Antiadvertisement Lab        Updated January 2006

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[Introduction]   [Practical actions]   [Essays]   [Hodie mihi, cras tibi]   [Removing banners]
  [Reversing advertisement images]
[The Lore of the hosts scroll]   [Routing bad-addresses away]   [Ad/antiad links]   [Our dangerous enemies]

Introduction

Advertisement is slowly pervading every aspect of our lives. We live bombarded with images and sounds whose only purpose is to make us react, like Pavlov's dogs or zombies, in order to consume. We not only HAVE TO buy totally useless products: we have been transformed in products ourselves.
Our enemies are now installing ads in the railway tunnels... you will have a stroboscopic effect while passing by. They are going to project ads on clouds and onto the evening sky. They have already transformed our whole life, for profit, in an inferno of unsolecited continuous consumistic pushes. Already now you cannot (and definitely in the future you will not) read, sleep, love, think or move around without being bombarded by ads, all intended to deceive you in order to push you to consume something, to buy something, to waste your life for "their" profit.


Why should I be compelled to watch advertisements when I drive, walk, read? And, pray, why should my kids be compelled to watch advertisements whatever they wish to make? Advertisement in the schools? Advertisement on the clouds? Wofür? I dislike this, therefore I'm going to do what little I can to change this situation and damage those that damage me and the people I love. So I am going to retaliate. A vain enterprise? Maybe, yet as you will see I'm not without weapons against this "zillions of money" worth industry: I'm a reverser, I reverse "Quod tegitur, magnum creditur esse malum", n'est ce pas? so the first task is simply to SHOW things that happen :-)
Since we are using the web for our search purposes, and since we are annoyed by any 'compulsory advertisement', this section of my site will begin dealing mainly with the methods that we can use to get rid of those useless ads we meet when searching. As you'll see there are many possible options, and some of them -incredible but true- do actually seem to work, eheh.
Visit the remobann section!
Let's see how high will Bilibin's Babayaga fly!
  
remobann.gif
Forwards to remobann.htm

Please bear with me, this is just a first attempt. This section is still a little messy, due to the recent porting to searchlores. You may help me to clean and update what is needed.
Note also that many good essays in the [reality cracking] lab have QUITE A LOT of interesting anti-advertisement techniques and info inside. Read them, starting from +ORC's world-famous [Supermarket enslaving tricks] , and have a look at some interesting anti-advertisement tools in [Adding the Blemish of Truth : How to Alter a Billboard]
Another fine if rather saddening reading could be this short fiction story: The Subliminal Man, by J. G. BALLARD.


Practical Actions


The lore of the HOSTS scrolls

Windoze allows an effective way of filtering unwanted connections using the hosts file (this file sits for win98 in c:\windows, for win2K in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc and for Win XP c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc) and is called simply hosts, with no extension. You can have a look and modify it using ultraedit or any other texteditor).

The hosts file is your 'personal DNS server': before accessing any remote computer through a name to address lookup, windows checks the hosts file to see if the name has been defined as an address ALREADY in hosts (note that this is meant to speed up the web connections you use more often: indeed if you know for sure that a site will always have the same IP, you can add it yourself to the hosts file and avoid to connect everytime to the DNS server).

Through use of the hosts file we can list the names of all servers we don't wish to contact by letting the server name match a different address. Typically the address used would be the 'bounce-back' localhost address 127.0.0.1.

Note that you may try 0.0.0.0. as well, and get speedier elimination results than with 127.0.0.1. Should it fail, just use 127.0.0.1. as elimination address.

Some more important points to consider:
  • You must maintain the proper format or else the entry will be invalid
  • Entries that contain "http:" or an ending "\" slash are invalid
  • Remember that the HOSTS file must be in capital letters
  • place a "#" in front of the line in order to disable an entry
  • Make the HOSTS file raed-only, so that noone can hijack it (at the command prompt, type: attrib +R c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS and then press ENTER)



Hosts scrolls (lists of annoying spammers) abound on the web, but not all of them are really useful. The most useful and powerful hosts scrolls are considered very precious items by seekers.


A particolarly annoying malware is "the right click inside windows ecplorer itself", that will redirect you to crl.verisign.net or to crl.verisign.com delivering info about what you are clicking onto to the bastards spyware masters. The technique to get rid of verisign crap (and to speed up your computer everytime rightclicking will start to be particolarly slow) is to add to your HOSTS file (In windows XP inside C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc) the following two lines:

127.0.0.1 crl.verisign.net
127.0.0.1 crl.verisign.com


This will work wonders in order to speed up your hijacked rightclicks :-)


Various small essays about hosts redirection
  • [Removing banners] A whole section with some fundamental essays

  • elf's [HOSTS list]

  • [hosts_11.txt]: XXXX's HOSTS file (September 2000)
  • [hosts_al.txt]: Anonymous Lee's HOSTS file (July 2004)
  • [gorhost.htm]: Gordon and -Tx explanations about the use of Gordon's mighty hosts file of incredible power (June 1999)

  • NME's [sblock list] (comment removed)

  • [fau_zar.htm]: Search Engine pitfalls and how to strike back (Using our knowledge and the depth of the web to fight our commercial enemies), by Zarathustra, written in february 2001.
  sole1     
Precious
Item


The magic pouch
With our black firewall shields
with our glistening browsers swords
with our magic pouch 
full of tricks to cast
beware us webmasters
out of our way, advertisers
bow down in worship very low
bow down before our singing hosts
and in our holy presence be lost
Ancient seekers' rhyme (+fravia's own collection)


Routing to dev/nul direct IP annoyances


The hosts trick above will -alas- not work if the advertisement spammers use a direct address connection: in these cases, logically, the hosts file is not checked: there is no name to resolve into an address. In these cases you should allow IP routing (on Win 9x: run winipcfg.exe ~ Choose More ~ and check the relevant box). If you don't see the box, check if you have the EnableRouting key inside the register at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP. If the key isn't there, create it and give it a TRUE value (i.e. value 1). Now Close regedit.exe and run winipcfg.exe: IP Routing should be enabled. Now you may create a local routing table (analoguous to the hosts list, but for numeric IPs) and use route.exe in order to block direct IP connections with your operating system adding IP addresses to the routing table at leasure. The pertinent DOS command will be: route add XX.XX.XX.XX YY.YY.YY.YY where XX.XX.XX.XX is the IP of the offender you don't want to connect any more and YY.YY.YY.YY is your actual IP address...
You'll find a detailed tutorial on routing at Bruce's place.
A whole undisturbed week repairing your braincells!

22-28 April 2001 : a whole sound [week] without idiotic TV (with an anti-TV rant I wrote myself)


Antiadvertisement essays & snippets
starting points for your own work
...Don't forget to check the [removing banners] section as well
...Also [MALWARES] (Software that hiddendly corrupts, checks or modifies your data) can be of some relevance for anti-advertisement purposes...



On this specific lab we will begin with some WORKING methods to fight advertisement, among other things some approaches to "cure" the bannerclicking inferno the bastards advertisers have prepared for us on the Internet. I'm glad to present here the following essays:

THE AUREATE ESSAYS
ANTI ADVERTISEMENT & ADVERTISEMENT DEBUNKING ESSAYS

Hodie mihi, cras tibi

I'm sure many readers will understand how important all this could be. But your own help is needed. Send your observations, contributions, essays, tricks. Insiders' information would be particularly welcome: I know for instance that every year there are some 'impossible task in advertisement' awards, for the best ad-campaigns that had success in selling an 'impossible' product, because so awful, useless, dangerous or whatever that even zombies refused to buy it (before the ad brainwashing that won the price, that is :-(
One of the prices, some years ago, was awarded to the criminals that prepared an advertisement campaign in order to sell the 'Yucca' cheese, (made by Kraft), a cheese made with 'spare parts' so disgusting that noone in his right mind could ever want to buy it. Well, they won the award, people begun eating more of that stuff...
I imagine that after the BSE-crisis they have immediately started mobilizing nice advertisers who have -I'm sure- worked hard in order to convince people to accept to eat their poisoned meats...

Your help is needed! Use your reversing eyes, knowledge and wits!
Ad/antiad links


Useful links

http://www.lib.colum.edu/research/subjects/advertising4.htm
How to Research the Advertising Industry

A database and a search engine for advertisements, completely free, you may enlarge (and copy) any image, watch any ad-spot.
Advertisements from Austria to Zimbabwe. Very useful for for advertisement reversing.


Update January 2006



A database and a search engine for advertisements, completely free until recently, you could enlarge (and copy) any picture and watch any ad-spot.
Advertisements from Austria to Zimbabwe. Very useful for advertisement reversing pourposes.

For instance: http://media3.adforum.com/zrIf58670C/B/BM/BMPD_03884/BMPD_03884_0048601T.JPG, an English volkswagen advertisement.

Alas, the clowns are no longer free. Let's see what we can do.
Let's isolate the image, and now let's play the guessing game, because we don't really want to [shudder] pay advertisers in order to see their crap, do we?
Now we notice that BMPD_03884_0048601T.JPG has a "t" inside. It may be "t" for tiny.
Then we may have "w" for wide and maybe also "a" for art :-)
(http://media3.adforum.com/zrIf58670C/B/BM/BMPD_03884/BMPD_03884_0048601W.JPG...see? http://media3.adforum.com/zrIf58670C/B/BM/BMPD_03884/BMPD_03884_0048601AJPG...q.e.d.


The web was made for SHARING, not for hoarding and not for selling. It's very STRUCTURE will deliver searchers whatever they are looking for.


But the web is really deep. For instance, if you study advertisement debunking, you may also want to take account of the EVOLUTION of advertisement, and here is where sites like http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/browse.html (1911-1956) may come handy.



Our dangerous enemies

Careful: very dangerous vermine. <parano mode on> These are the people that control our enslaved world, together with the Coreper and the Carlyle Group <parano mode off>


Burson-Marsteller
Edelman
Hill & Knowlton
Kamer-Singer
Ketchum
BSMG
Ruder-Finn
  
"If consumers started watching their euro or their dollars, semanthically analysing the advertisement bombardment they have to endure every day and -globally- becoming more cerebral about their purchases and choices, it would become more difficult for the depth merchandisers to tempt people into impulse buying, status-symbol buying, leisure buying, useless gadget buying and many other forms of self-indulgent useless consumption, not to mention electing in higher offices -mostly for life - corrupted, greedy, nepotist and already millionaire criminals"

“The use of mass psychoanalysis to guide campaigns of persuasion has become the basis of a multimillion-dollar industry. Professional persuaders have seized upon it in their groping for more effective ways to sell us their wares — whether products, ideas, attitudes, candidates, goals, or states of mind.” From Packard Vance, The Hidden Persuaders: What makes us buy, believe – and even vote – the way we do?, Chapter 1, “The Depth Approach”


Petit image
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