4 ms·
> 66% of scrapers are turned away directly. Until they discover this neat trick [1] and solve challenges orders of magnitudes more efficiently than legitimate
by lxgr 2mo ago
> 66% of scrapers are turned away directly.
Until they discover this neat trick [1] and solve challenges orders of magnitudes more efficiently than legitimate users.
The game theory of Anubis is not sound. It makes fundamentally less sense than Captchas, and even those have been on the way out for a while.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040
- FridgeSeal 1mo agoIt doesn’t have to be fully sound, it’s there to provide _some_ degree of interim protection. Evidently, it makes _enough_ of a difference for the people running it. Criticising it is just letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The alternative to Anubis isn’t “something better that isn’t being picked”, it’s “completely unprotected”, and the people criticising it for being imperfect could helpfully move the conversation forward by actively suggesting a concrete alternative.
- lxgr 1mo agoSure, but then you’re essentially just doing versions of the old “what is 2+2” text captchas with extra computational steps, so why not save yourself and your users those?
- done_lurking 1mo agoAs gp said, it does provide some protection. If it didn't, nobody would use it and there would be nothing to discuss. Making snarky comparisons doesn't do anything.
- lxgr 1mo agoPeople can remain irrationally convinced about the efficacy of non-solutions to their problems for quite a while, in my experience. And I really wasn't trying to be snarky; people had "what is i + j" type of captchas for a long time and I still see them every once in a while!
- danieltanfh95 1mo agoit's not just "not sound", it is outright wrong.