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ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

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Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#51
post #6

Presumably this is all because OpenAI offers free ChatGPT to logged out users and don't want that being abused as a free API endpoint.

Yup. Coincidentally about an hour ago, I wanted to look something up in ChatGPT and I happened to be in a browser window I don’t normally use, with no logged in accounts. I assumed it wouldn’t work, but to my surprise with no account, no cookies of any kind it took my query and gave me an answer.

I used to mostly use chatgpt in an incognito tab, logged out. Until I notice it seems to have some context of my logged in session, and of the logged out as well. It may be paranoia or prompt deduction as well but that felt strange.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#52
post #37
post #14

It's absurd how unusable Cloudflare is making the web when using a browser or IP address they consider "suspicious". I've lately been drowning in captchas for the crime of using Firefox. All in the interest of "bot protection", of course.

Exactly. For the most part all this bot protection is only protecting these websites against humans. I don't do free work. I'm not going to label 50 images of crosswalks and motorcycles for free.

> For the most part all this bot protection is only protecting these websites against humans.

Curious how do you know this?

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#53
post #14

It's absurd how unusable Cloudflare is making the web when using a browser or IP address they consider "suspicious". I've lately been drowning in captchas for the crime of using Firefox. All in the interest of "bot protection", of course.

The real frustrating part is that Cloudflare's "definition" of suspicious keeps changing and expanding. VPN users, privacy-first browsers, uncommon IP ranges, they all get flagged. The people most likely to get caught by these systems are exactly the ones who care most about their privacy, and not the bots that they are apparently targeting.

Which VPNs are people using that actually care about the user's privacy? Most of them don't, sell their home IP to buyers, sell their DNS history to others, etc. Worse, some of them could require invasive MITM cert stuff most users will just click yes through.

I have yet to see a use case for VPNs for the casual internet audience, and for a tech savvy user, their better off renting through some datacenter or something, which at that point is hardly a VPN and more home IP obfuscation. All the same downsides, and at least you get real privacy.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#54
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're discussing the quality of screening here, not the act/necessity of screening itself.

>We're discussing the quality of screening here The "quality" of TSA's screening seems be pretty bad too given how many people have to go through secondary screening vs how many terrorist they catch (0?)

They are failing to meet there quotas of shooting innocent people in the face, so ICE is helping out.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#55
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe check your network isn't sending web traffic you're not aware of? I'm running firefox and seeing the normal amount.

Most people are on a CGNAT these days, drowning in captchas is the new normal. You’re at the mercy of one of your neighbors not hosting a botnet from their home computer.

Not even remotely true, I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. The only time I get captcha'ed is when I sometimes VPN around, or do some custom browser stuff and etc. I'll even say I get captcha'ed less now than maybe 5 years ago.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#56
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe check your network isn't sending web traffic you're not aware of? I'm running firefox and seeing the normal amount.

Most people are on a CGNAT these days, drowning in captchas is the new normal. You’re at the mercy of one of your neighbors not hosting a botnet from their home computer.

For better or for worse, CF's fingerprinting and traffic filtering is a lot more in-depth than just IP trend analysis. Kind of by necessity, exactly because of what you mention. So I'd think that's not as big a worry per se.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#57

Hey! I'm Nick, and I work on Integrity at OpenAI. These checks are part of how we protect our first-party products from abuse like bots, scraping, fraud, and other attempts to misuse the platform. A big reason we invest in this is because we want to keep free and logged-out access available for more users. My team’s goal is to help make sure the limited GPU resources are going to real users. We also keep a very close…

Have you given any thought to what we trade when big tech elects one corporation as the gatekeeper for vast swaths of the Internet?

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#58

Hey! I'm Nick, and I work on Integrity at OpenAI. These checks are part of how we protect our first-party products from abuse like bots, scraping, fraud, and other attempts to misuse the platform. A big reason we invest in this is because we want to keep free and logged-out access available for more users. My team’s goal is to help make sure the limited GPU resources are going to real users. We also keep a very close…

Great to hear from a first-party source. I'm a Pro subscriber and my team spends well over two thousand dollars per month on OpenAI subscriptions. However, even when I'm logged in with my Pro account, if I'm using a VPN provider like Mullvad, I often have trouble using the chat interface or I get timeout errors.

Is this to be expected? I would presume that if I'm authenticated and paying, VPN use wouldn't be a worry. It would be nice to be able to use the tool whether or not I'm on a VPN.

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#59

Hey! I'm Nick, and I work on Integrity at OpenAI. These checks are part of how we protect our first-party products from abuse like bots, scraping, fraud, and other attempts to misuse the platform. A big reason we invest in this is because we want to keep free and logged-out access available for more users. My team’s goal is to help make sure the limited GPU resources are going to real users. We also keep a very close…

> because we want to keep free and logged-out access

But don't you run these checks on logged-in users too?

Re: ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real frustrating part is that Cloudflare's "definition" of suspicious keeps changing and expanding. VPN users, privacy-first browsers, uncommon IP ranges, they all get flagged. The people most likely to get caught by these systems are exactly the ones who care most about their privacy, and not the bots that they are apparently targeting.

Which VPNs are people using that actually care about the user's privacy? Most of them don't, sell their home IP to buyers, sell their DNS history to others, etc. Worse, some of them could require invasive MITM cert stuff most users will just click yes through. I have yet to see a use case for VPNs for the casual internet audience, and for a tech savvy user, their better off renting through some datacenter or somethin…

>Most of them don't, sell their home IP to buyers, sell their DNS history to others, etc. Worse, some of them could require invasive MITM cert stuff most users will just click yes through.

Source? I haven't seen any evidence that the major paid VPN providers engage in any of those things. At best it's vague implications something shady is happening because one of the key people was previously at [shady organization].

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