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> The public posts and discussions being had about this subject are already informing AI companies on how to train their multimodal models to get around these o

> The public posts and discussions being had about this subject are already informing AI companies on how to train their multimodal models to get around these obfuscations, most of which have already been broken. I'd argue every new font and tech demo is effectively a benchmark, daring AI firms come up with solutions to sidestep them. And they will be sidestepped, one way or another. If a human can see the information, that means there is a way the information can be parsed. "Ghost" fonts will become just another scraping obstacle with its own set of contingencies. 1. I don't like the sense of futility and powerlessness this advocates for. 2. I'm not sure it is so futile. I agree this stuff isn't encryption, which means it'll always be possible to circumvent the obfuscation, but it could raise the cost. Hopefully that can be done to the point where it's just not worth the bother. That could happen if: 1. There are so many schemes out there the catalog of circumventions gets unwieldy. 2. Doubly so if the schemes allow generation of new obfuscated fonts per site or per page. 3. Then you're forcing the scrapers to pay a greater tax to get your text: spin up a Chrome instance to OCR a screenshot, or spend some a buck or two or LLM credits to reverse engineer the page in order to scrape it.

danudey 2mo ago
The main argument against these fonts is that you are removing accessibility for humans permanently in exchange for removing accessibility for scrapers temporarily. It might raise the cost for some scrapers, to some degree, but it raises the cost to, effectively, infinity for anyone who needs to use a screen reader, a browser's 'reader' view, or any other assistive technology. Things like this just remind me of EA's Spore; it released with DRM so draconian that legitimate players were getting locked out of the game during the first week, while people who pirated the game had no problem whatsoever and were playing the game without issue even before its release. The legitimate users of the thing were the only ones punished by the technology designed to stop everyone but them. This is going to be the same thing; a website which AI will be able to read in short order but which assistive technologies will not be able to read ever.
- jimmaswell 2mo ago
  I also see no virtue in stopping an AI from reading something to begin with. If anything, I find it anti-social - hide your work from the machine trying to learn from it, taking nothing away from you in exchange for benefiting all of mankind?
  - r_lee 2mo ago
    you mean benefit a private company training their AI model which they market to the public in order to get to their trillion dollar IPO?
    - infinite_spin 2mo ago
      That seems like an unfair equivalence. Lots of things you enjoy, including this very forum, benefit already wealthy private companies. That doesn't seem like it's a very good litmus test for whether something is overall a benefit to humanity.
      - Retric 2mo ago
        > overall a benefit to humanity. By that metric a complete ban on LLM’s might be on the table, which I don’t think is something you’re advocating for here.
        infinite_spin 2mo ago
        I'm advocating for a litmus test that can't be easily abused, and I'm advocating against unfair equivalences. I also am not calling "overall a benefit to humanity" a metric, it's more of a conclusion we could arrive at by an application of relevant metrics.
        Retric 2mo ago
        > a conclusion we could arrive at by an application of relevant metrics. That’s dangerous ground because of how you can arbitrarily change weights of different metrics. If the goal is the “overall benefit of humanity” then that’s what’s important not metrics.
BrenBarn 2mo ago
I also don't like the fatalistic mindset, but I feel like we're better off trying to retaliate against the makers and operators of the bots, rather than getting into a technological arms race against the bots themselves. That is, the fight is one of policy, law, and morality, not of technology.
- palmotea 2mo ago
  Why not both? Better that than putting all eggs in one basket.
  - psd1 2mo ago
    Because the effect of the technological measures is an arms race; presumably, universally so. It's a net negative. The article captures the principle in a nutshell.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      > Because the effect of the technological measures is an arms race; presumably, universally so. It's a net negative. The article captures the principle in a nutshell. It's not that simple. What you say may be true, but the reason arms races happen is the alternative is surrender and domination of you or your people. You can't unilaterally choose to not participate without accepting those consequences.
pwdisswordfishq 2mo ago
> I agree this stuff isn't encryption, which means it'll always be possible to circumvent the obfuscation, but it could raise the cost. Hopefully that can be done to the point where it's just not worth the bother. Did it work for non-cryptographic DRM? (Broadcast flag, Macrovision, deliberately miswritten floppy sectors, port dongles, physical manual challenge-response...)
- palmotea 2mo ago
  > Did it work for non-cryptographic DRM? (Broadcast flag, Macrovision, deliberately miswritten floppy sectors, port dongles, physical manual challenge-response...) Yes? Did those measures stop piracy completely? No. Did they raise the cost of piracy so there was less of it? Probably.

danudey 2mo ago

The main argument against these fonts is that you are removing accessibility for humans permanently in exchange for removing accessibility for scrapers temporarily. It might raise the cost for some scrapers, to some degree, but it raises the cost to, effectively, infinity for anyone who needs to use a screen reader, a browser's 'reader' view, or any other assistive technology. Things like this just remind me of EA's Spore; it released with DRM so draconian that legitimate players were getting locked out of the game during the first week, while people who pirated the game had no problem whatsoever and were playing the game without issue even before its release. The legitimate users of the thing were the only ones punished by the technology designed to stop everyone but them. This is going to be the same thing; a website which AI will be able to read in short order but which assistive technologies will not be able to read ever.

jimmaswell 2mo ago
I also see no virtue in stopping an AI from reading something to begin with. If anything, I find it anti-social - hide your work from the machine trying to learn from it, taking nothing away from you in exchange for benefiting all of mankind?
- r_lee 2mo ago
  you mean benefit a private company training their AI model which they market to the public in order to get to their trillion dollar IPO?
  - infinite_spin 2mo ago
    That seems like an unfair equivalence. Lots of things you enjoy, including this very forum, benefit already wealthy private companies. That doesn't seem like it's a very good litmus test for whether something is overall a benefit to humanity.
    - Retric 2mo ago
      > overall a benefit to humanity. By that metric a complete ban on LLM’s might be on the table, which I don’t think is something you’re advocating for here.
      - infinite_spin 2mo ago
        I'm advocating for a litmus test that can't be easily abused, and I'm advocating against unfair equivalences. I also am not calling "overall a benefit to humanity" a metric, it's more of a conclusion we could arrive at by an application of relevant metrics.
        Retric 2mo ago
        > a conclusion we could arrive at by an application of relevant metrics. That’s dangerous ground because of how you can arbitrarily change weights of different metrics. If the goal is the “overall benefit of humanity” then that’s what’s important not metrics.

BrenBarn 2mo ago

I also don't like the fatalistic mindset, but I feel like we're better off trying to retaliate against the makers and operators of the bots, rather than getting into a technological arms race against the bots themselves. That is, the fight is one of policy, law, and morality, not of technology.

palmotea 2mo ago
Why not both? Better that than putting all eggs in one basket.
- psd1 2mo ago
  Because the effect of the technological measures is an arms race; presumably, universally so. It's a net negative. The article captures the principle in a nutshell.
  - palmotea 2mo ago
    > Because the effect of the technological measures is an arms race; presumably, universally so. It's a net negative. The article captures the principle in a nutshell. It's not that simple. What you say may be true, but the reason arms races happen is the alternative is surrender and domination of you or your people. You can't unilaterally choose to not participate without accepting those consequences.

pwdisswordfishq 2mo ago

> I agree this stuff isn't encryption, which means it'll always be possible to circumvent the obfuscation, but it could raise the cost. Hopefully that can be done to the point where it's just not worth the bother. Did it work for non-cryptographic DRM? (Broadcast flag, Macrovision, deliberately miswritten floppy sectors, port dongles, physical manual challenge-response...)

palmotea 2mo ago
> Did it work for non-cryptographic DRM? (Broadcast flag, Macrovision, deliberately miswritten floppy sectors, port dongles, physical manual challenge-response...) Yes? Did those measures stop piracy completely? No. Did they raise the cost of piracy so there was less of it? Probably.