Forum reduced availability

[Milo]

Argh, please don't. That renders websites unusable for legitimate users too if their browsing environment is slightly different from what the site expects a mindless mass-media-consuming drone to be using, and if it actually posed a serious obstacle to malicious actors then it wouldn't be long before they figured out a way around it by updating their trawlers to do all of the same things normal browsers do.

[Atarimaster]

Milo wrote:
> Argh, please don't. That renders websites unusable for legitimate users
> too

It works well for the overwhelming majority of the users from the forum I mentioned. Currently there seems to be a certain problem from a user with Safari on macOS Tahoe (he still can use the site but sometimes has to sent his posting twice of three times).

This is a nuisance, yes, but the only others ways to keep out the AI bots I’m aware of seem to be
– to grant (even read-only) access only to registered users,
– to shut down the forum temporarily.

Anubis is definitely the lesser annoyance in my eyes.


> and if it
> actually posed a serious obstacle to malicious actors

It (currently) IS an obstacle. I just asked the forum’s administrator, she said the load caused by AI bots went down by 90%.

> then it wouldn't be
> long before they figured out a way around it by updating their trawlers to
> do all of the same things normal browsers do.

AIUI this is not a question of technical feasibility, but rather one of efficiency.
However, I’d say that’s a problem for another day.

[quadibloc]

daan wrote:
> With apologies, I chose to shut down the site again without warning for all
> of yesterday so as to discourage the AI bots hammering at the forums.
>
> — daan

Because there was no warning, and I wasn't aware of an ongoing situation with AI bots, I was worried something had happened to you!

John Savard

[daan]

Sorry about that. The bot activity was so intense that I couldn’t post anything.

Please expect this to happen now and then. Shutting down the site seems to deter the bots effectively for quite a while.

Regards,
— daan

[daan]

Aaand, they were persistent. I took the site down for most of the weekend.

— daan