters list is called EasyList and this story is about it.

Got it, so what happened?

Yesterday a strange commit landed in the EasyList repo. The "functionalclam.com" domain was removed with a comment "Removed due to DMCA takedown request".

 

An ad server was unblocked by all ad blockers due to a DMCA request. Let that sink in for a moment.

A small research was conducted by the community in the comments section of that commit. It appears that the story began 23 days ago with a comment by a freshly registered Github account to the commit, that added "functionalclam.com" to EasyList. @dmcahelper threatened with "the file or repository disruption," but his threats were not taken seriously that time.

Note: we don't know what happened in between as the original DMCA request is not yet published. I will update this post once we learn more.

The domain in question hosts an image describing its work as "used by digital publishers to control access to copyrighted content in accordance with the DMCA and understand how visitors are accessing their copyrighted content".

 

However, further research showed that this domain hosts the code of an anti-adblocking startup Admiral, so we can assume that it is the company we should blame for this. Where did they get this glorious idea? The wording of the original comment from 23 days ago awfully reminds me of this post claiming that DMCA can be applied to ad blockers.

Why should I care?

This might set a very important precedent of an advertising company exploiting DMCA to force people to see their ads, and can lead to ridiculous consequences if left unnoticed.

 

EasyList is a community project and may not be able to protect themselves from such an attack. I am calling on other ad blockers developers, you people and everybody else concerned about people's rights (EFF, please) to stand up to this threat and protect ad blocking.

 

Article source

 

EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown request

[dcs18]

Quote

The domain in question hosts an image describing its work as "used by digital publishers to control access to copyrighted content in accordance with the DMCA and understand how visitors are accessing their copyrighted content".

 

However, further research showed that this domain hosts the code of an anti-adblocking startup Admiral, so we can assume that it is the company we should blame for this. Where did they get this glorious idea? The wording of the original comment from 23 days ago awfully reminds me of this post claiming that DMCA can be applied to ad blockers.

Why should I care?

This might set a very important precedent of an advertising company exploiting DMCA to force people to see their ads, and can lead to ridiculous consequences if left unnoticed.

This affects only those Users who rely solely on subscription to filter lists — it fails to affect Users like me who are free to include to their custom filter lists, any such rule which is otherwise prohibited.

[Undertaker]

13 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

This affects only those Users who rely solely on subscription to filter lists — it fails to affect Users like me who are free to include to their custom filter lists, any such rule which is otherwise prohibited.

You gotta be loving the feature of disabling invidual filter rules, which was not possible in your earlier adblocker.

So any sneaky exception that they might have added can easily disabled in one simple click.

And ofcourse, the option to create a robust filter rule, overpowering($important-modifier) the ones contained is always there

[dcs18]

Adguard must have borrowed inspiration for the individual filter rules from Adblock Plus — wish they had flicked the following 2 features as well:—

• sorting feature, and
• number of hits

[Undertaker]

1 minute ago, dcs18 said:

Adguard must have borrowed inspiration for the individual filter rules from Adblock Plus — wish they had flicked the following 2 features as well:—

• sorting feature, and
• number of hits

If you can explain why you need those two, I think I have the solution.

[dcs18]

Once you've decided to implement the a default block-all-allow-select policy, it grows exceedingly difficult with the present Adguard structure to determine priority whitelist rules on a singularity basis.

[Undertaker]

3 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

Once you've decided to implement the a default block-all-allow-select policy, it grows exceedingly difficult with the present Adguard structure to determine priority whitelist rules on a singularity basis.

You mean to create whitelist rules on a per site basis?

Is the search option and then typing the site not helping you?

[dcs18]

The search option is indeed helpful but not as much as those 2 missing features — they are also the one of the reasons why Users of Adblock Plus refuse to switch to any other blocker.

[Undertaker]

1 minute ago, dcs18 said:

The search option is indeed helpful but not as much as those 2 missing features — they are also the one of the reasons why Users of Adblock Plus refuse to switch to any other blocker.

I'm failing to understand the utility of those two in what you want to achieve.

The search, filtering log and others were able to provide me ample support.

 

Maybe an example can help.

[dcs18]

Just now, Undertaker said:

The search, filtering log and others were able to provide me ample support.

Which are the elements that you allow on a default basis?

[Undertaker]

56 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

Which are the elements that you allow on a default basis?

You are speaking of adguard or uB0 -uMatrix combo?

[Undertaker]

@dcs18

When I was using Adguard, I didn't follow any particular policy, I was just depending on filter lists.

 

Now when I have started using uBo-uMatrix combo, I have my adblocker  enabled for all the sites whereas the uMatrix is only enabled for selected sites which I visit on a daily basis.

This has ensured that sites which are not visited often are not broken by uMatrix or requires time to be fixed and that too just for one instance of visiting it. At the same time, since uBo is there, there are no ads on those sites.

 

On sites, I visit daily/regular basis, I have uMtrix set up as:default block-all; & css, image and first party scripts allowed - that is the only common element.

Other entries in the matrix are fixed/allowed on the site basis.

 

This fits my needs well.

[dcs18]

32 minutes ago, Undertaker said:

On sites, I visit daily/regular basis, I have uMtrix set up as:default block-all; & css, image and first party scripts allowed - that is the only common element.

uMatrix has the most user-friendly UI with a single click implementation which is extremely conducive to the block-all-allow-select policy — besides in your particular case, you had the complete backup of my filters as also my configuration (uMatrix + uBlock) which would have certainly helped as a starting point.

 

 

32 minutes ago, Undertaker said:

@dcs18

When I was using Adguard, I didn't follow any particular policy, I was just depending on filter lists.

When I started-off with Adguard, the slate was wiped clean — each filter and rule is being crafted from scratch.

 

It doesn't help either that Adguard has a very unintuitive logging system.

[Undertaker]

3 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

uMatrix has the most user-friendly UI with a single click implementation which is extremely conducive to the block-all-allow-select policy — besides in your particular case, you had the complete backup of my filters as also my configuration (uMatrix + uBlock) which would have certainly helped as a starting point.

I took what I needed from your config.

But if you remember from our convo, I also said that I can't follow the strict block principle. I understand why you require such a setup but that is not me.

For e.g.  If I had blocked it all on a site, and the site had a twitter frame and instagram post, I would spend too much time fixing it. and that too just for one visit of that site.

Now you could say that I could have globally allowed them but again that is also not what I want.

 

6 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

It doesn't help either that Adguard has a very unintuitive logging system.

Have you tried the AG integration mode? Would recommend this on sys admin system only and not the customer PC.

[dcs18]

The Adguard integration add-on does not work on the Nightlies — another bug which I wanted to report at their forums.

 

On client machines I allow neither visibility of Adguard nor the Assistant.

[Undertaker]

1 minute ago, dcs18 said:

The Adguard integration add-on does not work on the Nightlies — another bug which I wanted to report at their forums.

 

On client machines I allow neither visibility of Adguard nor the Assistant.

Doesn't work with or without e10s?

Now that you mention it, I think someone reported it.

[dcs18]

Haven't tried without the e10s.

[Undertaker]

5 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

Haven't tried without the e10s.

If it helps just create a new profile, and create rules using that new profile, and otherwise use just the normally configured one.

[dcs18]

That is easier accomplished on e10s with the Adguard Assistant — it works (not on 100% of the pages, though — another bug.)

[Undertaker]

Example of site and what you wanna accomplish,plz?

 

14 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

That is easier accomplished on e10s with the Adguard Assistant — it works (not on 100% of the pages, though — another bug.)

Also, it's possible that on sites with assistant missing, they maybe on HTTPS exclusion list, provided you have created rules for showing assistant on each site since you are using a closed down config.

[Undertaker]

44 minutes ago, dcs18 said:

The Adguard integration add-on does not work on the Nightlies — another bug which I wanted to report at their forums.

Workaround:-

Set the following entry

extensions.webextensions.remote;false

Spoiler

 

 

 

[dcs18]

21 minutes ago, Undertaker said:

Also, it's possible that on sites with assistant missing, they maybe on HTTPS exclusion list, provided you have created rules for showing assistant on each site since you are using a closed down config.

I hear what you're saying but once the User has enabled the option to Filter HTTPS protocol, the Adguard Assistant needs to be made available regardless of whether the said site is on the HTTPS exclusion list or not (IMHO, this is a bug.)

[vitorio]

This a deep discussion but it help us, not so experts in this subject, to begin to understand it. Thanks.

[dcs18]

15 minutes ago, Undertaker said:

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Is your version of Firefox allowing you the capability of promoting your add-ons to your pseudo status bar (instead of the Navigation Bar?)

[straycat19]

5 hours ago, Batu69 said:

The "functionalclam.com" domain was removed with a comment "Removed due to DMCA takedown request".

 

That isn't a problem.  Their IP, 104.198.107.72, was added to my firewall.  As long as the lists inform us of what they were forced to remove then we can manually add them to uBlock, our firewalls, or to personal lists that some users maintain.