Live data from Hacker News

Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

github.com

121–130 of 276 posts

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your site is dependent on ads, and since the only way for people to see those ads is coming to your site, then yes, you lose. If your site exists to share information, then the information gets disseminated, whether via LLM or some browser, it doesn't make a difference to me

Those are not the only two options. Why are you presenting the latter option as if it were mainstream? It's such a small percentage of use cases that it probably isn't even a rounding error. People who want to disseminate information also want the credit. I'd still like to know why you are presenting this false dichotomy. What reason do you have for presenting a use case that has fractions of a percentage as if it we…

My only motivation is that it pains me to see smart capable people working on insignificant problems.

Maybe I don't understand the problem as well as I should, and I'm open to hearing what it is you think that I'm missing.

But from my perspective, this is a solution for a non-problem, which in my eyes is a problem itself.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#123
post #92

I dunno... it feels like the same approach as those people who tell you gleeful stories of how they kept a phone spammer on a call for 45 minutes: "That'll teach 'em, ha ha!" Do these types of techniques really work? I’m not convinced. Also, inserting hidden or misleading links is specifically a no-no for Google Search [0], who have this to say: We detect policy-violating practices both through automated systems and,…

One would assume legit spiders obey robots.txt.

This, to me, is the strongest argument to offer these slop generators. It provides an incentive to follow the robots.txt.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#124

I dunno... it feels like the same approach as those people who tell you gleeful stories of how they kept a phone spammer on a call for 45 minutes: "That'll teach 'em, ha ha!" Do these types of techniques really work? I’m not convinced. Also, inserting hidden or misleading links is specifically a no-no for Google Search [0], who have this to say: We detect policy-violating practices both through automated systems and,…

>I dunno... it feels like the same approach as those people who tell you gleeful stories of how they kept a phone spammer on a call for 45 minutes: "That'll teach 'em, ha ha!" Do these types of techniques really work? I’m not convinced If you are automating it, I don't see why not. Kitboga, a you-tuber kept scam callers in AI call-center loops tying up there resources so they cant use them on unsuspecting victims.[0]…

more and more scammers are automating their side as well so soon the loop will be just bots talking to bots

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are not the only two options. Why are you presenting the latter option as if it were mainstream? It's such a small percentage of use cases that it probably isn't even a rounding error. People who want to disseminate information also want the credit. I'd still like to know why you are presenting this false dichotomy. What reason do you have for presenting a use case that has fractions of a percentage as if it we…

My only motivation is that it pains me to see smart capable people working on insignificant problems. Maybe I don't understand the problem as well as I should, and I'm open to hearing what it is you think that I'm missing. But from my perspective, this is a solution for a non-problem, which in my eyes is a problem itself.

You misunderstand: I am asking what is your motivation for presenting a 0.0001% use case as a 50% use case.

The use case you present is so small it can be ignored as an option, yet you present it as the only other option.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#126
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nope. Copyright is a thing, licenses are a thing. Both are completely ignored by LLM companies, which was already proven in court, ...the same courts that ruled that AI training is probably fair use? Fair use trumps whatever restrictions author puts on their "licenses". If you're an author and it turned out that your book was pirated by AI companies then fair enough, but "I put my words out into the world as a form…

I never understand why anyone wants authors to not be able to enforce copyright and licensing laws for AI training. Unless you are Anthropic or OAI it seems like a wild stance to have. It’s good when people are rewarded for works that other people value. If trainers don’t value the work, they shouldn’t train on it. If they do, they should pay for it.

My own view is, I thought we were all agreed that the idea that Microsoft can restrict Wine from even using ideas from Windows, such that people who have read the leaked Windows source cannot contribute to Wine, was a horrible abuse of the legal system that we only went along with under duress? Now when it's our data being used, or more cynically when there's money to be made, suddenly everyone is a copyright maximalist.

No. Reading something, learning from it, then writing something similar, is legal; and more importantly, it is moral. There is no violation here. Copyright holders already have plenty of power; they must not be given the power to restrict the output of your brain forever more for merely having read and learnt. Reading and learning is sacred. Just as importantly, it's the entire damn basis of our profession!

If you do not want people to read and learn from your content, do not put it on the web.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have, is they hammer my site so hard they take it down. The content is for everyone. They can have it. Just don't also take it away from everybody else.

Unintentional denial-of-service attacks from AI scrapers are definitely a problem, I just don't know if "theft" is the right way to classify them. They shouldn't get lumped in with intellectual property concerns, which are a different matter. AI scrapers are a tragedy of the commons problem kind of like Kessler syndrome: a few bad actors can ruin low Earth orbit for everyone via space pollution, which is definitely a…

Yes I completely agree.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#128
post #83

Can't we simple parse and remove any style="display: none;", aria-hidden="true", and tabindex="1" attributes before the text is processed and get around this trick? What am I missing?

If you do that and don't follow robots.txt, you are blocked. If you do that and follow robots.txt, fine. That's all we wanted you to do anyway. Just follow the instructions that well-behaved scrapers are meant to follow.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd thing about cookies… they disappear after one serving. Websites are an endless stream of cookies. The analogy doesn’t hold.

how about this analogy: I created a most tasty cookie recipe. I give it out for free, and all copies have my name because I am vain person who likes to be known far and wide as the best baking chef ever. Is it ok to get the recipe, remove my name, and write in LLM-Codex as the creator? again, i'm ok with giving the recipe for free, i just want my name out there.

>Is it ok to get the recipe, remove my name, and write in LLM-Codex as the creator? again, i'm ok with giving the recipe for free, i just want my name out there.

From a legal perspective, it's a pretty clear "no". The instructions in recipes aren't copyrightable. The moral question is more ambiguous, but it's still pretty weak. Most recipes are uncredited, and it's unclear why someone can force everyone to attribute the recipe to them when all they realistically did was tweak the dish a bit. In the example above, I doubt you invented cookies.

Re: Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dishonest analogy. In your example, there is only a limited amount of cookies available. While there is no practical limit on the amount of time a certain digital media can be viewed. You are allowed to take one cookie. But you are allowed to view a public website multiple times if you so want.

[flagged]

Wow, how did you manually hand-write 6 million web pages? That is impressive. It would take me a while to even montonically count that high.
Post reply on HN