I don’t know if it’s just me, but browsing virtually any mainstream website without an ad blocker or with alternative frontends is becoming harder and harder to justify. It’s getting to the point where adblocking isn’t an optional luxury - it’s a requirement to effectively get basic information about things.
Yesterday, I was trying to search some information about Ghouls from Fallout. This lead me to this Fandom wiki page which had ads on almost every corner of the website, autoplaying video in the corner, asking for my age as soon as I clicked on the site, injecting polls and random unrelated videos into the communty wiki content and being incredibly slow to browse. A query that in the past that took 5 seconds now takes 50, for what? Money?
I get that online services cost a shitton amount of money to operate, but the sheer level of degrading quality is not OK. This is just one example of how services are completely barreling towards the shitter at 100+ MPH with no brakes or airbags. I feel some guilt for using content blockers, but that guilt is being wittled away every single day because of websites like this.
Let me just step back here, away from the fact that they’re obtrusive, annoying, and waste your time you didn’t sign away.
Malvertising is a serious risk these days. Every week we see new malware kits, phishing and increasing complexity. Now, Google’s search algo source code has been leaked. You can bet your shiny ass that the attacks will get more dangerous and even harder to discern.
Block the fuck out of ads, JavaScript, frames, xhr. Use a secure browser that doesn’t have ad revenue at their forefront and use hardened configs where possible.
This isn’t tin foil hat, and it’s not hard. Plenty of people out here want you safe and for corpos to eat shit.
I can attest to this. I’m a security analyst / incident responder for a large organization. 9 out of 10 times we get a “malware domain” hit on our network sensors, it’s due to malware being pushed in ads. It’s real and it’s dangerous. Our entire organization runs adblockers.
It’s gotten worse I feel like, I had a post in infosec somewhere talking about how hovering over google sponsored results don’t even show the first level url - they resolve them
Using a DNS for blocking some ads I’ve noticed often the first couple links on Google are unusable, literally won’t pass me through lol
Yeeeeah, I find dns is hit or miss - so easy to stand up a new one or use an open resolver to skip around
Ultimately it’s up to preference but I find blocking at the browser level to be most effective
Yo hire me. I can’t get a job because I don’t have experience… I can’t get experience because I can’t get a job.
employers hate this one simple trick: lying
It’s deeply frustrating to see how easily someone can land a very technical job via a very unsophisticated HR process.
Hack your way to the goal - start small at a place that’s expanding their tech team and buckle up for a bumpy ride. Get that foot in the door
But like… Life balance holds me back. I make more than an entry level and support my family, thus cannot dedicate the time for a second full time job.
I am destined to remain in role and climb a corporate ladder that I do not enjoy because money
Where there is a will, there is a way.
You might not be able to use the same beaten paths as everyone else, but you can always hack a new path.
At the end of the day, I can’t speak for the entire industry, but when I look for new employees, I care less about resume experience and more about education, drive, and creativity. Once they’re in the role, I can show them the ropes. We also (hopefully many others, if not a majority) invest in serious training and learning platforms to keep people updated.
Infosec is about continuous learning and curiosity. You don’t have the luxury of learning the skill and being done. Security, arguably, changes the most out of all the tech spaces and you need drive and curiosity above all else.
If you’re serious about infosec, you sometimes have to hack it to make it. A -> ? -> B
If you don’t mind me asking, what field are you in rn?
Thank you dude! I appreciate you.
I work retail right now as a manager and although I have a skillset for it, have made great strides, and have changed the company in a few ways for the better, it’s not my desire to stay in this path.
P.s. You say the things I say to others. It’s good to have it thrown back at me lol
Of course man - the world is your oyster. Not everyone is as privileged as me though, so I try to help out where I can to give ‘em a boost. Not everybody knows what they wanna do on the first shot and that can be tough
It’s an escalating game. 95% of the shit is dealt with by a native browser feature or extension. But that last 5% can get very ugly very quickly.
And the longer the escalation game goes on, the more likely you are to make a casual mistake - clicking on the wrong part of a screen or getting fooled by a deceptive link or being sucked by an ad or just feeling curious/horny enough to finally see whether there’s really pussy in that bio.
For folks who pirate, it can be even more dangerous, depending on how malicious some counter-piracy agency wants to get.