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I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing a

I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing activity based on mouse movement. At night I would open the software, wrap my mouse cord around an oscillating desk fan, then go to bed. Earned myself $50/month

vanadium 8y ago
I remember the AllAdvantage.com cheat as well. It became so popular to game that one that not only were novel tactics like yours employed, but automatic mouse hijacking apps for Windows made some headway for those that didn't want to sit and click ads ad nauseum. I may have made a quick buck on this back in the early 2000s.
- jtreminio 8y ago
  There were programs that would run up the 40 hour weekly limit in seconds. I'm assuming AllAdvantage had no real sanity checking when receiving data, which to my eyes means they deserved to go out the way they did.
  - Trav5 8y ago
    It was a game. The sanity checks were added and workarounds were formed...
- Dave_TRS 8y ago
  AllAdvantage was great while it lasted. My method as a highschooler was a free mouse trembler app, coupled with 4 rotating Geocities sites I made to auto-forwarded to each other in a loop every 45 seconds.
- pmorici 8y ago
  lol I remember AllAdvantage; I had a set of programmable Legos and I made a little jig that would sit there and spin a wheel under the mouse ball back and forth.
- userbinator 8y ago
  click ads ad nauseum There is a browser extension that does this for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611594 It was removed from Chrome's appstore, so it must be very effective... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228 ...and shows very clearly whose side they're on.
  - duncan_bayne 8y ago
    "So, an advertising company that used to have a motto about not being evil, but abandoned it, built a web browser." Realistically that wasn't going to end any other way :)
  - aiCeivi9 8y ago
    On site owners site? That extensions likely punishes owners of sites visited by you by suspending their ad network account for click fraud. I can see how that might be considered harmful.
johns 8y ago
I used this exact same method.
ransom1538 8y ago
Remember, you aren't ripping off the shady ad companies. Actually, you are doing what they want you to do. You are ripping off the merchants (people buying ads) who just don't know better.
- bittercynic 8y ago
  It may end up being both, though, since you're also making the shady ad company's impressions less effective.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Good. Those merchants are supporting these shady companies with their money. If they get screwed, all the better.
  - warent 8y ago
    But this is a positive-sum world where it's actually better for us all the fewer people that get screwed. So although it may be better if they used alternative methods, it's actually a step backwards to turn this into a zero-sum game
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Ads are a negative sum game, IMO. The less money that ad companies make the better. Or in other words, the ad companies deserve it.
      - wpietri 8y ago
        I'm not sure about the latter part, but I think the first part is pretty clearly true. The theoretical economic value of advertising is new product discovery. If you needed a thing but didn't know there was a solution and you saw an ad, then some of the value you gain would be attributable to the ad. Imagine a world entirely without ads. Would you really be lacking a lot? I doubt it. Especially with the internet, it's easy enough search, to receive word of mouth, to read reviews, or to ask friends for help with a problem. But let's assume it happens some. Ads might at least get you to a solution sooner, so count the value gain there as well. Now subtract all the money spent on things where ads encouraged a purchase that was not valuable or even wasteful (e.g., didn't live up to expectations, was fine but the need wasn't urgent so it sits in a closet, was bad enough that it actively cost you extra money). Subtract further the amount of money spent on ads, hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Subtract also all the time spent watching, listening to, and reading ads. Further subtract the amount of value that would have been gained had that time been used as a person wanted. And further subtract all the value that could have been gained had those creative people creating ads been doing something beneficial. I can't come up with any reasonable numbers that suggest advertising is a net societal positive. It exists not because its targets want it, but because businesses are in an arms race to manipulate consumers in ways favorable to the advertisers. It's like military spending: most of it happens not because anybody really wants it, but because nobody wants to lose to the other guy.
bennettfeely 8y ago
Do these companies still exist?
- cdr 8y ago
  There's no shortage of adwall sites, which is pretty much the evolution. Outsourcing of ad fraud is their bread and butter.
xythian 8y ago
That was my first ever exposure to programming. I installed as many of those crap ad bars as I could on a backup computer and wrote a macro that would open Internet Explorer, browse thru the same 10 sites in a loop, close IE, repeat. This setup provided enough income to cover the costs of my dedicated phone line and ISP access.
- verelo 8y ago
  Not that i have not done many questionable things like this when i was a kid, but at what point is it an admission of fraud that can get one in trouble?
  - GSimon 8y ago
    When the incentive to prosecute (i.e opportunity for resources gained vs opportunity for resources lost) reaches a certain thresh-hold there's action. Generally, that thresh-hold is high because the value gained from prosecution is low, even in cases were one party is quite apparently guilty. The only real exception would be the "let's make an example of out this person" case. When crime is rampant, prosecutions might happen with greater likelyhood in order to deter more crime for occuring. An example would be pirating music. It is not feasible to prosecute people for pirating music, but suing 1 party publicly will get 1000s of people to stop instantly.
  - jasonmp85 8y ago
    Certain companies deserve it?
  - beedogs 8y ago
    The point is somewhere well beyond a fifteen-year-old anecdote told anonymously in a public forum.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    In this case, the add-click businesses engaged in fraud. So was it fraud to trick them?
    - 8y ago
wpietri 8y ago
To my combined horror and joy, you can now just buy a commercial mouse jiggler: https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-Jiggler-MJ-3/dp/B00MTZY7Y4 https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-Jiggler-...
- greglindahl 8y ago
  There's a legit use for those, to avoid screen blanking. Also used to keep computers from locking themselves after N minutes of inactivity.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    If only there was another way.
    - oxguy3 8y ago
      If the computer you're on is completely locked down, there really isn't.
      - wpietri 8y ago
        And that's the horrific part to me. Instead of making sane software or sane policies, it ends up making perfect sense, at least at an individual's level, to manufacture a piece of specialist hardware that does nothing but jiggle a mouse.
        greglindahl 8y ago
        One of the use-cases of the jiggler is during police raids, where they're used to keep a computer from locking itself. Obviously that's not the use-case you're imagining!
- tlrobinson 8y ago
  WiebeTech sells a bunch of interesting computer forensics hardware. I’m guessing these are typically used by law enforcement when seizing unlocked computers to keep them unlocked.

vanadium 8y ago

I remember the AllAdvantage.com cheat as well. It became so popular to game that one that not only were novel tactics like yours employed, but automatic mouse hijacking apps for Windows made some headway for those that didn't want to sit and click ads ad nauseum. I may have made a quick buck on this back in the early 2000s.

jtreminio 8y ago
There were programs that would run up the 40 hour weekly limit in seconds. I'm assuming AllAdvantage had no real sanity checking when receiving data, which to my eyes means they deserved to go out the way they did.
- Trav5 8y ago
  It was a game. The sanity checks were added and workarounds were formed...
Dave_TRS 8y ago
AllAdvantage was great while it lasted. My method as a highschooler was a free mouse trembler app, coupled with 4 rotating Geocities sites I made to auto-forwarded to each other in a loop every 45 seconds.
pmorici 8y ago
lol I remember AllAdvantage; I had a set of programmable Legos and I made a little jig that would sit there and spin a wheel under the mouse ball back and forth.
userbinator 8y ago
click ads ad nauseum There is a browser extension that does this for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611594 It was removed from Chrome's appstore, so it must be very effective... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228 ...and shows very clearly whose side they're on.
- duncan_bayne 8y ago
  "So, an advertising company that used to have a motto about not being evil, but abandoned it, built a web browser." Realistically that wasn't going to end any other way :)
- aiCeivi9 8y ago
  On site owners site? That extensions likely punishes owners of sites visited by you by suspending their ad network account for click fraud. I can see how that might be considered harmful.

johns 8y ago

I used this exact same method.

ransom1538 8y ago

Remember, you aren't ripping off the shady ad companies. Actually, you are doing what they want you to do. You are ripping off the merchants (people buying ads) who just don't know better.

bittercynic 8y ago
It may end up being both, though, since you're also making the shady ad company's impressions less effective.
stale2002 8y ago
Good. Those merchants are supporting these shady companies with their money. If they get screwed, all the better.
- warent 8y ago
  But this is a positive-sum world where it's actually better for us all the fewer people that get screwed. So although it may be better if they used alternative methods, it's actually a step backwards to turn this into a zero-sum game
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Ads are a negative sum game, IMO. The less money that ad companies make the better. Or in other words, the ad companies deserve it.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      I'm not sure about the latter part, but I think the first part is pretty clearly true. The theoretical economic value of advertising is new product discovery. If you needed a thing but didn't know there was a solution and you saw an ad, then some of the value you gain would be attributable to the ad. Imagine a world entirely without ads. Would you really be lacking a lot? I doubt it. Especially with the internet, it's easy enough search, to receive word of mouth, to read reviews, or to ask friends for help with a problem. But let's assume it happens some. Ads might at least get you to a solution sooner, so count the value gain there as well. Now subtract all the money spent on things where ads encouraged a purchase that was not valuable or even wasteful (e.g., didn't live up to expectations, was fine but the need wasn't urgent so it sits in a closet, was bad enough that it actively cost you extra money). Subtract further the amount of money spent on ads, hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Subtract also all the time spent watching, listening to, and reading ads. Further subtract the amount of value that would have been gained had that time been used as a person wanted. And further subtract all the value that could have been gained had those creative people creating ads been doing something beneficial. I can't come up with any reasonable numbers that suggest advertising is a net societal positive. It exists not because its targets want it, but because businesses are in an arms race to manipulate consumers in ways favorable to the advertisers. It's like military spending: most of it happens not because anybody really wants it, but because nobody wants to lose to the other guy.

bennettfeely 8y ago

Do these companies still exist?

cdr 8y ago
There's no shortage of adwall sites, which is pretty much the evolution. Outsourcing of ad fraud is their bread and butter.

xythian 8y ago

That was my first ever exposure to programming. I installed as many of those crap ad bars as I could on a backup computer and wrote a macro that would open Internet Explorer, browse thru the same 10 sites in a loop, close IE, repeat. This setup provided enough income to cover the costs of my dedicated phone line and ISP access.

verelo 8y ago
Not that i have not done many questionable things like this when i was a kid, but at what point is it an admission of fraud that can get one in trouble?
- GSimon 8y ago
  When the incentive to prosecute (i.e opportunity for resources gained vs opportunity for resources lost) reaches a certain thresh-hold there's action. Generally, that thresh-hold is high because the value gained from prosecution is low, even in cases were one party is quite apparently guilty. The only real exception would be the "let's make an example of out this person" case. When crime is rampant, prosecutions might happen with greater likelyhood in order to deter more crime for occuring. An example would be pirating music. It is not feasible to prosecute people for pirating music, but suing 1 party publicly will get 1000s of people to stop instantly.
- jasonmp85 8y ago
  Certain companies deserve it?
- beedogs 8y ago
  The point is somewhere well beyond a fifteen-year-old anecdote told anonymously in a public forum.
- mirimir 8y ago
  In this case, the add-click businesses engaged in fraud. So was it fraud to trick them?
  - 8y ago

wpietri 8y ago

To my combined horror and joy, you can now just buy a commercial mouse jiggler: https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-Jiggler-MJ-3/dp/B00MTZY7Y4 https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-Jiggler-...

greglindahl 8y ago
There's a legit use for those, to avoid screen blanking. Also used to keep computers from locking themselves after N minutes of inactivity.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  If only there was another way.
  - oxguy3 8y ago
    If the computer you're on is completely locked down, there really isn't.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      And that's the horrific part to me. Instead of making sane software or sane policies, it ends up making perfect sense, at least at an individual's level, to manufacture a piece of specialist hardware that does nothing but jiggle a mouse.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        One of the use-cases of the jiggler is during police raids, where they're used to keep a computer from locking itself. Obviously that's not the use-case you're imagining!
tlrobinson 8y ago
WiebeTech sells a bunch of interesting computer forensics hardware. I’m guessing these are typically used by law enforcement when seizing unlocked computers to keep them unlocked.