If You're Not Watching, You'll Soon Be Part of the Blockchain
February 13, 2018 4:38 PM Subscribe
In the course of its 23 years of operation, the website Salon sought to bolster its earnings through a variety of means, including the acquisition of THE WELL in 1999 along with the unveiling of a "premium" version of its main site for paying subscribers.
In further pursuit of revenue Salon has now announced it will warn users of ad-blocking software to either enable banner ads on its site, or partition part of their computers for "Salon to use your unused computing power" to mine cryptocurrency.
The notice arrives in the wake of a market crash in digital trading, spurred by demand in computing processors which outstripped the supply of graphics accelerators to the home computing and video gaming markets. China and South Korea both elected to ban trading of blockchain on their markets, while in the United States, Bitcoin (at least, in its original unforked version) is recognized as a trade asset and can be subject to taxation like property.
While Salon plans to iron out its details in time, it has already teamed with Monero (Bitcoin derivative) based trading exchequer Coinhive, which uses Javascript as a means of hashing algorithms necessary for alternate economies. Salon maintains that the measure reduces the need for its site to further support itself through subscription-modeled paywalls.
The notice arrives in the wake of a market crash in digital trading, spurred by demand in computing processors which outstripped the supply of graphics accelerators to the home computing and video gaming markets. China and South Korea both elected to ban trading of blockchain on their markets, while in the United States, Bitcoin (at least, in its original unforked version) is recognized as a trade asset and can be subject to taxation like property.
While Salon plans to iron out its details in time, it has already teamed with Monero (Bitcoin derivative) based trading exchequer Coinhive, which uses Javascript as a means of hashing algorithms necessary for alternate economies. Salon maintains that the measure reduces the need for its site to further support itself through subscription-modeled paywalls.
>1. allow ads on Salon
>2. block ads by allowing Salon to use your unused computing power
I notice they omitted number three, 'never visit this fucking site again'--though I guess the next trend will be to do this without notifying you. This is why you run an ad blocker AND noscript.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:42 PM on February 13, 2018 [124 favorites]
>2. block ads by allowing Salon to use your unused computing power
I notice they omitted number three, 'never visit this fucking site again'--though I guess the next trend will be to do this without notifying you. This is why you run an ad blocker AND noscript.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:42 PM on February 13, 2018 [124 favorites]
For me, Salon has been a semi-handy news aggregator for a while now. But not handy enough to put up with this.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
"We intend to use a percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation."
*snork*
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [18 favorites]
*snork*
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [18 favorites]
This seems like something that the adblockers will block about 5 seconds from now (if they don’t already).
And it seems like a good way to get on the “this site may contain malware” lists.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [21 favorites]
And it seems like a good way to get on the “this site may contain malware” lists.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [21 favorites]
No thank you, Salon.
Besides, some of us are already part of the only blockchain that matters.
posted by darkstar at 4:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [22 favorites]
Besides, some of us are already part of the only blockchain that matters.
posted by darkstar at 4:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [22 favorites]
I’ve been not visiting Salon for years! Am I finally ahead of a trend?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [66 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [66 favorites]
Salon and thanks for all the phish!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:49 PM on February 13, 2018 [70 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:49 PM on February 13, 2018 [70 favorites]
TIL Salon is still around. I honestly can’t remember the last time I followed a link there. I assumed it had gone under.
But I agree with Huffy Puffy: this is going to get them on A List. Quick.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:50 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
But I agree with Huffy Puffy: this is going to get them on A List. Quick.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:50 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Coinhive is already blocked by the EasyPrivacy list, which I believe comes with both uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus (though I'm not sure if it's enabled by default). So as a way of wringing pennies out of ad-blocking visitors, it seems a little short-sighted.
posted by skymt at 4:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by skymt at 4:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I... don't actually mind this, at least in theory. Use computer cycles that I won't miss in order to make yourself nineteen cents, which funds you enough that you don't use ads? In a lot of ways, that seems superior to adblocking. In theory.
In practice it's a nightmare because the vast, vast majority of computer users haven't a clue how to monitor how much of their computer is being silently used for what, and the few who know exactly how probably don't want to have this new thing to worry about.
But if there was a nice, system-wide monitor and UI that allowed users to opt-in to various background tasks (not just mining-for-Salon, but mining-for-choose-your-charity, not to mention things like SETI@home), and tune how and when their "spare" cycles were being used? (A window full of sliders, I imagine)... Well, now this could actually be a rather huge and lovely resource that's very win-win(-win). A future OS that had this sort of "Background Network Rental" functionality built in would be pretty interesting.
Trust Salon to decide what is "unused" on my computer, though? To decide how much performance I won't miss? And with no trustable system-wide way for me to monitor or adjust those settings? No, that won't do.
posted by rokusan at 4:56 PM on February 13, 2018 [30 favorites]
In practice it's a nightmare because the vast, vast majority of computer users haven't a clue how to monitor how much of their computer is being silently used for what, and the few who know exactly how probably don't want to have this new thing to worry about.
But if there was a nice, system-wide monitor and UI that allowed users to opt-in to various background tasks (not just mining-for-Salon, but mining-for-choose-your-charity, not to mention things like SETI@home), and tune how and when their "spare" cycles were being used? (A window full of sliders, I imagine)... Well, now this could actually be a rather huge and lovely resource that's very win-win(-win). A future OS that had this sort of "Background Network Rental" functionality built in would be pretty interesting.
Trust Salon to decide what is "unused" on my computer, though? To decide how much performance I won't miss? And with no trustable system-wide way for me to monitor or adjust those settings? No, that won't do.
posted by rokusan at 4:56 PM on February 13, 2018 [30 favorites]
Blocking Javascript CPU hijacking seems like a hard problem. How to distinguish malicious computation from legitimate rendering? I think you just have to cap the CPU usage allowed a web page and be prepared to write off sites that go beyond. If this becomes more popular, how does it affect the evolution of web design and what kind of stupid arms race does it lead to?
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:00 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:00 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Coinhive mines cryptocurrency in javascript. It is a crime against electricity.
posted by ryanrs at 5:01 PM on February 13, 2018 [44 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 5:01 PM on February 13, 2018 [44 favorites]
If javascript once again became an optional, opt-in feature of websites (like webgl), so that the majority of websites were javascript-free, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
posted by Pyry at 5:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 5:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [13 favorites]
Thank goodness modern web devs are keen to avoid anything that might be considered an abuse of Javascript.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 5:04 PM on February 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 5:04 PM on February 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
Damn, that is terrible. Luckily, Salon hasn’t published anything worth reading in the last 15 years.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:05 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by porn in the woods at 5:05 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
I miss the old WELL. I was on there (butoh) way back in the late 80's until around '94. You own your words. Twitter just makes me sad.
posted by misterpatrick at 5:05 PM on February 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by misterpatrick at 5:05 PM on February 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
Are those long stories which require endless clicks, are they doing this? By this I mean side stories off of facebook? Is the energy from those clicks mining cryptocurrency? Wouldn't it be strange karma if all that Russian meddling was cryptocapitalism in action somehow as its first order of business?
posted by Oyéah at 5:06 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Oyéah at 5:06 PM on February 13, 2018
They don't need you to click or do anything other than visit the page to mine cryptocurrency.
posted by Pyry at 5:07 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Pyry at 5:07 PM on February 13, 2018
Some of you seem to be thinking that this is a bit worse than it is.
Your unused processing power are the resources you already have but are not actively using to it’s full potential at the time of browsing salon.com
So, essentially, your CPU works harder while you are on Salon and when you leave the site, that's it. No more mining for Salon.
The fact that they are being upfront about this and actually telling you what their revenue model is, is a good thing. Do you honestly believe that using a few cents more of your electricity is worse than the many ways Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. use your data to make money?
posted by oddman at 5:08 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
Your unused processing power are the resources you already have but are not actively using to it’s full potential at the time of browsing salon.com
So, essentially, your CPU works harder while you are on Salon and when you leave the site, that's it. No more mining for Salon.
The fact that they are being upfront about this and actually telling you what their revenue model is, is a good thing. Do you honestly believe that using a few cents more of your electricity is worse than the many ways Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. use your data to make money?
posted by oddman at 5:08 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
Your unused processing power are the resources you already have but are not actively using to it’s full potential at the time of browsing salon.com.
Now there’s the great journalism I want to support with my CPU cycles.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:10 PM on February 13, 2018 [17 favorites]
Now there’s the great journalism I want to support with my CPU cycles.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:10 PM on February 13, 2018 [17 favorites]
> it wouldn't be the end of the world
It would be the end of this free schematic editor I've been using all afternoon. Javascript can be pretty useful.
posted by ryanrs at 5:11 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
It would be the end of this free schematic editor I've been using all afternoon. Javascript can be pretty useful.
posted by ryanrs at 5:11 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
To use this site you must grow tulips in your home.
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:12 PM on February 13, 2018 [79 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:12 PM on February 13, 2018 [79 favorites]
Salon used to be one of the websites that I visited daily but it's sunk so far in the last decade or so that I'd almost forgotten about it.
posted by octothorpe at 5:15 PM on February 13, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 5:15 PM on February 13, 2018 [8 favorites]
[navigates to Salon's Twitter page; clicks on "unfollow"]
posted by orange swan at 5:25 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by orange swan at 5:25 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
The price crash leads to /r/Bitcoin contemplating innovative solutions
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 5:27 PM on February 13, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 5:27 PM on February 13, 2018 [15 favorites]
Back in the day, I even paid for a subscription to Salon when that was their "path to profitability", but I'm out. It's just liberal clickbait now anyway.
posted by briank at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by briank at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'll just block salon.com entirely in uBlock Origin to remind myself.
posted by Foosnark at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'd be cool with AdBlockPlus doing this to pay for blocking ads.
posted by SPrintF at 5:35 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 5:35 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
If javascript once again became an optional, opt-in feature of websites (like webgl), so that the majority of websites were javascript-free, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Have you visited the web recently? Because I don't think most people, at least, remember what UI looked and felt like before it was capable of having any behavior, but it was a hell of a lot worse than today's web. Every single site would just be "opt in if you want to actually be able to use the site", and it would be functionally meaningless. You'd have the same web but with more nagging.
I don't think this is strictly unethical but I do think it's dumb and unsustainable but that dumb and unsustainable might as well be Salon's brand. I'm honestly baffled that they still exist because I gave up on them so long ago. My vague memory was that it followed one of their pieces of so-called journalism about the evils of cell phone signals or something, which was just unscientific clickbait trash by that point.
posted by Sequence at 5:36 PM on February 13, 2018
Have you visited the web recently? Because I don't think most people, at least, remember what UI looked and felt like before it was capable of having any behavior, but it was a hell of a lot worse than today's web. Every single site would just be "opt in if you want to actually be able to use the site", and it would be functionally meaningless. You'd have the same web but with more nagging.
I don't think this is strictly unethical but I do think it's dumb and unsustainable but that dumb and unsustainable might as well be Salon's brand. I'm honestly baffled that they still exist because I gave up on them so long ago. My vague memory was that it followed one of their pieces of so-called journalism about the evils of cell phone signals or something, which was just unscientific clickbait trash by that point.
posted by Sequence at 5:36 PM on February 13, 2018
so like
just how much more d'you think we'll be paying for electricity if this becomes normal behavior
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 5:38 PM on February 13, 2018 [7 favorites]
just how much more d'you think we'll be paying for electricity if this becomes normal behavior
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 5:38 PM on February 13, 2018 [7 favorites]
Count me among those who once read Salon regularly (even paid for a subscription) but now only visits occasionally. I don’t use an adblocker, but their site is so cluttered with ads (often masquerading as stories) that it has made me consider getting one. Even though this new policy won’t affect me, it is skeazy enough that I’ll probably take the site out of my bookmarks. Their best writing is mostly from elsewhere now anyway. This is how I felt about them in 2011 and they have not improved since then.
I also notice that there isn’t anything about this on Salon.com, at least not that I can see. I also notice that their bitcoin mining scheme is in beta status, which I’m sure the folks they are trying to foist this on appreciate.
posted by TedW at 5:40 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I also notice that there isn’t anything about this on Salon.com, at least not that I can see. I also notice that their bitcoin mining scheme is in beta status, which I’m sure the folks they are trying to foist this on appreciate.
posted by TedW at 5:40 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Another site I use started using Coinhive a few months ago. But it was explicitly opt-in, and there was a huge thread about it where the site admins discussed it with the users. The admins admitted that the javascript miner had horrendously poor efficiency, but said they were making that option available to get people interested in mining with dedicated software. And sure enough, once users started comparing hashrate e-peen on the forums, quite a few downloaded xmrig to mine natively on their CPU or GPU.
Since the launch, I think there are a hundred or so users that are still running xmrig 24/7. It's making enough money to pay a substantial portion of the site's bills, if not the entire thing.
I think that was a decent was to use crypto mining to fund a site.
posted by ryanrs at 5:41 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Since the launch, I think there are a hundred or so users that are still running xmrig 24/7. It's making enough money to pay a substantial portion of the site's bills, if not the entire thing.
I think that was a decent was to use crypto mining to fund a site.
posted by ryanrs at 5:41 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
With its old school cred (owning the Well and all) I'd be so much happier if Salon was using my computer CPU to search for SETI.
posted by Peter H at 5:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Peter H at 5:44 PM on February 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
I miss the old WELL.
I can recommend Katie Hafner's The Well. A fascinating read.
posted by unliteral at 5:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I can recommend Katie Hafner's The Well. A fascinating read.
posted by unliteral at 5:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I installed Pi-Hole on the home network a couple weeks ago and the improvement in performance of web browsing devices had been subtle (because they’d already been running ad blockers as browser extensions) but noticeable (especially for handheld devices).
It’s bizarre that I’m now using dedicated computer hardware as a kind of data processing sink to free up the other computers in the household but that’s the state of the war right now.
> So, essentially, your CPU works harder while you are on Salon and when you leave the site, that's it. [...] Do you honestly believe that using a few cents more of your electricity is worse than the many ways Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. use your data to make money?
Do you honestly believe that I would be proactive about third party scripts that purport to deliver ads or collect user activity but be inexplicably indifferent to third party scripts performing other arbitrary unauditable activities?
posted by ardgedee at 5:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [9 favorites]
It’s bizarre that I’m now using dedicated computer hardware as a kind of data processing sink to free up the other computers in the household but that’s the state of the war right now.
> So, essentially, your CPU works harder while you are on Salon and when you leave the site, that's it. [...] Do you honestly believe that using a few cents more of your electricity is worse than the many ways Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. use your data to make money?
Do you honestly believe that I would be proactive about third party scripts that purport to deliver ads or collect user activity but be inexplicably indifferent to third party scripts performing other arbitrary unauditable activities?
posted by ardgedee at 5:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [9 favorites]
I only read Salon articles if they're linked here. Anyone who continually publishes Camille Paglia doesn't deserve my eyeballs, my ad revenue, OR my CPU time.
posted by xyzzy at 5:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by xyzzy at 5:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
No.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:56 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:56 PM on February 13, 2018
I didn’t see anything in their FAQ about doing this on mobile devices, but just in case doing this on the desktop wasn’t unpopular enough...
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:58 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:58 PM on February 13, 2018
This truly is the dorkest timeline.
posted by brundlefly at 5:59 PM on February 13, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 5:59 PM on February 13, 2018 [9 favorites]
uBlock Origin has a "resource abuse" section in its options that you should make sure you've got turned on, and you can expand that list with the NoCoin list of known currency-miners.
posted by mhoye at 6:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [31 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 6:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [31 favorites]
As if my Macbook didn't already warm my junk often enough.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:06 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:06 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
(That said, I got a good laugh at the fact that one of their "frequently asked questions" was "how do I make this stop". You'd think that'd cause some hesitation? Maybe to stop, and look inward? Alas.)
posted by mhoye at 6:07 PM on February 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 6:07 PM on February 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
It would be so much easier if a few bigger publishers just banded together and let you take a penny a page out of a larger account that doesn't require obscene credit card charges every time you visit said page.
posted by Talez at 6:16 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Talez at 6:16 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
The thing with these "please turn off your adblocker" sites is that most of them don't tell me what kind of ads they want to show me. I need to know what third-party networks you're using, or if they're in-house, and whether they're static, animated, video, noisy, and what kind of tracking cookies we're talking about, and if you're filtering for inappropriate content -- not just porn sites and sex toys, but ads for non-sex-related businesses that nevertheless use very exploitative shots of half-clad women or ads that are gory or whatever.
I am happy to whitelist a site that can tell me its ad policy and its ads seem safe for my computer, and safe for me to have on my screen if my children are looking over my shoulder. But all these places just want me to whitelist them so they can run horrible third-party ad networks with no quality control. And they're like "Just like a print newspaper!" except a print newspaper had an actual human who looked at every ad and made a decision about whether they were appropriate to run in a general-circulation newspaper. If you have an actual human approving your ads according to clear editorial standards, I am DELIGHTED to let your site show me ads all day long, just like my general-circulation newspaper used to!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:22 PM on February 13, 2018 [66 favorites]
I am happy to whitelist a site that can tell me its ad policy and its ads seem safe for my computer, and safe for me to have on my screen if my children are looking over my shoulder. But all these places just want me to whitelist them so they can run horrible third-party ad networks with no quality control. And they're like "Just like a print newspaper!" except a print newspaper had an actual human who looked at every ad and made a decision about whether they were appropriate to run in a general-circulation newspaper. If you have an actual human approving your ads according to clear editorial standards, I am DELIGHTED to let your site show me ads all day long, just like my general-circulation newspaper used to!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:22 PM on February 13, 2018 [66 favorites]
This sucks and is stupid but... We desperately need a model for paying for magazines/blogs/newspapers/journalism/online 'content'.
I would happily pay for some sort of cable analogue where I subscribe to a service that gives me access to a stable of websites or something. I can imagine lots of problems with that model, but it seems better than what we have which is all the periodicals and awesome websites going out of business (RIP The Awl - only the latest to die).
posted by latkes at 6:38 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would happily pay for some sort of cable analogue where I subscribe to a service that gives me access to a stable of websites or something. I can imagine lots of problems with that model, but it seems better than what we have which is all the periodicals and awesome websites going out of business (RIP The Awl - only the latest to die).
posted by latkes at 6:38 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
The thing with these "please turn off your adblocker" sites is that most of them don't tell me what kind of ads they want to show me. I need to know what third-party networks you're using, or if they're in-house, and whether they're static, animated, video, noisy, and what kind of tracking cookies we're talking about, and if you're filtering for inappropriate content -- not just porn sites and sex toys, but ads for non-sex-related businesses that nevertheless use very exploitative shots of half-clad women or ads that are gory or whatever.
Yes, this, especially since mobile sites are a wasteland of browser hijacking ads if you're not using an adblocking browser. Even totally innocuous sites are getting hit hard lately with really shady scam ads that throw you into redirect loops with popups and make your back button useless and are about the worst I've seen this side of the late 90s.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:42 PM on February 13, 2018 [8 favorites]
Yes, this, especially since mobile sites are a wasteland of browser hijacking ads if you're not using an adblocking browser. Even totally innocuous sites are getting hit hard lately with really shady scam ads that throw you into redirect loops with popups and make your back button useless and are about the worst I've seen this side of the late 90s.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:42 PM on February 13, 2018 [8 favorites]
And therein lies the rub, Eyebrows. Even an actual human can't necessarily be relied upon to flawlessly determine the safety of rich media content in ads.
Also, interesting that I am not seeing any notifications about executive staff/management SO dedicated to the ideals of Salon.com that they are happily receiving a cut in pay and abandoning any golden parachutes they might have. So to speak, if they aren't up for a little cannibalism, there's no famine...
(And, seriously, they can only do business with CoinHive which has a definitely skeezy aspect about it?)
posted by Samizdata at 6:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, interesting that I am not seeing any notifications about executive staff/management SO dedicated to the ideals of Salon.com that they are happily receiving a cut in pay and abandoning any golden parachutes they might have. So to speak, if they aren't up for a little cannibalism, there's no famine...
(And, seriously, they can only do business with CoinHive which has a definitely skeezy aspect about it?)
posted by Samizdata at 6:45 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I need to know what third-party networks you're using, or if they're in-house,
In-house ads won't usually set off the adbockers; they're looking for ads hosted on known third-party feeds.
The easy solution for sites that want ad revenue is to host the ads themselves, so they're indistinguishable from image or text content on the main site - you know, just like newspapers and magazines have done for centuries.
But they don't want the hassle of figuring out who their readership is and what ads they might be interested in, nor the problem of sorting out what ads are inappropriate for their audience, so they foist those jobs off on someone else, and when people complain about the content or activity of the ads (autosound, blinking, popups), they shrug and say "well, we told them not to do that." And then they're shocked, SHOCKED, that people put so much effort into avoiding ads.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:46 PM on February 13, 2018 [10 favorites]
In-house ads won't usually set off the adbockers; they're looking for ads hosted on known third-party feeds.
The easy solution for sites that want ad revenue is to host the ads themselves, so they're indistinguishable from image or text content on the main site - you know, just like newspapers and magazines have done for centuries.
But they don't want the hassle of figuring out who their readership is and what ads they might be interested in, nor the problem of sorting out what ads are inappropriate for their audience, so they foist those jobs off on someone else, and when people complain about the content or activity of the ads (autosound, blinking, popups), they shrug and say "well, we told them not to do that." And then they're shocked, SHOCKED, that people put so much effort into avoiding ads.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:46 PM on February 13, 2018 [10 favorites]
(Also, I remember going to Salon semi-regularly, but only when linked, and not as a general browser.)
(I THINK I remember.)
posted by Samizdata at 6:46 PM on February 13, 2018
(I THINK I remember.)
posted by Samizdata at 6:46 PM on February 13, 2018
If websites want people to turn off adblockers they should accept legal liability for serving malware.
posted by Pyry at 6:48 PM on February 13, 2018 [35 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 6:48 PM on February 13, 2018 [35 favorites]
> it wouldn't be the end of the world
Except for the part about flushing all those additional dinosaurs into the atmosphere. :/
posted by sexyrobot at 6:51 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Except for the part about flushing all those additional dinosaurs into the atmosphere. :/
posted by sexyrobot at 6:51 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Eris: As shown by their willingness to work with CoinHive, which, IMO, distinctly smells a little ripe. If they were REALLY interested in "your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." then maybe, if I wanted to, let me cash in a little credit for the three yearsish (3:339:12:08:22 - y:d:h:m:s) I have invested in World Community Grid with such advancements as helping build better green power (so they could feed their server farm) and helping cure AIDS and Zika (so they can have readers to piss off).
posted by Samizdata at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Samizdata at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2018
A lot of sites I visit regularly are hitting me with these pop-ups begging me to switch off my ad-blocker. I don't want them to go broke, but at the same time all those video ads on Salon and the AV Club were just getting unbearable. Firefox used to have a decent Flash blocker that kept the silent, still ads while blocking the video ones blaring jingles at me, but that sputtered out and I never found a workable replacement.
Ugh, I remember the old Salon paywall. This isn't so bad by comparison, but it still feels icky. I don't feel like Salon is unreadable now, but it's sure not what it was. I miss the more thoughtful, personal essays. These days it seems to be almost all news, and when something more personal does show up it doesn't really fit. I miss good personal essays in general, it seems to be kind of a dying art. (Did you know Nerve.com recently went offline, after not updating their site for like two years? They used to be something kind of special, way back when.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
Ugh, I remember the old Salon paywall. This isn't so bad by comparison, but it still feels icky. I don't feel like Salon is unreadable now, but it's sure not what it was. I miss the more thoughtful, personal essays. These days it seems to be almost all news, and when something more personal does show up it doesn't really fit. I miss good personal essays in general, it seems to be kind of a dying art. (Did you know Nerve.com recently went offline, after not updating their site for like two years? They used to be something kind of special, way back when.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
Pyry: I have said that forever, but that's another reason they outsource all this. CoinHive's tool goes berserk and murders my CPU/GPU? Not OUR fault. Their ads mangle my data or give me ransomware? Talk to our ad vendors...
posted by Samizdata at 6:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Samizdata at 6:55 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Client-side scripting fucked up the web. I’m beginning to feel about people using JS the same way I feel about people owning guns. Even the well-meaning ones cause serious damage because they don’t think shit through. And then there’s shit like this.
If websites want people to turn off adblockers they should accept legal liability for serving malware.
Yep. When I can sue you for a hijacking pop up that your ad network let through, then we can talk about my ad and script blockers.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:59 PM on February 13, 2018 [13 favorites]
If websites want people to turn off adblockers they should accept legal liability for serving malware.
Yep. When I can sue you for a hijacking pop up that your ad network let through, then we can talk about my ad and script blockers.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:59 PM on February 13, 2018 [13 favorites]
In-house ads won't usually set off the adbockers; they're looking for ads hosted on known third-party feeds.
The easy solution for sites that want ad revenue is to host the ads themselves, so they're indistinguishable from image or text content on the main site - you know, just like newspapers and magazines have done for centuries.
Security blogger Troy Hunt has a self-managed sponsorship message on his blog: one line of text, no images, no third-party JavaScript. Here's his post about how it was blocked anyway.
posted by skymt at 7:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
The easy solution for sites that want ad revenue is to host the ads themselves, so they're indistinguishable from image or text content on the main site - you know, just like newspapers and magazines have done for centuries.
Security blogger Troy Hunt has a self-managed sponsorship message on his blog: one line of text, no images, no third-party JavaScript. Here's his post about how it was blocked anyway.
posted by skymt at 7:02 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think it's good they're being up-front about it, and if they stick it in a web worker it probably won't impact the performance of the rest of your browsing. Can you invoke WebAssembly from a web worker? That might be a nice way to maintain responsiveness for the user and performance for the miner.
With its old school cred (owning the Well and all) I'd be so much happier if Salon was using my computer CPU to search for SETI.
There is at least one coin that contributes to Folding@Home, which I would be totally down for.
Re ads: the ideal would be if an ad network would insist on ads created with a weaker language (as in, not Turing complete) than javascript. (My suggestion would be a totally-nerfed subset of html (because normal html has all sorts of crazy ways to hide weird shit))
I would happily pay for some sort of cable analogue where I subscribe to a service that gives me access to a stable of websites or something.
Something like Substack but not just for little newsletters or whatever.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:07 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
With its old school cred (owning the Well and all) I'd be so much happier if Salon was using my computer CPU to search for SETI.
There is at least one coin that contributes to Folding@Home, which I would be totally down for.
Re ads: the ideal would be if an ad network would insist on ads created with a weaker language (as in, not Turing complete) than javascript. (My suggestion would be a totally-nerfed subset of html (because normal html has all sorts of crazy ways to hide weird shit))
I would happily pay for some sort of cable analogue where I subscribe to a service that gives me access to a stable of websites or something.
Something like Substack but not just for little newsletters or whatever.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:07 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ugh. I'm old enough to remember when being a paying member of Salon was a thing. I think it was the first thing I subscribed to online. Then they ended memberships. Their journalism has declined over the years (IMO), and... this is the final straw for me.
.
posted by LeDiva at 7:27 PM on February 13, 2018
.
posted by LeDiva at 7:27 PM on February 13, 2018
This is not where value should come from, is it?
posted by amtho at 7:30 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 7:30 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
A lot of sites I visit regularly are hitting me with these pop-ups begging me to switch off my ad-blocker. I don't want them to go broke, but at the same time...
I happily ignore them all, and assume I'm hastening the end of a flawed and doomed revenue model, where advertisers pay for eyeball counts that have nothing to do with actually getting their products purchased.
I will consider whitelisting when (1) web hosts can be sued for malware ads and (2) I have reason to believe the ads are actually of some interest to me, as in, they relate to products/services I might actually want to use.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:43 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I happily ignore them all, and assume I'm hastening the end of a flawed and doomed revenue model, where advertisers pay for eyeball counts that have nothing to do with actually getting their products purchased.
I will consider whitelisting when (1) web hosts can be sued for malware ads and (2) I have reason to believe the ads are actually of some interest to me, as in, they relate to products/services I might actually want to use.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:43 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
http://pi.hole/admin/queryads.php
Find Ad Domain In Lists
[ coinhive.com | Search partial match | Search exact match ]
posted by krisjohn at 7:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Find Ad Domain In Lists
[ coinhive.com | Search partial match | Search exact match ]
Match found in list.0.raw.githubusercontent.com.domains: coinhive.com www.coinhive.comYeah, that's not going to happen.
posted by krisjohn at 7:47 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
So how much slower are blockchain crypto operations in Javascript than they are in C/C++ or whatever bitcoin was originally written in? I'd guess several times slower, at least. I'm that much more hesitant to trade away my electricity (from a coal plant ffs) if it is even more wasteful than the blockchain was designed to be in the first place.
*yeah I know I'm quibbling over infinitesimal fractions of a penny.
posted by Vulgar Euphemism at 8:02 PM on February 13, 2018
*yeah I know I'm quibbling over infinitesimal fractions of a penny.
posted by Vulgar Euphemism at 8:02 PM on February 13, 2018
I installed Pi-Hole on the home network a couple weeks ago and the improvement in performance of web browsing devices had been subtle (because they’d already been running ad blockers as browser extensions) but noticeable (especially for handheld devices).
I've been using pi-hole for nearly a year now and I love it. Specific to this topic, here's a block list, from Wally3k's blocklist page.
posted by mountainherder at 8:17 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I've been using pi-hole for nearly a year now and I love it. Specific to this topic, here's a block list, from Wally3k's blocklist page.
posted by mountainherder at 8:17 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
No Coin for Chrome
No Coin for Firefox
No Coin for Opera
posted by dirigibleman at 8:19 PM on February 13, 2018 [11 favorites]
No Coin for Firefox
No Coin for Opera
posted by dirigibleman at 8:19 PM on February 13, 2018 [11 favorites]
I literally just checked the date because I thought this story was an April Fool‘s joke. Carry on...
posted by The Toad at 8:51 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Toad at 8:51 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Vulgar Euphemism: So how much slower are blockchain crypto operations in Javascript than they are in C/C++ or whatever bitcoin was originally written in? I'd guess several times slower, at least.
You might be surprised. Since the release of the V8 Javascript engine or thereabouts, carefully-written code in Javascript can approach the speed of C, especially if you're doing numeric calculations in a tight loop. It takes a couple of goes around the loop to optimize it, but modern Javascript engines are able to produce well-optimized machine code for some classes of problems.
That doesn't make the decline of Salon any less disheartening, though.
posted by clawsoon at 9:09 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
You might be surprised. Since the release of the V8 Javascript engine or thereabouts, carefully-written code in Javascript can approach the speed of C, especially if you're doing numeric calculations in a tight loop. It takes a couple of goes around the loop to optimize it, but modern Javascript engines are able to produce well-optimized machine code for some classes of problems.
That doesn't make the decline of Salon any less disheartening, though.
posted by clawsoon at 9:09 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Nah
posted by Existential Dread at 9:24 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Existential Dread at 9:24 PM on February 13, 2018
Bought _and_sold_ the WELL.
Yeah, I miss the old days there. Vax 750, and recycling the backup tapes to save money.
History made and overwritten within weeks.
It was never the same after Point foundation folded up.
posted by hank at 9:25 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I miss the old days there. Vax 750, and recycling the backup tapes to save money.
History made and overwritten within weeks.
It was never the same after Point foundation folded up.
posted by hank at 9:25 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
carefully-written code in Javascript can approach the speed of C
The speed of light?!? Dang...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:46 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
The speed of light?!? Dang...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:46 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think this is a good idea?
Mining for bitcoin in your browser is a ridiculous waste of resources, but there are plenty of other–actually valuable–problems that could be solved with massively parallel computing.
There is certainly an abundance of unused computing power on all of our desks and in all of our pockets. If it is possible to pay journalists for good work while letting folks run computations on the cheap, I think that’s pretty cool.
posted by tehgubner at 9:47 PM on February 13, 2018
Mining for bitcoin in your browser is a ridiculous waste of resources, but there are plenty of other–actually valuable–problems that could be solved with massively parallel computing.
There is certainly an abundance of unused computing power on all of our desks and in all of our pockets. If it is possible to pay journalists for good work while letting folks run computations on the cheap, I think that’s pretty cool.
posted by tehgubner at 9:47 PM on February 13, 2018
The speed of light?!? Dang...
Why? Why would you even think or suggest that about JS? Are you having a stroke?
posted by loquacious at 9:50 PM on February 13, 2018
Why? Why would you even think or suggest that about JS? Are you having a stroke?
posted by loquacious at 9:50 PM on February 13, 2018
Nah it's just that celerity is a hell of a drug.
posted by Carillon at 10:20 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 10:20 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
On the surface this seems better than the usual identity-extraction method of monetizing my pageviews. But really, we're at the point where JS off by default is probably the safest bet.
posted by gwint at 10:49 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by gwint at 10:49 PM on February 13, 2018
> tehgubner:
"I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think this is a good idea?
Mining for bitcoin in your browser is a ridiculous waste of resources, but there are plenty of other–actually valuable–problems that could be solved with massively parallel computing.
There is certainly an abundance of unused computing power on all of our desks and in all of our pockets. If it is possible to pay journalists for good work while letting folks run computations on the cheap, I think that’s pretty cool."
Because some of us DON'T have that horsepower (on our main boxen). And, if I don't trust ads to be safe, I am supposed to trust a coin miner JS because Salon says so? (Also, I have had to clean up unwanted stealth mining kit on my main machine which made it nigh unusable). PLUS, as I mentioned, I have almost 4 years in World Community Grid (which I mainly run off a motley crew of older kit and one Amazon Fire that pretty much does JUST WCG).
https://i.imgur.com/ZitUmrb.png
https://i.imgur.com/A2htlqy.png
So, yeah, I obviously have no problem with distributed computing (come join the MeFi team!), but for non-profit, altruistic purposes (as I listed above). And freaking Salon's cheesy line "We intend to use a percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." just makes me feel freaking insulted, on top of what I think of their blatant moneygrab. As the saying goes "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining".) Gosh, so sorry, Salon that you don't know how to run your business. Give me something worth paying for and I will find a way.
posted by Samizdata at 10:50 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
"I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think this is a good idea?
Mining for bitcoin in your browser is a ridiculous waste of resources, but there are plenty of other–actually valuable–problems that could be solved with massively parallel computing.
There is certainly an abundance of unused computing power on all of our desks and in all of our pockets. If it is possible to pay journalists for good work while letting folks run computations on the cheap, I think that’s pretty cool."
Because some of us DON'T have that horsepower (on our main boxen). And, if I don't trust ads to be safe, I am supposed to trust a coin miner JS because Salon says so? (Also, I have had to clean up unwanted stealth mining kit on my main machine which made it nigh unusable). PLUS, as I mentioned, I have almost 4 years in World Community Grid (which I mainly run off a motley crew of older kit and one Amazon Fire that pretty much does JUST WCG).
https://i.imgur.com/ZitUmrb.png
https://i.imgur.com/A2htlqy.png
So, yeah, I obviously have no problem with distributed computing (come join the MeFi team!), but for non-profit, altruistic purposes (as I listed above). And freaking Salon's cheesy line "We intend to use a percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." just makes me feel freaking insulted, on top of what I think of their blatant moneygrab. As the saying goes "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining".) Gosh, so sorry, Salon that you don't know how to run your business. Give me something worth paying for and I will find a way.
posted by Samizdata at 10:50 PM on February 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
Erm, those two images links are screen caps from the WCG My Contributions page.
posted by Samizdata at 10:54 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by Samizdata at 10:54 PM on February 13, 2018
Well, Salon has been sucking and covered in too much junk for years now, and while I don't care about running ad blockers, this is weird/creepy. So....no.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:08 PM on February 13, 2018
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:08 PM on February 13, 2018
carefully-written code in Javascript can approach the speed of C
Coinhive claims they get 90 H/s on an i7 vs 140 native. But that does not match the numbers I've seen, which are more like single-digit H/s. But that might be because the web site in question configured coinhive to not use 100% cpu. I have little patience for javascript mining, so I haven't tried it myself. Also contrary to coinhive's numbers, my i7-2600 gets 290 H/s.
I'd guess a native cpu miner is 3-10x faster than coinhive. Add another 2x if you have a good GPU.
posted by ryanrs at 11:48 PM on February 13, 2018
Coinhive claims they get 90 H/s on an i7 vs 140 native. But that does not match the numbers I've seen, which are more like single-digit H/s. But that might be because the web site in question configured coinhive to not use 100% cpu. I have little patience for javascript mining, so I haven't tried it myself. Also contrary to coinhive's numbers, my i7-2600 gets 290 H/s.
I'd guess a native cpu miner is 3-10x faster than coinhive. Add another 2x if you have a good GPU.
posted by ryanrs at 11:48 PM on February 13, 2018
Do you honestly believe that using a few cents more of your electricity is worse than the many ways Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. use your data to make money?
In aggregate, yes. A few cents here, a few cents there, all multiplied by the Internet quickly becomes a lot of extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
posted by Dysk at 1:47 AM on February 14, 2018 [5 favorites]
In aggregate, yes. A few cents here, a few cents there, all multiplied by the Internet quickly becomes a lot of extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
posted by Dysk at 1:47 AM on February 14, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm looking forward to comprehensive studies on electricity/processing usage in this ad model vs resource usage in traditional advertising.
Of course that kind of comparison wont be apples to apples and will require some creative interpretation but I don't think cryptomining in the browser is the worst timeline. Trying to monetize content isn't going to go away and the abuses of traditional advertising are so socially toxic that it can't hurt to give something different a shot.
We should start moving on from the idea of shaming content consumers for not directly supporting content creators they enjoy and this might be a way.
posted by laptolain at 2:25 AM on February 14, 2018
Of course that kind of comparison wont be apples to apples and will require some creative interpretation but I don't think cryptomining in the browser is the worst timeline. Trying to monetize content isn't going to go away and the abuses of traditional advertising are so socially toxic that it can't hurt to give something different a shot.
We should start moving on from the idea of shaming content consumers for not directly supporting content creators they enjoy and this might be a way.
posted by laptolain at 2:25 AM on February 14, 2018
carefully-written code in Javascript can approach the speed of C
When it reaches the speed of C it slingshots around the Sun and saves the whales.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:56 AM on February 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
When it reaches the speed of C it slingshots around the Sun and saves the whales.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:56 AM on February 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
So, essentially, your CPU works harder while you are on Salon and when you leave the site, that's it. No more mining for Salon.
Or that background tab/window that you (thousands of 'you') forgot about happily sits there minimized and eats cycles for the benefit of Salon for a few hundred hours (or more) until the next browser restart, far exceeding the value of The One Weird Thing you read about. That's presuming they don't pop up some weird menu-less, widget-less 5x5px window and immediately hide it, like some of the more egregious sites deploying JS miners do.
And some of these scripts go wonky and seriously bog down your browser. Coinhive's miner definitely does this, but blocking their domain is working for now. It would be harder if the mining connection was proxied through the same site that I actually wanted to read.
And in the final irony, what's the cryptocoin (monero? decred?) they manage to mine this way likely to be worth? Not enough to replace regular ad revenue, that seems certain.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:04 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Or that background tab/window that you (thousands of 'you') forgot about happily sits there minimized and eats cycles for the benefit of Salon for a few hundred hours (or more) until the next browser restart, far exceeding the value of The One Weird Thing you read about. That's presuming they don't pop up some weird menu-less, widget-less 5x5px window and immediately hide it, like some of the more egregious sites deploying JS miners do.
And some of these scripts go wonky and seriously bog down your browser. Coinhive's miner definitely does this, but blocking their domain is working for now. It would be harder if the mining connection was proxied through the same site that I actually wanted to read.
And in the final irony, what's the cryptocoin (monero? decred?) they manage to mine this way likely to be worth? Not enough to replace regular ad revenue, that seems certain.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:04 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
When you drive, keep your speedometer in view.
Likewise while surfing, CPU monitor.
posted by filtergik at 3:05 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Likewise while surfing, CPU monitor.
posted by filtergik at 3:05 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
This sucks and is stupid but... We desperately need a model for paying for magazines/blogs/newspapers/journalism/online 'content'.
Give me a donation button that pays through Amazon, because I don't and never will use PayPal.
posted by Beholder at 3:45 AM on February 14, 2018
Give me a donation button that pays through Amazon, because I don't and never will use PayPal.
posted by Beholder at 3:45 AM on February 14, 2018
> ryanrs: Coinhive mines cryptocurrency in javascript. It is a crime against electricity.
"Cryptocurrencies are a crime against electricity" is going to be my next t-shirt design, thank you very much!.
posted by Laotic at 3:47 AM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]
"Cryptocurrencies are a crime against electricity" is going to be my next t-shirt design, thank you very much!.
posted by Laotic at 3:47 AM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]
>Or that background tab/window that you (thousands of 'you') forgot about happily sits there minimized and eats cycles for the benefit of Salon for a few hundred hours (or more) until the next browser restart, far exceeding the value of The One Weird Thing you read about.
I don't think this is a fair analysis. A period of adjustment always happens around new realities. Before the internet existed you could come up with a million reasons why creating it would be a bad idea from the perspective of flaws and scams and exploits. Web content led to new nefarious forms of advertising but it also opened up a world to millions of people.
The current economic model of content is a necessary evil to support that world. You can wag your finger at people all day to support content they consume but your favorite things will continue to disappear from lack of funds. Crypto/blockchain technology can potentially change that by letting people pay cents or fractions of cents with no middleman transaction fees. I'm not saying it's going to unlock a rosy utopian internet but at the very least it could hurt exploitative advertisers and banks which I think that's a net gain.
posted by laptolain at 4:07 AM on February 14, 2018
I don't think this is a fair analysis. A period of adjustment always happens around new realities. Before the internet existed you could come up with a million reasons why creating it would be a bad idea from the perspective of flaws and scams and exploits. Web content led to new nefarious forms of advertising but it also opened up a world to millions of people.
The current economic model of content is a necessary evil to support that world. You can wag your finger at people all day to support content they consume but your favorite things will continue to disappear from lack of funds. Crypto/blockchain technology can potentially change that by letting people pay cents or fractions of cents with no middleman transaction fees. I'm not saying it's going to unlock a rosy utopian internet but at the very least it could hurt exploitative advertisers and banks which I think that's a net gain.
posted by laptolain at 4:07 AM on February 14, 2018
I'm looking forward to comprehensive studies on electricity/processing usage in this ad model vs resource usage in traditional advertising.
Salon's alternative is banner ads or other Internet advertising, not billboards or magazine ads. And while badly coded flash banner ads do indeed consume an excess of CPU cycles, they haven't a patch on crypto miners.
posted by Dysk at 4:09 AM on February 14, 2018
Salon's alternative is banner ads or other Internet advertising, not billboards or magazine ads. And while badly coded flash banner ads do indeed consume an excess of CPU cycles, they haven't a patch on crypto miners.
posted by Dysk at 4:09 AM on February 14, 2018
> They haven't a patch on crypto miners.
The Salon announcement is 1 day old and there are already links to browser extensions in this very comment section that disable crypto miners in the browser.
posted by laptolain at 4:11 AM on February 14, 2018
The Salon announcement is 1 day old and there are already links to browser extensions in this very comment section that disable crypto miners in the browser.
posted by laptolain at 4:11 AM on February 14, 2018
Right, and adblockers exist so I guess malware advertising isn't a problem either?
posted by Dysk at 4:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 4:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sorry I think I'm maybe misinterpreting an expression you used?
>And while badly coded flash banner ads do indeed consume an excess of CPU cycles, they haven't a patch on crypto miners.
Does "haven't a patch" mean "can't compare" re: use of cpu cycles?
I think I took it literally as you saying "there is no way to patch malicious crypto mining in the browser." My response wasn't trying to suggest malware advertising is solved by adblockers.
posted by laptolain at 4:34 AM on February 14, 2018
>And while badly coded flash banner ads do indeed consume an excess of CPU cycles, they haven't a patch on crypto miners.
Does "haven't a patch" mean "can't compare" re: use of cpu cycles?
I think I took it literally as you saying "there is no way to patch malicious crypto mining in the browser." My response wasn't trying to suggest malware advertising is solved by adblockers.
posted by laptolain at 4:34 AM on February 14, 2018
How to distinguish malicious computation from legitimate rendering?
I’d be ok with ad blockers throttling DOM rendering since that would hobble Angular and React, two of the worst things to happen to web development in the history of the web.
I’d also love browsers to deprecate window.open - who needs it?
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:48 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I’d be ok with ad blockers throttling DOM rendering since that would hobble Angular and React, two of the worst things to happen to web development in the history of the web.
I’d also love browsers to deprecate window.open - who needs it?
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:48 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Does "haven't a patch" mean "can't compare" re: use of cpu cycles?
Yes, that is what it means. It certainly doesn't mean "and nobody has found a way to disable them".
posted by Dysk at 5:07 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yes, that is what it means. It certainly doesn't mean "and nobody has found a way to disable them".
posted by Dysk at 5:07 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
> I'd be ok with ad blockers throttling DOM rendering since that would hobble Angular and React, two of the worst things to happen to web development in the history of the web.
uh, what? the whole point of React is that DOM rendering is expensive and data-structure diffing is cheap(er) so do what you can in code before you go anywhere near the DOM.
Also, just curious, why the hate? I've written UIs professionally and for funsies in everything from C to Tcl to Java and now JS (with and without React), and I find React to be extremely pleasant.
posted by Old Kentucky Shark at 5:20 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
uh, what? the whole point of React is that DOM rendering is expensive and data-structure diffing is cheap(er) so do what you can in code before you go anywhere near the DOM.
Also, just curious, why the hate? I've written UIs professionally and for funsies in everything from C to Tcl to Java and now JS (with and without React), and I find React to be extremely pleasant.
posted by Old Kentucky Shark at 5:20 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm signing up for Team No Big Loss. I haven't been to Salon for a while, since it's shifted from being a place that I'd generally liked with a few notable exceptions (i.e. Paglia) to a place that had maybe one person that I could really stand at any given time (Digby, and even that's not that much of a draw since she's still doing her own blog).
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:37 AM on February 14, 2018
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:37 AM on February 14, 2018
Just a few days ago there were websites using browse-aloud that were unknowingly had coinhive through a third-party service.
posted by typecloud at 7:07 AM on February 14, 2018
posted by typecloud at 7:07 AM on February 14, 2018
Maybe concern trolling, but what kind of accountability do users have to verify that those cycles are:
1. used for cryptocurrency mining as opposed to massively distributed attacks on password databases, DDOS, or advanced crypto attacks such as Stuxnet?
2. actually putting cash in the content creator's pocket?
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:59 AM on February 14, 2018
1. used for cryptocurrency mining as opposed to massively distributed attacks on password databases, DDOS, or advanced crypto attacks such as Stuxnet?
2. actually putting cash in the content creator's pocket?
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:59 AM on February 14, 2018
Mining most cryptocurrencies requires speciality hardware to be worth the bother. GPUs, at least, and in the case of Bitcoin ASICs. So I've been wondering how a Javascript miner would work, surely it's 100-1000x slower than a native GPU program? Are they using WebGL?
Turns out CoinHive uses Monero for explicitly performance reasons. The Monero hash (Cryptonight) is something designed for CPU computing and doesn't really run better on GPUs.
BTW I found this CoinHive demo useful for playing around with a Javascript miner in my own browser. Yup, it takes 100% of all 8 of my CPU threads very easily. Fuck that.
posted by Nelson at 9:00 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Turns out CoinHive uses Monero for explicitly performance reasons. The Monero hash (Cryptonight) is something designed for CPU computing and doesn't really run better on GPUs.
BTW I found this CoinHive demo useful for playing around with a Javascript miner in my own browser. Yup, it takes 100% of all 8 of my CPU threads very easily. Fuck that.
posted by Nelson at 9:00 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am surprised by the prevailing attitude in this thread. I have a moral objection to advertising, but my attitude towards this is: brilliant. A model that is not advertising is being proposed for supporting content. This is good.
I would much rather a site I voluntarily visit survive by using my spare CPU cycles than by selling my freakin' eyeballs and attention. I really hope it works for them, and every large content creator makes a currency that is benefitted by the attention given to the publisher.
Just tried it, and it seems to be keeping the CPU usage around 60-80%. Let salon mine!
I'll plug in the laptop.
posted by yoz420 at 9:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I would much rather a site I voluntarily visit survive by using my spare CPU cycles than by selling my freakin' eyeballs and attention. I really hope it works for them, and every large content creator makes a currency that is benefitted by the attention given to the publisher.
Just tried it, and it seems to be keeping the CPU usage around 60-80%. Let salon mine!
I'll plug in the laptop.
posted by yoz420 at 9:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Regardless of any moral objections to advertising, a bunch of us clearly have moral objections to being involved in this 21st-century environment-destroying Ponzi scheme as our only other choice besides being bombarded with ads.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:07 AM on February 14, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by soundguy99 at 10:07 AM on February 14, 2018 [10 favorites]
Thing is, with modern CPU throttling, there are few to no "spare" cycles. More load on the CPU is more power draw.
posted by Dysk at 10:59 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:59 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's like arguing that it's no big deal for a company to use your "spare" car time while you're at work. Even aside from fuel, it still puts wear and tear on it. Unused capacity is not the same as "spare".
posted by Dysk at 11:01 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 11:01 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
I don't have a moral objection to advertising. I have a moral objection to the use of advertising technologies to do invasive surveillance of readers as a secondary (or even primary) product. CoinHive is a semi-legitimate application of a technique previously used to support criminal botnets and malware, Without some form of rigorous certification of how those CPU cycles are actually being used, I'm not convinced training users to accept high CPU use as a cost of reading content is a good idea.
Then there's the issue of whether cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange built on CPU cycles is a good basis for funding content creation.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:22 AM on February 14, 2018
Then there's the issue of whether cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange built on CPU cycles is a good basis for funding content creation.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:22 AM on February 14, 2018
And I think caution is strongly justified by the fact that Forbes asked for readers to disable ad blockers and ended up delivering third-party malware.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:46 AM on February 14, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:46 AM on February 14, 2018 [11 favorites]
Counterpoint to subscriptions requirements means the death of journalism: The New York Times digital paywall business is growing as fast as Facebook and faster than Google -- Times’ online subscription sales jumped 46 percent in 2017 to $340 million. Digital ad sales rose 14 percent to $238 million. (Edmund Lee and Rani Molla for Record, Feb 8, 2018)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
A model that is not advertising is being proposed for supporting content. This is good.
I would much rather a site I voluntarily visit survive by using my spare CPU cycles than by selling my freakin' eyeballs and attention.
If I want to support the site, I'm happy to support it with money, not with hardware drain tied to sketchy math designed to drive weird investment bubbles.
There'd be a lot less outcry if the options were, "Ads, cryptofarm, or $5/month subscription."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:40 PM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would much rather a site I voluntarily visit survive by using my spare CPU cycles than by selling my freakin' eyeballs and attention.
If I want to support the site, I'm happy to support it with money, not with hardware drain tied to sketchy math designed to drive weird investment bubbles.
There'd be a lot less outcry if the options were, "Ads, cryptofarm, or $5/month subscription."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:40 PM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
dirigibleman: Thanks.
While we're at it---which adblocker is best for Firefox, nowadays? I've fallen off the wagon and should get back on.
posted by seyirci at 12:58 PM on February 14, 2018
While we're at it---which adblocker is best for Firefox, nowadays? I've fallen off the wagon and should get back on.
posted by seyirci at 12:58 PM on February 14, 2018
Also, just curious, why the hate? I've written UIs professionally and for funsies in everything from C to Tcl to Java and now JS (with and without React), and I find React to be extremely pleasant.
I think programmers used to non-JavaScript languages like React because it acts like some other programming language they like more than JavaScript.
But I don’t like it mostly because it breaks and then has to re-make a lot of basic features of web pages (URLs, for instance have to be faked with the history object. Scroll position has be be adjusted a lot because new views aren’t new pages so they don’t load at the top by default, etc). And the nice separation of concerns that we spent years trying to get the entire web to sign on to, where HTML/JS/CSS are all in distinct files doing distinct jobs is thrown out the window.
But none of this has much to do with Facebook except of course that React is a Facebook product.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:24 PM on February 14, 2018
I think programmers used to non-JavaScript languages like React because it acts like some other programming language they like more than JavaScript.
But I don’t like it mostly because it breaks and then has to re-make a lot of basic features of web pages (URLs, for instance have to be faked with the history object. Scroll position has be be adjusted a lot because new views aren’t new pages so they don’t load at the top by default, etc). And the nice separation of concerns that we spent years trying to get the entire web to sign on to, where HTML/JS/CSS are all in distinct files doing distinct jobs is thrown out the window.
But none of this has much to do with Facebook except of course that React is a Facebook product.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:24 PM on February 14, 2018
I would gladly whitelist sites that display simple Google-style ads. It's the sliders and the splash screens that take over my entire display for 15 seconds or more that have led me to use an adblocker.
So I vote for another solution for Salon: turn it the fuck down.
posted by megatherium at 5:22 PM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
So I vote for another solution for Salon: turn it the fuck down.
posted by megatherium at 5:22 PM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
the whole point of React is that DOM rendering is expensive and data-structure diffing is cheap(er) so do what you can in code before you go anywhere near the DOM.That’s a popular misconception but React is always going to be slower than the DOM because you have to do the actual work anyway in addition to the virtualdom work (i.e. Amdahl’s law). It’s improved since they stopped spamming .innerHtml updates but a coworker who’d heard the marketing pitch was surprised when we benchmarked it and React was ~40,000 times slower (and not because it was in debug mode or not using keyed updates).
Where React can be faster is if you’re comparing it to sloppy code which does unnecessary DOM calls (e.g. updating the entire page every time one value changes) or which does the updates in a sequence which forces many recalcs (i.e. the problem fastdom solves).
The reason to use React is if you find it makes your coding more productive. Most work on most projects isn’t sensitive enough that it makes sense to obsess about performance at this level and if you do hit a hotspot you can always switch to the faster direct DOM access for that component). On most sites you’ll see more benefit from reducing the total JS size or optimizing network usage than your choice of modern JavaScript tools.
posted by adamsc at 5:34 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Or that background tab/window that you (thousands of 'you') forgot about happily sits there minimized and eats cycles for the benefit of Salon for a few hundred hours (or more) until the next browser restart
Yeah I saw that first comment and thought when you leave the page? So you mean, never?
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 AM on February 15, 2018
Yeah I saw that first comment and thought when you leave the page? So you mean, never?
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 AM on February 15, 2018
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posted by Thorzdad at 4:42 PM on February 13, 2018 [45 favorites]