Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race

Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by turblety on Friday April 14, 2017 @04:32PM (#14117081)

Already you have restrictive software/firmware running on your computer. Look into Intel ME (Management Engine) a likely backdoor into your computer you have no control over, don't know what it does, and can not disable it. It already helps many DRM applications to restrict what content you can play and how. Legislation to disable adblocking could be reinforced already be implemented into the next generation of Intel/AMD chips so you bet this could be enforceable.

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by bigbugbag on Monday April 17, 2017 @08:26PM (#14135597)

> Legislation to disable adblocking could be reinforced already be implemented into the next generation of Intel/AMD chips so you bet this could be enforceable.

But this would be limited to chips to be sold in the US, so US sales would take a hit and import of chips from foreign market would get a boost. Ultimately the chip manufacturers would have to swallow the extra cost of adding this to chips towards the US market while facing a drop in sales in the same market. This situation would prevent the move from actually happening in the first place.

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by pjc50 on Friday April 14, 2017 @04:54PM (#14117262)

> It already helps many DRM applications to restrict what content you can play and how.

[citation needed] - I'm aware of the hypervisor capabilties of ME but not aware of it being used for DRM yet?

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by Kliment on Friday April 14, 2017 @05:24PM (#14117541)

https://web.archive.org/web/20161005075537/http://www.alexra...

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by turblety on Saturday April 15, 2017 @05:59AM (#14120101)

Yeah using PAVP "Protected Audio/Video Path". Basically there are chunks of memory that are only accessible to the Management Engine. (Note at this point it doesn't work in reverse, there is no memory that is not accessible to the Intel ME. It can see and manipulate everything). When your media player wants to play protected video it sends the encrypted content to the graphic card which then sends it through ME for decryption.

But regardless of whether this was already in there or not, Intel could simply put any code in there to force the display of ads or media and there is nothing you can do about it. Also, although this hasn't been done yet as far as we know, they could remotely update your Intel chip the next time you are within range of a known WiFi router to include this new anti-feature.

EDIT: Adding source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Techno...

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by gech on Friday April 14, 2017 @05:57PM (#14117765)

Do Ryzen chips have this?

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by krakensden on Friday April 14, 2017 @09:31PM (#14118828)

AMD has a different but equivalent thing called PSP, or "platform security processor", which is ARM's TrustZone.

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by bigbugbag on Monday April 17, 2017 @08:31PM (#14135618)

Read about Palladium and Trusted computing, basically every CPU from intel and AMD have had this or a similar feature for several years. I'm not sure about ARM.

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by filoleg on Friday April 14, 2017 @06:37PM (#14117962)

Luckily no.

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Re:Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking ... by turblety on Saturday April 15, 2017 @06:04AM (#14120111)

@filoleg unfortunately you are wrong. AMD has equally invasive technology called PSP (Platform Security Processor).

"The PSP is a universal computer with it's own CPU, RAM, ROM, clock etc, that can run whatever software AMD wants it to run, hidden from the user. It could load software anytime without you even noticing. AMD controls the PSP by using unique cryptographic keys which are burnt into each PSP." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13781408

You get all that for free with every new AMD processor, including their new Ryzen chip.

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