~ Anonymous Authentication - or - Where the ADS are ~
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Published @ searchlores in Mai 2003

Anonymous Authentication - or - Where the ADS are
by Will Lipira


Peruse his HOST file (link at the bottom) and after having read the instuctive comments, use it at leisure.
Will Lipira
  Anonymous Authentication - or - Where the ADS are

  localstart.asp & iisstart.asp

  Advertisement websites are (mostly) on Windoze boxes using Internet Information Services. After updating my hosts file, I tried to access a ad site (i.e. http://ads.imaginemedia.com). It then asked me for a username and password (odd, I thought).
After I hit cancel, this is what I saw (http://ads.imaginemedia.com/localstart.asp). I went to google.com and did a quick search, and found the Big Boppers link (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=255650).
Since I have IIS on my XP machine, I decided to take a look at this file. Since I did not find much information here, in regards to privacy issues, I decided to go back into my hosts file and peruse a few more intrusive advertising sites. Every single bloody one I checked used IIS (I checked about 30 or so). Of course, ASP needs to be enabled for IIS websites (its a MS thing).

Anonymous access is allowed (of course), and IIS uses Integrated Windows Authentication. The reason for this is so that you do not have to login to use the website, windows does it for you (isn't that nice). This is why advertising works so well online. It is finely integrated with the MS mammoth. Since 98% of lamers (including me) use Windows, then it is soooooo easy for the advertisement companies to take advantage.
While I'm no asp expert, I do  believe that it is the use of Windows machines that allow us to be used and abused by the MS giant, as well as advertisement losers.    

 I have attached a copy of the iisstart.asp and localstart.asp, for the more tenacious among us, as well as my host file. I used a program called boxer text editor (totally awesome program), which is more that a text editor, it also has a calculator, syntax, text highlighting, template capability, and much more.

I figured that my small essay may be of some use, some way, some how.

(c) Will Lipira 2003


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