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For those of you who weren't there, see SFgirl, the web site for dot-com party girls.

Here's the dot-com party list for one week, ten years ago.

Typical party review: Mediaplex.com

Always one for a free night time invite into the SFMOMA, sfboy lined up with the rest of the VC bottom feeders and various webtrash last Wednesday evening to try his hand at the new phenomenon sweeping the city called "Let the Dot Coms Pay for Your Drinks". Inadequate staff with bad planning only worked to our advantage as CM slipped past the guestlist list like a bad desktop application business plan past an overzealous venture capitalist. Once inside sfboy experienced the largest spread of food yet to feed the frothing crowds shoved uncomfortably into a small room. Picture fields of ahi, buckets of fresh smoked salmon, oysters galore, cheese from every udder imaginable, sushi, dumplings, and chocolates, oh my! Add several ornate ice sculptures with internal martinis luges and you've got a real crowd pleaser! Hear, Hear, my stomach cries for Mediaplex! Take me in nightly, feed me completely, shower me with your VC cash!

Inside the museum itself child labor laws were overlooked at several dozen grommets flipped, spun and generally amused the masses with what appeared to be an orphanage filled with circus rats in training. I promptly notified the proper authorities.

Sfboy relunctantly admits that he has no idea what Mediaplex pretends to posses as a business model but he wishes them well in their attempts to create a virtual circus accompanied by a fine buffet.

Party Bill: $100,000
Clowns: 100
Professional Clowns: 25
Bars: 4
Party size: 650

...STOP ABUSING the hosts file like a clueless idiot! Seriously, 14MB of plain text that needs to be parsed for every lookup? That's the most retarded thing I've ever seen.

Mine is only 216k and comes from here.

At those proportions, there are WAY more efficient methods...

I use a custom /etc/hosts to block ads. I don't need to block them all, I'm happy with /etc/hosts blocking most. I don't know what happens when a hosts file gets as huge as the GP is describing but on a modern multi-gigahertz machine, my file gets parsed basically instantly. And, in fact, it actually worked just fine on my 800 MHz G3 iBook six years ago. So basically, for any modern computer, it has zero visible impact. And even if it took, say, a second to parse, that would be more than offset by the MANY seconds saved by not downloading and rendering ads.

...if you know that domain evil.invalid is hostile, you can't afford to miss some hosts below it. Otherwise, what's the point?

I agree that it's not perfect, but it's not like I run around engaging in any risky behavior just because I have a custom /etc/hosts file. Something is better than nothing. You're making two things black and white. LOTS of things aren't perfect--that doesn't mean they're completely worthless. Your car isn't as safe as a tank, so why bother driving at all, right?

And anyways, diverting traffic to 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 is changing semantics in so many ways. Suppose you start running a local HTTP server for testing purposes and all that traffic is suddenly hitting it. It's just wrong.

Well, first of all, I don't care about being theoretically "wrong" if the actual, real-life result is "just fine." I have noticed NO ill effects from running a custom /etc/hosts file for the last several years. And as a matter of fact I DO run http servers on my computers and I've never had an /etc/hosts-related problem. (The only thing I could see that might cause an issue would be logging, but that's easy enough to fix in httpd.conf.) In fact, it's better than fine. I've got a custom 404 page which says "Another blocked ad!" so I get a little happy reminder every time I see it in an iframe instead of an ad. And, if I ever get around to it, I'll make that page a PHP script that asks "Do you want to unblock this page?" because my wife occasionally hits it when she clicks on a Google ad, or you run into occasional dumbness like if you go to wellsfargo.com and click on "Sign up now" in the left column the link goes to https://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/6878-38920-3408-45 -- wtf?!?!?

"Blocking" hosts by listing them in the hosts file is an evil evil evil ugly hack conceived by clueless idiots that can't manage to run a local proxy where you could block domains with simple regular expressions and only for protocols which need them blocked. Or running a local DNS cache where you could blacklist domains so you get a semantically correct (for your purpose) NXDOMAIN error.

Yeah, but it works. And it's easier than installing and maintaining yet more software. (I've tried a couple proxies in the past and both were non-trivial to get working.) And regarding this: "Or running a local DNS cache where you could blacklist domains"--didn't you just say "you should instantly realize that security doesn't work with blacklists"?

All I know is that whenever I go to another computer and get swamped by ads, I'm reminded of how great my little system is.

One more thing: if all you want to do is block an ad or a software update or a validity check, WHO GIVES A FUCK if you get a "semantically correct NXDOMAIN error"?!?!?!? I don't lie awake at night wo

Right on. I always install Adblock with Firefox or Mozilla. I haven't seen a pop-up or flash advertisement for months. They all seem to come from a few advertisers. Here is my adblock list:

http://.mediaplex.com/* http://.tribalfusion.com/*
http://.doubleclick.net/* http://.adbureau.net/*
http://.atdmt.com/* http://.emode.com/*
http://.advertising.com/* http://.tickle.com/*
http://.fastclick.net/* http://.falkag.net/*
http://.e.akamai.net/* http://.yieldmanager.com/*
http://.casalemedia.com/* http://.serving-sys.com/*
http://.pointroll.com/* http://.thinktarget.com/*
http://.zedo.com/* http://.com.com/cnwk.*/Ads/*
http://.qnsr.com/* http://ar.atwola.com/*
http://ads.guardian.co.uk/* http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/*
http://.starwave.com/* http://ads.ign.com/advertisers/*
http://ads.space.com/RealMedia/ads/* http://gfx.dvlabs.com/*

I did that but it removes all the cr/lfs from the file. But what do you know it works fine here. Some of mine are redundant but it seems two work pretty well for me. YMMV

[Adblock]
http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com/ads/4340/21846/b2s_CE _425x600.swf?clickTAG=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG= 12a75stt6/M=284479.5284529.6412204.1943910/D=group s/S=1705004750:MON/EXP=1094055520/A=2307276/R=0/*h ttp://altfarm.mediaplex.com%2Fad%2Fck%2F4340-21846 -6097-23%3Fmpt%3D1093969120645930
http://ak.bluestreak.com//adv/bellsouth/%5E4626/%5 E255070/468x60shift10dslP33.swf?siteid=346753&adid =255070&cltk=http%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%3A80% 2Fclick%3Bh%3Dv3%7C3186%7C3%7C0%7C*%7Cy%3B9762082% 3B0-0%3B0%3B8426840%3B1-468%7C60%3B6254606%7C62725 02%7C1%3B%3B~sscs%3D%3F&xtrack=xxxtrackxx&mb=http: //ak.bluestreak.com//adv/bellsouth/^4626/^255070/& cp=http://s0b.bluestreak.com/flashtracking/trackin g_&url=http%3A%2F%2Fad%2Edoubleclick%2Enet%3A80%2F click%3Bh%3Dv3%7C3186%7C3%7C0%7C%2A%7Cy%3B9762082% 3B0%2D0%3B0%3B8426840%3B1%2D468%7C60%3B6254606%7C6 272502%7C1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fs0b%2Ebl uestreak%2Ecom%2Fix%2Ee%3Ftr%26s%3D346753%26a%3D25 5070%26u%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebellsouth%2Ecom%2Fco nsumer%2FInternetSvcs%2Ehtml%3Fres%5Fdd%3Ddsl
http://ak.bluestreak.com/
http://us.a1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/a/ad/advance_aut o/051804matter2_425x600.swf?clickTAG=javascript:YA DopenWindow(1)
http://m2.doubleclick.net/675026/od_tire1_160x600_ 30k.swf?clickTag=http%3A//ad.doubleclick.net/click %253Bh%3Dv3%7C31ac%7C17%7Ccc%7C%252a%7Cb%253B10810 717%253B0-0%253B0%253B9749264%253B2321-160%7C600%2 53B6870819%7C6888715%7C1%253B%253B%257Esscs%253D%2 53fhttp%3A//ads.forbes.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx. ads/forbes.com/lists/story/id1597669/268786021/Rig htMiddle/honda_col_mostconnected_041001/honda_col_ mostconnected_041001.html/343135346538646434313739 37303230%3Fhttp%3A//www.hondacars.com/models/model _overview.asp%3FModelName%3DOdyssey%26bhcp%3D1
http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=5717&alloc_id=1246

speaking of Adware and spyware in FF, the advert newegg.com on the 1st comment page actually has link to : Mediaplex ,which i suppose, isnt a very respectable site?
Isnt mediaplex ad harverstor?

Slashdot's homepage itself appears to try to install MediaPlex according to Spybot Search and Destroy , in its "resident" mode, so I'd say that the WORST spyware is the spyware that is installed when you are reading about how bad spyware is on sites like THIS ONE! :)

Good deal! another look at the position here.