6 ms·

Secret Media wants to solve adblocking issues for publishers

22 points by vmorgulis 11y ago

tofof 11y ago
And yet there's not a single 'solved' advertisement anywhere on their website to demonstrate their 'technology'.
- striking 11y ago
  Right? I shudder to think what kind of cat and mouse game they'll be trying to play with uBlock et al. JS URLs will get banned, iframes will get hidden, so on and so forth. You can't monetize ad-blocking traffic, because the ad-blockers just get better; you have to block the users who use them if you want to keep making money.
- mirimir 11y ago
  But hey, at least they let Adblock Plus users read their site ;) Edit: Upon reflection, I get that Secret Media wants to reach potential customers, whether they use adblockers or not. Indeed, given how much adblockers improve browsing experience, maybe Secret Media and others in the anti-adblocking business also use them. Why should I expect some sort of moral stance?
pdkl95 11y ago
/me clicks link, sees blank page You're right! The back button does work as an effective solution!
gizmo686 11y ago
All of their papers linked to describe what addblocking is, and why it is wrong. None describe the technology they use, or how they "monotize addblocked traffic". The closest I could find is that it is based on a polymorphic encryption algorithm, which does not inspire confidence in me. Combined with the fact that they claim to support all addblockers, and addformats, and I am calling snakeoil. They also say it is patented, so I will see if I can dig up said patent. EDIT: I did a search on the patent office for "adblocking AND polymorphic" (with variations of adblocking), and found no results. EDIT2: Also, no information on how to buy their "product" beyond a generic contact us.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Malware droppers use polymorphic encryption to avoid detection ;)
- monochromatic 11y ago
  I also couldn't find any U.S. patents (or even just published applications) listing any of these people[1] as inventors. Nor any U.S. patent assignments to a company called "Secret Media." Maybe they're referring to some other jurisdiction, or maybe the patent has some other inventor(s) and their entity name is something besides Secret Media. Or maybe they're full of shit. [1] http://www.secretmedia.com/about.php http://www.secretmedia.com/about.php
- fredmontagnon 11y ago
  Our website contains as less information as possible on our technology, on purpose. A patent is generally public 2 years after the application. You'll have to wait at least 9 more months :) We only work with premium publishers, and we'll probably never have a SAAS solution. We are hiring...
EyeballKid 11y ago
From their white paper: The technology used by Secret Media makes sure that each ad gets a specific URL that cannot be nor found not added to EasyList by the community. I don't quite understand why they think this would work. Surely ad-blockers can filter by domain? Are they using well camouflaged URLs from legit domains? Or do they have a never-ending supply of throwaway domain names, in order to stay one step ahead of EasyList? Either way, I'm genuinely curious to see what they have in mind...
- kawera 11y ago
  Would subdomains do the trick, say, very-very-long-cryptokey.publisher.tld ?
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    No, because then we can build whitelist-based ad blockers (e.g. RequestPolicy, NoScript).
    - kawera 11y ago
      Thanks! Pardon my ignorance but what if the content url itself came encoded in the same manner?
      - sarciszewski 11y ago
        They would have to hack into the websites we already trust to serve as a proxy for their ads to bypass a strict whitelist.
      - Sanddancer 11y ago
        They'll lose some of their SEO juice because their URLs are no longer human-friendly. Hashing everything would be more costly than letting some people block ads.
        nailer 11y ago
sarciszewski 11y ago
http://www.secretmedia.com/manifest.php http://www.secretmedia.com/manifest.php TL;DR "If you visit a web page, you surrender the right to decide what happens to your computer."
- kawera 11y ago
  Me thinks they will regret this line.
  - monochromatic 11y ago
    Well they didn't actually say that line, it's just paraphrasing.
    - nailer 11y ago
      It's more a strawman.
krapp 11y ago
Advertising is going to have to move from being served directly from the web, to devices where users no longer have control, to survive. Your phone, tablet and smart tvs will do the work of inserting ads into the web and transmitting analytics, the way some ISPs do now. People will put up with it because the ads will subsidize the cost of the devices.
- hugh4 11y ago
  Whatever an advertiser thinks my eyeballs are worth to them, they're worth more to me. They're going to have to do better than subsidising the cost of my device.
  - krapp 11y ago
    Sure, but plenty of people might be willing to pay almost nothing for a new generation iPhone if it means having to deal with advertising. I'm sure the manufacturers will let you opt out for a reasonable monthly fee, though.
Sanddancer 11y ago
It's telling how they don't discuss at all the other things that drive people to use ad blockers. The high CPU utilization that comes with the myriad of javascript analytic links, the annoyance of having a video or audio ad play upon loading a page, or the zero days and other malicious media that have been spread through advertising networks. When ad networks state that they are working to mitigate the "potential security risks inherent in the online ad ecosystem", instead of vetting all ads, people are going to continue to block ads.
jblow 11y ago
I won't ever hire anyone who has this company on their resume.
kijin 11y ago
> Ad blocking breaks this harmony. I have yet to find anyone who talks about "harmony" who actually spews anything other than concentrated bullshit. Example: pretty much everything the Chinese government says and does in the name of preserving "harmony". It may have been a useful philosophical concept in the past, but it's been misused so much by shysters lately that the mere appearance of the "H" word is an instant red flag to me. EasyList might not be able to block their clever tricks, but isn't it about time we came up with a better way to detect anything the user doesn't want? EFF's Privacy Badger uses heuristics to determine whether a given script is trying to track the user. Perhaps adblockers need to take a similar approach. For example, they could check whether an element that is displayed by default on page load obscures the primary textual content of the page, or compare the current page with one that was shown to a well-known search engine.
anonymousab 11y ago
Having the windows firewall icon, "anti virus" and some sort of anti-malware logo in what appears to be their hitlist shows quite well where their priorities lie.
jbb555 11y ago
"Lets's force people who have taken steps to avoid adverts to watch adverts for our products against their will. That's bound to make them feel good about it and make them buy our products."
emergentcypher 11y ago
This is not just about whether websites deserve to be able to get ad impressions. Will their ads not chew up my CPU and battery life? Will their ads not track my online behaviour in addition to showing me an ad? Will their ads not load other ads that will do the same? Because otherwise, fuck you secret media, and fuck your ads.

22 points by vmorgulis 11y ago

tofof 11y ago

And yet there's not a single 'solved' advertisement anywhere on their website to demonstrate their 'technology'.

striking 11y ago
Right? I shudder to think what kind of cat and mouse game they'll be trying to play with uBlock et al. JS URLs will get banned, iframes will get hidden, so on and so forth. You can't monetize ad-blocking traffic, because the ad-blockers just get better; you have to block the users who use them if you want to keep making money.
mirimir 11y ago
But hey, at least they let Adblock Plus users read their site ;) Edit: Upon reflection, I get that Secret Media wants to reach potential customers, whether they use adblockers or not. Indeed, given how much adblockers improve browsing experience, maybe Secret Media and others in the anti-adblocking business also use them. Why should I expect some sort of moral stance?

pdkl95 11y ago

/me clicks link, sees blank page You're right! The back button does work as an effective solution!

gizmo686 11y ago

All of their papers linked to describe what addblocking is, and why it is wrong. None describe the technology they use, or how they "monotize addblocked traffic". The closest I could find is that it is based on a polymorphic encryption algorithm, which does not inspire confidence in me. Combined with the fact that they claim to support all addblockers, and addformats, and I am calling snakeoil. They also say it is patented, so I will see if I can dig up said patent. EDIT: I did a search on the patent office for "adblocking AND polymorphic" (with variations of adblocking), and found no results. EDIT2: Also, no information on how to buy their "product" beyond a generic contact us.

mirimir 11y ago
Malware droppers use polymorphic encryption to avoid detection ;)
monochromatic 11y ago
I also couldn't find any U.S. patents (or even just published applications) listing any of these people[1] as inventors. Nor any U.S. patent assignments to a company called "Secret Media." Maybe they're referring to some other jurisdiction, or maybe the patent has some other inventor(s) and their entity name is something besides Secret Media. Or maybe they're full of shit. [1] http://www.secretmedia.com/about.php http://www.secretmedia.com/about.php
fredmontagnon 11y ago
Our website contains as less information as possible on our technology, on purpose. A patent is generally public 2 years after the application. You'll have to wait at least 9 more months :) We only work with premium publishers, and we'll probably never have a SAAS solution. We are hiring...

EyeballKid 11y ago

From their white paper: The technology used by Secret Media makes sure that each ad gets a specific URL that cannot be nor found not added to EasyList by the community. I don't quite understand why they think this would work. Surely ad-blockers can filter by domain? Are they using well camouflaged URLs from legit domains? Or do they have a never-ending supply of throwaway domain names, in order to stay one step ahead of EasyList? Either way, I'm genuinely curious to see what they have in mind...

kawera 11y ago
Would subdomains do the trick, say, very-very-long-cryptokey.publisher.tld ?
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  No, because then we can build whitelist-based ad blockers (e.g. RequestPolicy, NoScript).
  - kawera 11y ago
    Thanks! Pardon my ignorance but what if the content url itself came encoded in the same manner?
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      They would have to hack into the websites we already trust to serve as a proxy for their ads to bypass a strict whitelist.
    - Sanddancer 11y ago
      They'll lose some of their SEO juice because their URLs are no longer human-friendly. Hashing everything would be more costly than letting some people block ads.
      - nailer 11y ago

sarciszewski 11y ago

http://www.secretmedia.com/manifest.php http://www.secretmedia.com/manifest.php TL;DR "If you visit a web page, you surrender the right to decide what happens to your computer."

kawera 11y ago
Me thinks they will regret this line.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  Well they didn't actually say that line, it's just paraphrasing.
  - nailer 11y ago
    It's more a strawman.

krapp 11y ago

Advertising is going to have to move from being served directly from the web, to devices where users no longer have control, to survive. Your phone, tablet and smart tvs will do the work of inserting ads into the web and transmitting analytics, the way some ISPs do now. People will put up with it because the ads will subsidize the cost of the devices.

hugh4 11y ago
Whatever an advertiser thinks my eyeballs are worth to them, they're worth more to me. They're going to have to do better than subsidising the cost of my device.
- krapp 11y ago
  Sure, but plenty of people might be willing to pay almost nothing for a new generation iPhone if it means having to deal with advertising. I'm sure the manufacturers will let you opt out for a reasonable monthly fee, though.

Sanddancer 11y ago

It's telling how they don't discuss at all the other things that drive people to use ad blockers. The high CPU utilization that comes with the myriad of javascript analytic links, the annoyance of having a video or audio ad play upon loading a page, or the zero days and other malicious media that have been spread through advertising networks. When ad networks state that they are working to mitigate the "potential security risks inherent in the online ad ecosystem", instead of vetting all ads, people are going to continue to block ads.

jblow 11y ago

I won't ever hire anyone who has this company on their resume.

kijin 11y ago

> Ad blocking breaks this harmony. I have yet to find anyone who talks about "harmony" who actually spews anything other than concentrated bullshit. Example: pretty much everything the Chinese government says and does in the name of preserving "harmony". It may have been a useful philosophical concept in the past, but it's been misused so much by shysters lately that the mere appearance of the "H" word is an instant red flag to me. EasyList might not be able to block their clever tricks, but isn't it about time we came up with a better way to detect anything the user doesn't want? EFF's Privacy Badger uses heuristics to determine whether a given script is trying to track the user. Perhaps adblockers need to take a similar approach. For example, they could check whether an element that is displayed by default on page load obscures the primary textual content of the page, or compare the current page with one that was shown to a well-known search engine.

anonymousab 11y ago

Having the windows firewall icon, "anti virus" and some sort of anti-malware logo in what appears to be their hitlist shows quite well where their priorities lie.

jbb555 11y ago

"Lets's force people who have taken steps to avoid adverts to watch adverts for our products against their will. That's bound to make them feel good about it and make them buy our products."

emergentcypher 11y ago

This is not just about whether websites deserve to be able to get ad impressions. Will their ads not chew up my CPU and battery life? Will their ads not track my online behaviour in addition to showing me an ad? Will their ads not load other ads that will do the same? Because otherwise, fuck you secret media, and fuck your ads.