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I hate proof of work code running on my machine for the benefit of someone else. It's like planting a crypto miner.

by Animats 4mo ago

account42 4mo ago
Yes, all these kind of bot checks are essentially malware.
tengwar2 4mo ago
Yup, and I suspect that even if OP is honest in this respect, if proof-of-work gets established as a normal practice for web pages, it's going to be used this way. But just taking this as-is, what is the environmental impact likely to be when multiplied up by the number of users? Proof of work is a bad idea.
ctrlmeta 4mo ago
Do proof-of-work pages actually stop AI bots? Big AI companies have enough compute to solve these challenges at scale. And if their bots are already doing much heavier work to fetch, read and process each page, then solving a small challenge first seems unlikely to be a serious barrier. Who are these proof-of-work challenges actually helping?
- titularcomment 4mo ago
  I believe poisonous loops of non-sense text are the best choice in terms of LLM capabilities and human distinguishing potential; the next iteration could be non-sense with reasonably intact grammar and content. At the very least, show some content whilst doing the PoW (isn't the point rising computational costs? Give me something like YouTube video decryption instead of having me wait at least) OR use the PoW for some useful protein-folding, finding the next prime, or an alternative monetization scheme.
  - xena 4mo ago
    Anubis does this: https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/honeypot/overview https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/honeypot/overview Getting in the maze influences your client's challenge difficulty.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
hueho 4mo ago
The "benefit of someone else" in this scenario is the site operator not having their website down or their hosting bills unsustainable because of misbehaving (which are 99% of current) web scrapers from AI companies. The README itselfs admit that this is an nuclear option. https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis
bmacho 4mo ago
You can flag malicious websites. You can even email HN moderators about them

I hate proof of work code running on my machine for the benefit of someone else. It's like planting a crypto miner.

by Animats 4mo ago

I hate proof of work code running on my machine for the benefit of someone else. It's like planting a crypto miner.

account42 4mo ago

Yes, all these kind of bot checks are essentially malware.

tengwar2 4mo ago

Yup, and I suspect that even if OP is honest in this respect, if proof-of-work gets established as a normal practice for web pages, it's going to be used this way. But just taking this as-is, what is the environmental impact likely to be when multiplied up by the number of users? Proof of work is a bad idea.

ctrlmeta 4mo ago

Do proof-of-work pages actually stop AI bots? Big AI companies have enough compute to solve these challenges at scale. And if their bots are already doing much heavier work to fetch, read and process each page, then solving a small challenge first seems unlikely to be a serious barrier. Who are these proof-of-work challenges actually helping?

titularcomment 4mo ago
I believe poisonous loops of non-sense text are the best choice in terms of LLM capabilities and human distinguishing potential; the next iteration could be non-sense with reasonably intact grammar and content. At the very least, show some content whilst doing the PoW (isn't the point rising computational costs? Give me something like YouTube video decryption instead of having me wait at least) OR use the PoW for some useful protein-folding, finding the next prime, or an alternative monetization scheme.
- xena 4mo ago
  Anubis does this: https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/honeypot/overview https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/honeypot/overview Getting in the maze influences your client's challenge difficulty.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

hueho 4mo ago

The "benefit of someone else" in this scenario is the site operator not having their website down or their hosting bills unsustainable because of misbehaving (which are 99% of current) web scrapers from AI companies. The README itselfs admit that this is an nuclear option. https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis

bmacho 4mo ago

You can flag malicious websites. You can even email HN moderators about them