Cloudflare will block AI bots from crawling websites by default for new customers, and broker pay-per-crawl deals between its customers and bot operators.
@HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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  1. they can already block VPN traffic (unless you use their VPN)

  2. their whole business model is based on them being a man in the middle that decrypts ssl and analyses the packets plainly

  3. about a third of the worldwide websites are using cloudflare so they have a pretry good birds eye view on behaviour of any machine, datacenter or ip range that will be visiting a lot of websites, which in turn will trivially whether it is normal user behaviour or a crawler.

@Zerush@lemmy.ml
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Not the first time that, with all my privacy measures on, instead of an page, I see the page from Cloudflare analyzing if I am a bot, before it let me access the page I wanted. Invisible in the web is only a bad joke. Anybody is visible in the moment he goes online, irrelevant if he use VPN, TOR or whatever, this times have passed. Believing it is as hilarious as in the Movie Independence day infecting with an Virus an Alien Mothership, using an crappy Laptop (I have laughed a lot with this scene).

@slackness@lemmy.ml
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deleted by creator

@Zerush@lemmy.ml
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Yes, TOR never was secure against secret services and goverments, les nowadays with AI and massive server power from these. Don’t forget who developed the TOR network and from whom are the servers used. Drug Barons since time turned to use pen and paper for their orders and communication, because the web and even the Dark Web isn’t really private anymore (traffic analysis, exploiting software vulnerabilities, monitoring exit nodes, using Honeypot nodes…)

@slackness@lemmy.ml
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deleted by creator

@Zerush@lemmy.ml
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Naturally the Darkweb has nothing to do with the TOR network, But even if you access it using the TOR network, they find you if they want, as you can see.

Ulrich
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they can already block VPN traffic unless it goes through their VPN

Yeah that’s how most VPNs work.

their whole business model is based on them being a man in the middle that decrypts ssl and analyses the requests plainly

Okay? Analyze all you want. They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

about a third of the worldwide websites are using cloudflare so they have a pretry good birds eye view on behaviour of any machine that will be visiting a lot of websites

Great. Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

@PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

Why not? They are doing edge caching, they can literally just block the connection from visiting the site just like they do with their DDoS mitigation.

Ulrich
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they can literally just block the connection

block which connection? Again, these AI companies know people don’t want them crawling their sites and they do everything they can to be invisible. This has been an issue for years at this point.

just like they do with their DDoS mitigation

blocking DDoS is trivial by comparison.

They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

They can and do. What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

Ulrich
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What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

And how does the owner know which connections are bots?

If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

They don’t care, they have trillions of dollars of VC money to power through.

The owner sets the level. If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

They do care. VC funding happens because the result is profitable. If it is less profitable, there will be less funding because of higher investment risk.

Ulrich
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If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

I don’t know what you don’t understand. These bots are not labeling themselves as bots. They are camouflaging themselves to look like any other type of traffic.

VC funding happens because the result is profitable.

No, VC funding happens because investors are duped into thinking the result is profitable.

Ulrich
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I’m not and your tone is completely unnecessary so maybe dial it back a bit.

Yes, VC funding can be profitable. It’s also often not. Like any other investment. Corporations will absolutely lie and blow smoke up their ass if they think it can get them more money.

@HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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often

rarely. Because the overall trends from the 2 links I shared show that it is more often profitable, resulting in a net return on investment.

My tone perfectly reflects my level of respect for you being ongoingly confidently wrong. Sorry if that hurt you. Cheers.

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