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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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, on logged-in users too. The reason is basically the same: we want scarce compute going to real people, not attackers. Being logged in is one useful signal, but it doesn’t fully prevent automation, account abuse, or other malicious traffic, so we apply protections in both cases.

More like "We want your money, but don't want to provide service." Are you sure OpenAI isn't morphing into a finance/insurance company?

While OAI is one of the more hypocritical of the bunch, it is not uncommon for paid services to have some limitations in their terms of service. Like going in a store and buying stuff, it doesn't me a free for all doing whatever you want.

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

#182
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because we want to keep free and logged-out access But don't you run these checks on logged-in users too?

Yep, on logged-in users too. The reason is basically the same: we want scarce compute going to real people, not attackers. Being logged in is one useful signal, but it doesn’t fully prevent automation, account abuse, or other malicious traffic, so we apply protections in both cases.

I'm glad you guys at least went with CloudFlare. LMarena went with Google's ReCaptcha, which is plain evil. It'll often gaslight you and pretend you failed a captcha of identifying something as simple as fire hydrants. Another lovely trick is asking you to identify bridges or busses, but in actuality it also wants you to identify viaducts or semi-trucks.

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

#183
I was using KeepChatGPT[1] for a while back in 2023-2024, pre-Gemini-in-Google era, and I was fascinated as to how it was able to mask being a user without needing any API or help from the end user. I stopped using it after 2024 because 1) Gemini and 2) It breaks quite a lot. I did however, like how you had an option to push the AI panel to the right, if only Google even considers doing so.

[1]: https://github.com/xcanwin/keepchatgpt

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

#184
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meet me in a cafe and I will sign a JWT saying you're not a bot. You can submit this to whoever will accept it.

If apple approves it, ive got a solution: A keyboardthat attests to your humanity https://typed.by/magicseth/2451#2NyGLfAQxmqRiAOTlaX7ma3G4d1o...

Oh Gawd, not this idea again!

This idea of capturing the timing of people's keystrokes to identify them, ensure it is them typing their passwords, or even using the timing itself as a password has been recurring every few years for at least three decades.

It is always just as bad. Because there are so many cases where it completely fails.

The first case is a minor injury to either hand — just put a fat bandage on one finger from a minor kitchen accident, and you'll be typing completely differently for a few days.

Or, because I just walked into my office eating a juicy apple with one hand and I'm in a hurry typing my PW with my other hand because someone just called with an urgent issue I've got to fix, aaaaannnd, your software balks because I'm typing with a completely different cadence.

The list of valid reasons for failure is endless wherein a person's usual solid patterns are good 90%+ of the time, but will hard fail the other 10% of the time. And the acceptable error rate would be 2-4 orders of magnitude less.

It's a mystery how people go all the way to building software based on an idea that seems good but is actually bad, without thinking it through, or even checking how often it has been done before and failed?

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

#185
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.

It is also intended to protect the usage patterns of pro subscribers.

As has been amply explained, the API pricing per token is far more for equivalent use when maximizing a subscription plan.

It isn’t really a massive hurdle to deal with this full SPA load check. If one is even aware it exists they already have the skills to bypass it anyway.

I get why people would “what about” the automation inherit in what OpenAI is doing but that is a separate matter.

Other businesses and applications can put into place their own hurdles and anti bot practices to protect the models they’ve leaned into—-and they have been.

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

#187
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah just had this earlier today, I had to write my response in vscode and paste it in, there were literal seconds of lag for typing each character. Typical bloated React.

Just because a web application uses React and is slow, it does not follow that it is slow because of React. It's perfectly possible to write fast or slow web applications in React, same as any other framework. Linear is one of the snappiest web applications I've ever used, and it is written in React.

Does not, in the seeming absence of other snappy examples and the overwhelming evidence of many, many slow React apps, the exception prove the rule?

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

#188

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…

> we want to keep free and logged-out access available for more users

How does this comport with OpenAI's new B2B-first strategy?

> We also keep a very close eye on the user impact

Are paid or logged-in users also penalised?

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

#189
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t know if it’s related to the article, but the chats ui performance becomes absolutely horrendous in long chats. Typing the chat box is slow, rendering lags and sometimes gets stuck altogether. I have a research chat that I have to think twice before messaging because the performance is so bad. Running on iPhone 16 safari, and MacBook Pro m3 chrome.

In the good old days Netflix had "Dynamic HTML" code that would take a DOM element which scrolled out of view port and move it to the position where it was about to be scrolled in from the other end. Hence he number of DOM elements stayed constant no matter how far you scroll and the only thing that grows is the Y coordinate. They did it because a lot of devices running Netflix (TVs, DVD players, etc) were underpower…

This is how every scrolling list has been implemented since the 80s. We actually lost knowledge about how to build UI in the move to web

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

#190
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If apple approves it, ive got a solution: A keyboardthat attests to your humanity https://typed.by/magicseth/2451#2NyGLfAQxmqRiAOTlaX7ma3G4d1o...

Oh Gawd, not this idea again! This idea of capturing the timing of people's keystrokes to identify them, ensure it is them typing their passwords, or even using the timing itself as a password has been recurring every few years for at least three decades. It is always just as bad. Because there are so many cases where it completely fails. The first case is a minor injury to either hand — just put a fat bandage on one…

That's not what this is. at all.
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