Send fake HTTP status code to a blocked url

[nitrox]

There is a post on the forum discussing about ways to block Channel 4 on demand player pre video ads since the player now can detect adblock and you need to whitelist to play which would also allow pre video ads. You can view the thread here forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9403

I tried out by blocking the ad serving subdomain in Privoxy which is a proxy sofware with advanced filtering capabilities and video played without complaining about adblock. By placing fiddler2 in between browser and privoxy, I was able to find out it sends a HTTP 403 code. I tried out by redirecting ads subdomain to google.com/idonotexist which sends out a 404 code.

I was able to fool the player by sending a fake HTTP status code so the player plays the program and skips the pre video ads.

If you could add a extra option, for example $404 which would block a request to a url and return a 404 http status.

[Kanoobi]

I am also getting the same problem on TVCatchup Website (http://www.tvcatchup.com/). Same scenario as the 4OD thread.
An option to work around this would be very appreciated

[fanboy]

Having something like $fake-code404 / $fake-code403 would be an awesome feature

[lewisje]

Technically, you would not be sending any status codes to the server but rather acting as if the server had sent such a code to you (HTTP status codes are always sent from the server to the client as part of the HTTP response header), so that anything relying on it (like Flash Player) will act on this phony status code.

[boris]

I second that idea. Although for top 3-10 tracking scripts it would be better to figure out what they send and home to send some randomized data in their format instead of just fake http status.

[JoshTriplett]

Having something like $fake-code404 / $fake-code403 would be an awesome feature

Definitely. For that matter, faking a 200 with empty data would often help.

Faking a 200 with non-empty data would occasionally help, but making that work in a usable way (in particular, without duplicating common data across several filters) seems non-trivial.