this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
688 points (97.1% liked)

Technology

68187 readers
3932 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@hackingne.ws
688
AdNauseam is a uBlock fork that goes further: it actively attacks marketers by auto-clicking every ad before blocking (adnauseam.io)
submitted 1 day ago by joshchandra@midwest.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
159 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It garbles advertisers' data as a result, but you must disable uBlock Origin to run it; they can't work simultaneously. I recently moved to it and, so far, am never looking back!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] lumony@lemmings.world 27 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I've been recommending this for awhile, it's nice to see someone else take up the mantle.

Yes, it clicks ads in addition to blocking them. Google removed it from its addon repository even though it wasn't breaking any rules. They just removed it and kept it removed because there wasn't sufficient backlash, the scumbags.

It's the main reason why I use Firefox these days. it's clear that the cabal will not allow anything that legitimately threatens their power structure, and make advertising less-effective for the same price is a gut punch they need.

[–] milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 13 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Automated ad clicks probably are breaking the rules, TBF.

[–] wonderfulvoltaire@lemmy.zip 10 points 5 hours ago

Monopoly money

[–] morphballganon@mtgzone.com 25 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Good start. Now make a version that clicks each ad a random number of times from randomly generated IP addresses.

[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Ad Networks use browser fingerprinting to detect duplicate clicks, which is tied to your hardware, system locale, installed fonts etc.

[–] morphballganon@mtgzone.com 9 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Sounds like a solvable problem

[–] viking@infosec.pub 18 points 5 hours ago

Chameleon add-on for Firefox, randomly rotates your browser, OS, screen size, timezone, device type, language, and other customizable parameters every x minutes.

I've set it to do so every 5 minutes, and to omit desktop & tablet as device types (else some websites display the respective page) and timezones (messed up 2FA).

I also disabled blackberry and windows phone from the manufacturer ID, that would have the opposite effect from obscuring me.

For the rest of it, it's working great.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 3 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Tell me how, then, because I don't know how to get around the font thing. Everybody's computer has a different set of fonts, and blocking browsers from seeing what fonts you have installed would help identify you even more.

[–] morphballganon@mtgzone.com 8 points 3 hours ago

A browser extension that limits webpages to default Windows fonts only would eliminate that factor from contributing to identification without flagging it as suspicious. A slightly more robust version could frequently cycle between multiple subsets of default Windows fonts. Say Windows comes with 100 fonts. So you could have thousands of configurations with different subsets of those.

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 2 points 2 hours ago

"Just" remove a random 2.5% of the fonts, a different random set per request (context).

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

That one browser which everyone hates despite it being the best adblocker and anti-surveillance browser out there randomizes your fingerprint.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 41 points 9 hours ago (9 children)

That's not how IP addresses work.

[–] yarr 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

What if we use a Visual Basic UI to hack the IP address by netmask?

[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 1 points 41 minutes ago

Yes, but this only works if you connect your VPN via 3 block chain proxies.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

maybe we can setup a botnet to poison advertiser data.

click all the ads, all over the planet!

[–] randamumaki@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 hours ago

Feed it SQL injections?

[–] lumony@lemmings.world 1 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Why are you people so concerned about "the data?" Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

This is an effective tool to charge advertisers money without having their ads shoved in our faces. It directly undermines the integrity of the digital advertising ecosystem, and you people are obsessed with "privacy" because your priorities have been decided for you by your oppressors.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

what oppressors want me to worry about privacy? what planet are they in?

those people are literally using it to sell us fascism...

[–] SavageCoconut@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

I liked your post ❤️

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Nothing is random

In bot cases like this you would have a proxy list that it “randomly” picks from

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 6 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Have it form connections to all the other browsers using the extension and they all send a click.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

now you've broken the law by creating a botnet.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

"He who save his country does not violate the law" 😏

[–] some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

Naw, it’s an MMORPG.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Is the botnet itself breaking the law or is breaking the law with a botnet breaking the law?

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure it's not a botnet until it's used as one or the intent of it is to be used in the same way a botnet is used.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 2 points 3 hours ago

Okay okay, how about a counter that is updated with each user clicking on an ad, and the client can decide what they want to do with that information, totally not a botnet right?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] x00z@lemmy.world 42 points 12 hours ago

This would still make a connection to the ad servers that can then track me though.

I guess with a hardened browser and a VPN it would be alright.

load more comments
view more: next ›