The NSA and CIA use ad blockers(vice.com)
vice.com
The NSA and CIA use ad blockers
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ypke/the-nsa-and-cia-use-ad-blockers-because-online-advertising-is-so-dangerous
330 comments
As a mid-sized US manufacturer that recently went through a ransomware scare, we contracted with FireEye for remediation and cybersecurity consultation. I was shocked that they recommended we install ad-blockers as a corporate policy. I remarked ads are sometimes useful and that many local companies rely upon them (e.g., the local newspaper). I use an adblocker just to make the internet more useable, but I was reluctant to make that a corporate policy. I couldn't imagine there was any meaningful threat from malware in ads as every company from the Journal to the Times to Nordstrom would be screwed without ads. But FireEye insisted and we now have adblocking installed with the usual image. Wild times. I have to believe this is truly disruptive to the internet as we know it. It seems to me the ad providers would have a huge incentive to counter this narrative and to make damned sure ads are safe. I have no idea why that's not happening.
When I worked at reddit, I refused to run Adblock. I felt like it would be hypocritical to work for a company that made its money from ads, and then block them. Also I wanted to make sure that I had the same experience as the users.
When I left reddit, for the longest time I still didn't run Adblock because as a shareholder it still felt hypocritical.
But a few years ago I couldn't take it anymore -- the web go so awful with ads on it became unusable. And so I relented and went full Adblock. And life got a lot better.
(I did however whitelist reddit and a few other sites that I like whose ads are bearable)
When I left reddit, for the longest time I still didn't run Adblock because as a shareholder it still felt hypocritical.
But a few years ago I couldn't take it anymore -- the web go so awful with ads on it became unusable. And so I relented and went full Adblock. And life got a lot better.
(I did however whitelist reddit and a few other sites that I like whose ads are bearable)
I shove my entire home network's DNS thru pihole, cannot imagine life without it.
Yeah kinda sounds like they are using 'ad blockers' to prevent tracking of their, presumably quite large and trackable, userbase rather than blocking the banners on google search.
Plus the fringe benefit of blocking malicious domains that may execute code in browsers of course. The real headline is probably - The NSA and CIA Blockers Chunks of the Internet Because the Internet is So Dangerous.
Plus the fringe benefit of blocking malicious domains that may execute code in browsers of course. The real headline is probably - The NSA and CIA Blockers Chunks of the Internet Because the Internet is So Dangerous.
On the one hand, this isn't surprising. An plain description of how the ad market works demonstrates why - one way of looking at it is a mechanism to run your code on random peoples' machines.
On the other, policing, controlling and maintaining healthy markets is a primary government function. When the cops are afraid to look at a market for fear it will interfere with their jobs, that strikes me as a government failure reinforcing a market failure rather than attempting to fix it.
On the other, policing, controlling and maintaining healthy markets is a primary government function. When the cops are afraid to look at a market for fear it will interfere with their jobs, that strikes me as a government failure reinforcing a market failure rather than attempting to fix it.
I worked for a well funded adtech company, and even our CTO used AdBlock.
I think that speaks volumes about the security of advertising online.
I think that speaks volumes about the security of advertising online.
Scrolling through some of the comments here, I haven't read anything that praises ads. Which begs the question, why do we still tolerate ads? If employees from Ad companies themselves use adblock (!!!), something must be fundamentally wrong.
Isn't it about time we change the financial model of the internet? Or should we just let humanity suffer through this non-value adding ritual?
Personally I've never bought anything directly because of web ads. I understand that some people do and that some people find them beneficial. But I believe the cons outweigh the pros this time.
I don't claim to have a solution, but it annoys me when we all agree that something sucks yet do nothing about it.
Isn't it about time we change the financial model of the internet? Or should we just let humanity suffer through this non-value adding ritual?
Personally I've never bought anything directly because of web ads. I understand that some people do and that some people find them beneficial. But I believe the cons outweigh the pros this time.
I don't claim to have a solution, but it annoys me when we all agree that something sucks yet do nothing about it.
Blocking ads works better than it used to. I've had third-party cookies blocked for everybody for a decade, and most ads blocked. Years ago, that broke some sites. Now, it doesn't break anything important. I hit the Admiral ad-blocker detector now and then, and go to some competing site that doesn't use Admiral.
You definitely want to block Google Backdoor™, a/k/a Tag Manager, which allows ad vendors to inject Javascript onto the pages of others. This is a known attack vector.[1]
[1] https://blog.group-ib.com/grelosgtm
You definitely want to block Google Backdoor™, a/k/a Tag Manager, which allows ad vendors to inject Javascript onto the pages of others. This is a known attack vector.[1]
[1] https://blog.group-ib.com/grelosgtm
When I bought a new laptop a few years ago, the first thing I did on it was install Firefox and browse Reddit. After about 20 minutes, an ad (I'm guessing) tried to serve me a drive-by download. So yes, ad blockers are essential. If a malicious ad does damage to you, you have essentially zero recourse.
I would love to see the tech support tickets filed at the less technologically inclined agencies after network level ad blocking is launched
I've been preaching safety thru adblocking for 15 years. I had locations that went from multiple infections per week to zero over 6 months - after implementing edge blocking (DNS & Squid).
Ads wouldn't be a security/privacy risk if they didn't try to track people across multiple sites and build profiles on people. If ads were served from the same site as the publication and aggregate statistics were kept locally, I'd have no problem seeing them and they'd be more likely to be relevant. It isn't ads that I want to block, it's cross-site tracking. Advertisers need to figure out how to adapt or fewer and fewer people will see their ads.
I'd also be surprised if the nsa and CIA don't do things like public internet web browsing inside disposable thin client/remote desktop virtual machines.
As far as I can tell there are two classes of ad blockers: 1) Those that sit outside the browser and provide a proxy that blocks requests to known-bad domains or similar filtering, and 2) Those that integrate with the browser and have full control over every page, in order to neutralize any HTML or JS or CSS that looks like an ad.
It seems to me that the latter type open up a vast new attack surface. These addons have full access to every piece of data flowing through a logged-in webpage. All your Gmail, all your bank, all your Hacker News.
How am I supposed to believe that these addons are themselves not sources of malware and vulnerability? They need to have the same standard of transparency and testing and supply chain security as the browser itself.
I’m willing to believe that Mozilla and Google and Apple will not willingly introduce vulnerabilities into their browsers, but the vendor of BlockUrAdsPlus or whatever? No way.
It seems to me that the latter type open up a vast new attack surface. These addons have full access to every piece of data flowing through a logged-in webpage. All your Gmail, all your bank, all your Hacker News.
How am I supposed to believe that these addons are themselves not sources of malware and vulnerability? They need to have the same standard of transparency and testing and supply chain security as the browser itself.
I’m willing to believe that Mozilla and Google and Apple will not willingly introduce vulnerabilities into their browsers, but the vendor of BlockUrAdsPlus or whatever? No way.
Everyone thinks ads don't work on them. Everyone. Its like that meme about people on 40k worrying about taxes on billionairs. Ads are about the most dangerous thing you encounter on a daily basis. They make you eat badly and stress you out and damage your self worth.
If you want to browse safe, don't forget to disable JavaScript while you're at it.
Without ads, the web will become unhealthy (Mozilla and Google say ads are needed for a "healthy" web). It might die out. Someone please tell the NSA and CIA. Save the web! "Ads are the only way to have that web everyone loves. There are no other options. We tried all them, they dont work. Well, we didnt but who cares. Trust us." - Tech bro (Disclaimer: "I do not speak for my employer. I depend on my employer who depends on ads for money, but that doesnt matter. No one cares anyway. I dont even know the reason why disclaimers exist, I just copy other tech bros.")
I’m so curious – what do they mean by wide scale blocking? Are there any papers on this?
I run PiHole in a GCP container for my wife and I to WireGuard into… am I running “wide scale blocking” in my network?
I run PiHole in a GCP container for my wife and I to WireGuard into… am I running “wide scale blocking” in my network?
What's the best ad blocker these days? Should I be trying to block ads at my router level at home instead? I've seen some ad blockers render some sites almost unusable.
Don't block our ads! then get served ads... absolute classic story if you've never heard it.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...
Professionals use ad blockers for obvious reasons.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...
Professionals use ad blockers for obvious reasons.
We've thought a lot about this issue. We have a page in our docs written up about it: https://www.ethicalads.io/surveillance-advertising/ -- there's definitely a small but growing movement of folks building a better advertising industry. It's a long road though..
Is this inclusive of Google's (and other large legitimate tech companies) various ad programs? Can you send a virus through Google's ads?
I wish companies would go back to the old-fashioned process of selling advertising directly to other companies, skipping the middle-men and the need to aggregate user data at all, except maybe at the unique visitor level. There wouldn't be all the hoopla about making sure they weren't gaming the click-through system or whatever, so they wouldn't need javascript. Just an image. I wouldn't have to worry about being tracked, and I wouldn't have to worry about potentially dangerous javascript running on my machine. The ads could be served from the same machine that serves their other images, and I wouldn't feel the need to go out of my way to block them.
I know that's incredibly naive, and simple wish fulfillment, but damn the ad industry has made the web into a nightmare. I'm tired of playing the game of trying to decide which domains I need to temporarily allow to see the content they put out there for free without being tracked across the web. I'd rather go back to the "Punch the Monkey" days of online advertising.
I know that's incredibly naive, and simple wish fulfillment, but damn the ad industry has made the web into a nightmare. I'm tired of playing the game of trying to decide which domains I need to temporarily allow to see the content they put out there for free without being tracked across the web. I'd rather go back to the "Punch the Monkey" days of online advertising.
And that's why I don't call them ad blockers, I call them HTML firewalls.
I'll never not fight ads and I will never feel bad for blocking them all. Whatever I can do to block them, I will.
raspberry pi-hole at home, brave browser, adblock youtube, ublock origin, modified hosts file on my computers.
raspberry pi-hole at home, brave browser, adblock youtube, ublock origin, modified hosts file on my computers.
After finding out browser extensions can be dangerous, I removed AdBlock. Does anyone know the if AdBlock is safe? Are there any alternatives?
I wonder what Tier of captcha's the NSA gets.
People here don't use adblockers?
Using the internet without an ad blocker is a security risk, I don't care who you are.
Add could be ascii art only, bring back the days of 1 kb average page sizes :)