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At this rate, it's more than FOSS infrastructure -- although that's a canary in the coalmine I especially sympathize with -- it's anonymous Internet access alto

At this rate, it's more than FOSS infrastructure -- although that's a canary in the coalmine I especially sympathize with -- it's anonymous Internet access altogether. Because you can put your site behind an auth wall, but these new bots can solve the captchas and imitate real users like never before. Particularly if they're hitting you from residential IPs and with fake user agents like the ones in the article -- or even real user agents because they're wired up to something like Playwright. What's left except for sites to start requiring credit cards, Worldcoin, or some equally depressing equivalent.

Freak_NL 2y ago
We're half way there already. It always hits me whenever I am doing some mapping for OpenStreetMap and I'm looking up local businesses without their own internet presence. They use Facebook, Instagram, X, etc. for their digital calling card. I normally don't use Facebook (or Instagram, and gave up on X) and have no account there, and every time I follow one of those links, you get some info, and then you get a dialogue screen telling you to make an account or get lost, or you just get some obscure error. I don't mind registering an account for private communities, but for stuff which people put up thinking it is just going to be publicly visible it's really annoying.
- yurishimo 2y ago
  > ... but for stuff which people put up thinking it is just going to be publicly visible ... I don't think these business owners really understand. Most normies just think everyone has a Facebook/Instagram account and can't even imagine a world where that is not the case. I agree with you that it is extremely frustrating.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >Most normies just think everyone has a Facebook/Instagram account and can't even imagine a world where that is not the case. The people without a basic internet presence aren't likely to be customers anyway so it's not a huge loss. It's trivial to setup a basic account for any site that doesn't contain any personal data you want to keep hidden, if you aren't willing to do that, you're in a tiny minority.
    - madeofpalk 2y ago
      I don't have a Facebook or Instagram account, but I definitely eat tacos and I was put off when I couldn't see a new taco place's opening hours without an instagram accoutn. I'm not sure why you think why people who don't have a Facebook account wouldn't eat at restaurants
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        You're in a tiny enough minority that it doesn't matter to them. It's like Amish complaining that they can't use a drive-thru window or something. Except it'd take you 30 seconds, one time, to solve your problem forever.
        inetknght 2y ago
        > Except it'd take you 30 seconds, one time, to solve your problem forever. And those 30 seconds are a harrowing pit of despair out of which comes the rest of your life filled with advertisements, tracking, second-guessing, and accusations of being a hypocrite.
        Suppafly 2y ago
        I haven't had any of that just from having an FB and IG account. I honestly forgot I had an IG account for a long time until someone shared something with me and I realized I had one.
        dabbz 2y ago
        To be fair, they've been shown to still track unauthenticated users via fingerprinting and mapping it to known data from your friends who do have Facebook and upload this data (phone numbers, first, last name, etc). NOT having an account doesn't mean you aren't being tracked. Not that it means you should just make an account to make their tracking easier...
        aendruk 2y ago
        I’m a little optimistic here. Step by small step lately the more normal people in my life have been joining this demographic.
noosphr 2y ago
You don't need an authorization wall to have your stuff behind, you can just as easily use an anonymous micropayment service for each request. That we live in an internet where getting too many visitors is an existential crisis for websites should tell you that our internet is not one that can survive long.
- nonchalantsui 2y ago
  Are there any reputable anonymous micropayment services?
clvx 2y ago
For your next X requests you need to process these many tokens. I mean that sounds utopian for sure.
- vhcr 2y ago
  That already existed a few years ago, Coinhive, and everybody hated it.
photonthug 2y ago
> What's left except for sites to start requiring credit cards, Worldcoin, or some equally depressing equivalent. Just to say the quiet part out loud here.. one of the biggest reasons this is depressing is that it's not only vandalism but actually vandalism with huge compounding benefits for the assholes involved and grabbing the content is just the beginning. If they take down the site forever due to increasing costs? Great, because people have to use AI for all documentation. If we retreat from captcha and force people to put in credit cards or telephone numbers? Great, because the internet is that much less anonymous. Data exfiltration leads to extra fraud? Great, you're gonna need AI to combat that. It's all pretty win-win for the bad actors. People have discussed things like the balkanization of the internet for a long time now. One might think that the threat of that and/or the fact that it's such an unmitigated dumpster fire already might lead to some caution about making it worse! But pushing the bounds of harassment and friction that people are willing to deal with is moot anyway, because of course they have no real choice in the matter.
danaris 2y ago
I dunno. I run a small browser-game, and while my server has been periodically getting absolutely pulverized by LLM scrapers, I have yet to see a single new account that looks remotely like it was created by a bot. (Also, the rate of new signups hasn't changed notably.) This is true for both the game and its Wiki—which is where most of the scraping traffic has been. (And which I will almost certainly have to set to be almost-completely authwalled if the scraping doesn't let up.)

Freak_NL 2y ago

We're half way there already. It always hits me whenever I am doing some mapping for OpenStreetMap and I'm looking up local businesses without their own internet presence. They use Facebook, Instagram, X, etc. for their digital calling card. I normally don't use Facebook (or Instagram, and gave up on X) and have no account there, and every time I follow one of those links, you get some info, and then you get a dialogue screen telling you to make an account or get lost, or you just get some obscure error. I don't mind registering an account for private communities, but for stuff which people put up thinking it is just going to be publicly visible it's really annoying.

yurishimo 2y ago
> ... but for stuff which people put up thinking it is just going to be publicly visible ... I don't think these business owners really understand. Most normies just think everyone has a Facebook/Instagram account and can't even imagine a world where that is not the case. I agree with you that it is extremely frustrating.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >Most normies just think everyone has a Facebook/Instagram account and can't even imagine a world where that is not the case. The people without a basic internet presence aren't likely to be customers anyway so it's not a huge loss. It's trivial to setup a basic account for any site that doesn't contain any personal data you want to keep hidden, if you aren't willing to do that, you're in a tiny minority.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    I don't have a Facebook or Instagram account, but I definitely eat tacos and I was put off when I couldn't see a new taco place's opening hours without an instagram accoutn. I'm not sure why you think why people who don't have a Facebook account wouldn't eat at restaurants
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      You're in a tiny enough minority that it doesn't matter to them. It's like Amish complaining that they can't use a drive-thru window or something. Except it'd take you 30 seconds, one time, to solve your problem forever.
      - inetknght 2y ago
        > Except it'd take you 30 seconds, one time, to solve your problem forever. And those 30 seconds are a harrowing pit of despair out of which comes the rest of your life filled with advertisements, tracking, second-guessing, and accusations of being a hypocrite.
        Suppafly 2y ago
        I haven't had any of that just from having an FB and IG account. I honestly forgot I had an IG account for a long time until someone shared something with me and I realized I had one.
        dabbz 2y ago
        To be fair, they've been shown to still track unauthenticated users via fingerprinting and mapping it to known data from your friends who do have Facebook and upload this data (phone numbers, first, last name, etc). NOT having an account doesn't mean you aren't being tracked. Not that it means you should just make an account to make their tracking easier...
      - aendruk 2y ago
        I’m a little optimistic here. Step by small step lately the more normal people in my life have been joining this demographic.

noosphr 2y ago

You don't need an authorization wall to have your stuff behind, you can just as easily use an anonymous micropayment service for each request. That we live in an internet where getting too many visitors is an existential crisis for websites should tell you that our internet is not one that can survive long.

nonchalantsui 2y ago
Are there any reputable anonymous micropayment services?

clvx 2y ago

For your next X requests you need to process these many tokens. I mean that sounds utopian for sure.

vhcr 2y ago
That already existed a few years ago, Coinhive, and everybody hated it.

photonthug 2y ago

> What's left except for sites to start requiring credit cards, Worldcoin, or some equally depressing equivalent. Just to say the quiet part out loud here.. one of the biggest reasons this is depressing is that it's not only vandalism but actually vandalism with huge compounding benefits for the assholes involved and grabbing the content is just the beginning. If they take down the site forever due to increasing costs? Great, because people have to use AI for all documentation. If we retreat from captcha and force people to put in credit cards or telephone numbers? Great, because the internet is that much less anonymous. Data exfiltration leads to extra fraud? Great, you're gonna need AI to combat that. It's all pretty win-win for the bad actors. People have discussed things like the balkanization of the internet for a long time now. One might think that the threat of that and/or the fact that it's such an unmitigated dumpster fire already might lead to some caution about making it worse! But pushing the bounds of harassment and friction that people are willing to deal with is moot anyway, because of course they have no real choice in the matter.

danaris 2y ago

I dunno. I run a small browser-game, and while my server has been periodically getting absolutely pulverized by LLM scrapers, I have yet to see a single new account that looks remotely like it was created by a bot. (Also, the rate of new signups hasn't changed notably.) This is true for both the game and its Wiki—which is where most of the scraping traffic has been. (And which I will almost certainly have to set to be almost-completely authwalled if the scraping doesn't let up.)