Don Marti

Screenshot of a reCAPTCHA prompt, stating "our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network"

Every time I try a Google Search for [sergey brin epstein files] Google gives me a CAPTCHA...is this happening for anyone else?

update: I think I fixed it, enterprise policies to the rescue -- a fairly simple #security / #privacy protection to block the risky search ad clicks without breaking the ads on legit sites

blog.zgp.org/search-malve...

Ideally you would be able to keep only legit ads by default—with user's GPC choice applied—but for now that's hard to set up, so IT depts. have to be able to educate users when it's a good idea to turn off uBO for a site and when it's not.

(feature request: check ads.txt, unblock if it's legit) 3/3

If you're going to run a school or public computer, you need to make sure the Google Search ads aren't showing up or at least are not clickable. Right now uBlock Origin will do that reliably but search ads are out of scope for Privacy Badger blog.zgp.org/winners-don-... 2/3

This is mostly good advice, but has one problem. The biggest ad-related threat to most random users now is fake SaaS and employee portal login pages on Google Search.

Users try to go to the site where they have an account, click on the Google ad, and get compromised. 1/3

Groklaw Domain Hijacked? Site Now Serving Crypto Content - FOSS Force Groklaw’s storied domain has fallen into unexpected hands. What’s behind the sudden flood of crypto content—and is the site lost for good?

Another web maintenance todo: if you still have #groklaw links on your blog or other site, time to make a local copy of the original pages from archive.org and fix the links

fossforce.com/2025/08/grok...

Drone strikes on refineries and tanker terminals (easier to put out of action with a smaller drone because they're already flammable) could even be revenue-positive for a terrorist group that can invest in the oil futures market #energySecurity

What can I say, the cover of the incoming Spanish translation of Blood in the Machine is absolutely incredible.

This is a very interesting paper (HT @older.bsky.social & @philippmarkolin.bsky.social). I need to sit on some of these thoughts a little longer, but here's a first approximation 🧵 of reactions — in no particular order and without much filtering.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” -- George Orwell

Q: how do you get the Board of Directors to give you a 29 billion dollar pay raise?

A:

Consider, your Honor, that my client was being extremely productive at the time of the crash.

As each Big Tech switches away from high-growth value-extractive mode to earning more like a normal legacy IT company, that means more growth opportunities for the firms that are now on the losing end of their anticompetitive tricks. Total impact on an index fund investor will be somewhat positive

Great article, but I don't believe that the fall of the "Magnificent 7" firms will crash the stock market.

Ever since Big Tech pivoted from "create more value than you capture" to the other way around, every $1 in Big Tech market cap means the destruction of > $1 in the legit economy

The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble Hey! Before we go any further — if you want to support my work, please sign up for the premium version of Where’s Your Ed At, it’s a $7-a-month (or $70-a-year) paid product where every week you get a ...

Newsletter: This is the Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble: genAI is nothing like Uber or Amazon Web Services, there are no profitable genAI companies, agents do not and cannot exist, there is no AI SaaS story, and everything rides - and dies - on selling GPUs.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-g...

www.msn.com/en-us/news/t... "Those who believed the piece was AI-generated were 14% less likely to consider purchasing the product featured in the adjacent ad."

I wrote for a magazine called Risk Management and went to risk management conferences and this is 100% true. The people who file and pay out insurance claims know climate change is real.

Just tested out @manusai.bsky.social to see if the agent can make it through a #CCPA #RtK process on the verizon.com site. Good news -- after a dead end first attempt, it looks like it worked!

blog.zgp.org/encouraging-...

No judge should be worried about their personal safety when they’re deciding a case. That’s how the rule of law ends.

I’m proud to lead a bipartisan group of my colleagues in demanding that we fund efforts to get Judges' personal information off the internet.

4 panel comic Panel 1: Pink Guy is attending an interview with the chief exec and CEO of a company. CEO: “Our company does not adhere to DEI hiring practices Panel 2: CEO continues: “We believe in hiring based strictly on qualifications” Panel 3: Pink Guy interjects and says “Actually, DEI is about addressing a systemic imbalance in- CHIEF EXEC butts in: HEY Panel 4: CHIEF EXEC: Don’t talk back to my dad

guys we HAVE to get rid of DEI. it’s about FAIRNESS

Even the FBI says you should use an ad blocker | TechCrunch The feds say cybercriminals are buying online ads to impersonate brands with the aim of stealing or extorting money from victims.

"Use an ad blocking extension when performing Internet searches" -- the FBI

techcrunch.com/2022/12/22/f...

(In general, any time someone reports on how much spam and fraud they blocked, and not how much their users were exposed to, they're pretty deep in the shit. A platform that's actually making progress can report better stats.)

The great Google Ads heist: criminals ransack advertiser accounts via fake Google ads An ongoing malvertising campaign steals Google advertiser accounts via fraudulent ads for Google Ads itself.

Source: www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...

A report about how Google's AI helps catch fake ads on Google is not exactly the best #contentMarketing for Google's AI.

Check other sources of info about the scam ad problem over there and you'll see Google has even run fake ads for (checks notes) ads.google.com

Good reminder to block all the fundraising texts (and the bridge toll and traffic ticket texts while you're at it)

Some links blog.zgp.org/advertising-...

Great opportunity for an #economics experiment: the same service with personalized and de-personalized ads

Based on the literature, it's likely that people w. de-personalized ads will have better consumer outcomes (higher satisfaction and NPS, fewer complaints, chargebacks, and returns)

Meta settles UK 'right to object to ad-tracking' lawsuit by agreeing not to track plaintiff | TechCrunch A human rights campaigner, Tanya O'Carroll, has succeeded in forcing social media giant Meta not to use her data for targeted advertising. The agreement

This is a big win.
Kudos to @tanyaocarroll.bsky.social and her team!
techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/m...

You can almost get vintage Google back with the right browser extensions blog.zgp.org/fix-google-s... (I'm enjoying it while I can)