Popups / Ads - Other Nasties

AdFrames
 
A sneaky technique being used by some websites, notably free Web hosts, involves putting all member sites in a frameset with the site in one frame, and an advertisement in another directly above it. If the damn thing would just load and stay put like a good little ad banner, I wouldn't have such a problem with it. But the adframe uses a special HTTP directive called refresh that automatically loads more and more new advertisements while you read. Peek at the source code in an ad frame and you'll see a tag like:

<META http-equiv="Refresh" content="15;URL=http://slimeball.com/ads/SendMeYetAnotherAnnoyingAd.asp">

This tells the browser to request a new ad from the server every fifteen seconds. This can be bad because every minute you spend reading the bottom frame, the top one is making some greedy asshole even more money! Maybe it's just the feeling of being treated like cattle, herded this way and that by unscrupulous marketers and having your udders drained for every last drop of ad money, that pisses some folks off about the future of the Web. And it's not like TV where you're getting the content for free and "paying" for this service by sitting through commercials; you're paying an ISP an average $20 a month for the same treatment. Imagine if you went to the movie theatre and the flick had commercials in the middle of it!
 
Back on the subject... AdFrames on free webpage providers are insidious in that they are embedded in not the page but the browser window itself, latching on like little parasites and coming along for the ride for as long as that browser window remains open. Even if you surf off the ad-laden site in search of greener pastures, SURPRISE! The constantly-reloading adframe tags along and forces ads onto any other sites you surf in that window, above and beyond all the ads that already litter the new page. For a good example of frame-based advertising gone bad, see the GeoCities parody site http://hitlercities.webjump.com/. Don't get me wrong, as far as the actual content goes it's a great site...but I sincerely hope they find another Web host soon.
 
Advertorial content
 
Wander through various Web 'zines, news sites, or anywhere else where the clashing colors of sponsorship and journalistic objectivity come together and you will see an ongoing struggle to avoid the intermingling of editorial content and advertising. This unwholesome mix--called an advertorial--is slimeball and dishonest, and generally makes a complete and total mockery of any site that falls victim to it. The fear is that, as cybermarketing and advertising becomes even more pervasive and greedy/desperate advertisers get still more competitive over the dwindling eyeball/advertisement ratio, these lines will begin to blur and promotional material may compromise what are supposed to be objective forums. This has already started with companies like Intel offering kickbacks to site designers who make the claim that their pages load faster with a Pentium II processor. A side-effect of the kickback program, which I really don't know all the details of (so don't ask me for anything more specific) is that this paid advertisement often passes for an objective, editorial statement from the webmaster. The problems of objectivity vs. sponsorship are thorny and hard to tackle. Suppose you work for a news agency that is heavily sponsored by McDonald's. Now suppose the top story of today is a massive E.coli infestation of McDonald's hamburgers...Could the fact that McDonald's is one of your primary sources of funding cause your news agency to sugar-coat, gloss-over, or even censor the news story outright? Could McDonalds threaten to pull their sponsorship if you choose to print the story? Could printing this story cause you to end up in the unemployment line? It's not an easy situation and, especially when it seems like the media are eating out of the palms of the sponsors' hands and trying very hard not to piss them off, it always brings that spectre of doubt and mistrust to stories and editorials that concern those sponsors.
 
Tracking
 
I've just kind of hand-waved the banners and stuff as being there, but haven't really explored what goes on behind the banner, or how banner and spammer are connected. Many times, if you run your cursor over a banner the link will look something like this:

http://www.slimymarketer.com/cgi-bin/adclick.cgi?wAAqZ4&127.0.0.1&W95

It's those nasty CGI click-trackers that gives mister slimymarketer.com all sorts of useful dirt on you. The link calls the CGI/Perl tracking script, and the stuff attached to the script (after the "?") is a unique identifier that tells the script what page you're being referred from, your IP Address (it's like an online Social Security number), what ad is being served, what type of content it was being shown on when you clicked on it, what browser and operating system you're using....
 
They wouldn't go to the trouble of collecting this info if it wasn't important and useful to them, now would they? This info is used to figure out what your interests and preferences are, so they can determine what types of advertising will be most effective on you personally. Here's where teams of psychologists, behaviorists and statisticians go to work determining how to make you buy a product. Beneficial service or a subtle form of mind control? You be the judge. Click on a banner for Cabela's featuring a hunting knife, another selling a rifle, another for vodka.com, a couple porno sites, an ad for a new top-of-the-line polygraphite fishin' pole, etc... every click is tracked and entered into a personal database on you. A few statistical overlays and the advertiser knows you're a 25-30 year old white male with a strong attraction to the outdoors, possibly alcoholic, who may be having family problems. No, that's not spooky...
 
The DMS have more tricks up their sleeves--Cookies. A "cookie" is a little nugget of encoded information that an asshole marketer stores himself on your hard drive! If some sleazoid hacker on the 'Net was using your hard drive to store his kiddie porn, you probably wouldn't be happy about it. But here's a similar enough practice that's fully legitimized by your Web browser! These cookies are stored in a cookie file whose location varies depending on what type of computer and browser you're using. Version 4.x browsers have an option to block all cookies, which I strongly recommend doing. Cookies are a highly effective method of tagging you like a cattle so that, even if you don't visit a site for months at a time, the marketers know exactly who you are when you return. I could go on and on about tracking, personal profiles and psychographic databases, but I think this quote from junkbusters.com sums it up nicely.

 
Email Spam
 
Old-fashioned spam has been covered in so much detail by so many thousands and thousands of sites out there, I'm not even getting into it here. For an in-depth and detailed (not to mention hilarious) dossier on spam, Paul Hsieh's ANTISPAM Page is the best I've found; not to mention complete (in covering related areas from header forging to fun ways to deal with a spammer). If you're short on time, you can go to my own spam page for a quickie.
 
Instant Messager/ICQ/Netbus spam
 
The usefulness for the Internet for communication has created a wide niche for software to help friends keep in touch. Instant-messaging programs such as ICQ and AIM are a convenient way to connect with individual friends and entire buddylists, but they are also a convenient way for spammers to propagate promotional messages and advertise their URLs. It's usually a more crafty form of moneymaking than a standard spam or script project. I've received a number of these, you may have too and not even realized it. One example that comes to mind is the old "Internet rose", "Angel kiss" or "Internet snowball" URL that gets passed along to you by someone on your buddylist:

The idea works a bit like a pyramid scheme, to start out by sending the URL and message to a few initial people, each of whom sends it to 10 others, who each in turn send it to 10 more... In this case the advertising has to be tied to enough worthwhile and relevant content to be passed along and propagate among the user base. Otherwise it runs the risk of being just dumped and not sent on (unfortunately, many ICQ users just pass URLs along without even looking at them...). Just something to watch for next time someone forwards you an unrecognised link.
 
NetBus, Back Orifice and similar programs present a new form of admongering entirely. For the unfamiliar, these are programs that could be best described as "hacker tools" that allow some devious person connect to and remotely seize control of your computer. The program is usually distributed in the form of a trojan horse; you'll get a gag program in the email ("Bastard Santa", the urinal test, the sheep that runs around on your desktop, the nude dancer, etc., etc.) that, when run, invisibly installs a backdoor in your computer that can be exploited by hackers or idiot spammers. With this backdoor installed, they can spam you with messages to their heart's content or send you to anyone's website against your will. They could even be used to install a type of "ad software" that would install itself in your StartUp folder and pop up ad windows throughout the day as you work....or read your email or format your hard drive, for that matter. Always practice safe cybersex when downloading programs or opening email attachments.
 
A NetBus infection is hard to spot unless you are actually greeted with a message like this from a stranger; you may be infected and not even know it. Any connections to your computer on port 12345 (default NetBus port...use Netstat.exe in your Windows directory to see anyone that's connecting to you), or any foreign application windows appearing, are good reasons to have your system thoroughly checked over by the neighbourhood techie (or, failing that,  (*) as I know a little about the NetBus software).

Back Orifice and other programs I am less familiar with, and wouldn't be able to tell you what to do about them. Some net-mischief countermeasures such as WinNuke, Portfuck and Divine Intervention (not that I advocate the use of them, by any means :) may assist you in removing a recalcitrant parasite from your system when all else fails.
 
Desktop spam
 
Desktop spamming is when the installation of a program causes your desktop to be deluged with miscellaneous icons for software demos, xyz-brand Internet service, interactive multimedia ads, links to some company's homepage, etc. It's bad enough when a program you install sticks its own icon on your desktop without asking, let alone shortcuts to some bozo's products page.
 
Recently we gave a popular educational software title as a Christmas gift to our young cousin. No sooner did they install it, an ad for NetMarket something-or-other appears on the desktop. Clicking it brings up this window with a multimedia advertisement. "Welcome to NetMarket," it says (yes, the ad window has a voice) as http://www.netmarket.com appears in big letters with various superlatives swirling around it. The crooning continues.. "NetMarket is the world's leading blah blah blah We hope you will take a minute to..." At this point an ALT-F4 gets pressed and the link gets unceremoniously dumped into the Recycle bin for its one-way journey to the great bit bucket in the sky. I have no idea how many megs this interactive ad gobbles up on their hard drive (I didn't feel like digging for the application the shortcut launches and trying to detangle it from Windows) or how much of the CD-ROM we paid good money for was put toward presenting this unwanted advertising.
 
AdWare
 
Closely related to desktop and Netbus spam. AdWare consists of software that is intended primarily as an ad-delivery vehicle. AdTools' Message Mate programs are a seething example. These are gag programs that are passed along via email because they're funny. When run, they display a cute little presentation (the nude dancer, Bill Clinton press conference, Saddam Hussein Anal Probe) for a minute or so, then download and fill your screen full of ad banners. Not docile ones, either--we're talking grand-mal flashing, flickering, loud animated clunkers. At least someone hasn't come up with a computer virus whose job is to spread from PC to PC and display ad banners all day long while you work. Yet.

Startup/Registry spam
 
Another new form of spam. A program you install will install itself (or some other, sponsored program) into your StartUp/Autorun folder or, even worse, into your Win95 Registry as a Windows Service which is automatically run every time your computer boots. Some notable examples are "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro!" and the AOL Instant Messager promotionware that magically appears when you install some versions of Netscape. These programs are usually in the form of a messagebox advertising a particular product or service--a messagebox that pops up in your face and demands an answer every time you start your computer! AOL Instant Messager, for example, just keeps hounding and hounding you with its advert windows until you cave in and install the damn thing (or tamper with your Registry to delete its entry). QuickTime give you a real choice when it starts hounding you about it's overpriced software. "Upgrade to Quicktime Pro..." Your choices (in the form of clickable buttons) are "Now" or "Later". Less malignant forms of Startup spam include programs that just display their icon in your system tray for no good reason (RealPlayer), and those that run themselves at start-up without asking.
 
Getting rid of StartUp spam (for Windows users) is easy. Click Start > Settings > Taskbar... click the tab marked Start Menu Programs. Click "Remove" and find the folder named StartUp. Go into it and delete any shortcut from this folder that is giving you grief. (Note: Doing this doesn't actually delete the program, just a shortcut to it.)

Voiding yourself of promotionware that has infected your Registry is a little bit more advanced. Click Start > Run, and type "regedit" in the Run box. With any luck Registry Editor will open. Dig your way down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ and you will find folders called Run and RunServices. Inspect both of these for the app that's spamming you at startup, and carefully delete its entry. Caution: The Registry is an important part of your Windows system. Be careful when modifying it not to edit or delete other things while you're in there.

Installer spam
 
Installer spam is advertising that assaults you as you wait for a program installation. The mindless "You will be more productive, computing will be more fun, you will have more friends" etc. propoganda you are fed during the Windows install process is a decent example. (Or, actually more of a "Hey you idiots, why are you advertising to me something you know I already have?!") Installer spam can either confront you while waiting for the install to complete (for particularly lengthy/large installations) or before/after, as part of the installer program but wasting your valuable time that could be spent on actually doing the install or running the new app. Again, QuickTime presents its "Upgrade (Now/Later)" spam before the install program will terminate--quite a few installers will go out of their way to try and make you buy an enhanced version of the software or another product by the same developer. Some installers will even, when installing one program, bring another program along for the ride. I install a new screensaver off a CDROM and guess what? It installs Quicktime too! I get to deal with the Now/Later garbage once again, what fun....

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