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Web Bot Auth

developers.cloudflare.com

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Re: Web Bot Auth

#11

Post by cuuupid »

Cloudflare is the last party that should be running this for two reasons.

1. THey have already proven to be a bad faith actor with their "DDoS protection."

2. This is pretty much the typical Cloudflare HN playbook. They release soemthing targeted at the current wave and hide behind an ideological barrier; meanwhile if you try to use them for anything serious they require a call with sales who jumps you with absurdly high pricing.

Do other cloud providers charge high fees for things they have no business charging for? Absolutely. But they typically tell you upfront and don't run ideological narratives.

This is not a company we should be putting much trust in, especially not with their continued plays to become the gatekeepers of the internet.

Re: Web Bot Auth

#12

Post by esseph »

cuuupid wrote: post #11

Cloudflare is the last party that should be running this for two reasons. 1. THey have already proven to be a bad faith actor with their "DDoS protection." 2. This is pretty much the typical Cloudflare HN playbook. They release soemthing targeted at the current wave and hide behind an ideological barrier; meanwhile if you try to use them for anything serious they require a call with sales who jumps you with absurdly…

Have you seen large cloud provider billing?????

There is a whole segment of tech designed around helping you understand and manage cloud costs, through consultations, automations, etc. It has spawned companies and career paths!

Re: Web Bot Auth

#14

Post by observationist »

nerdsniper wrote: post #10

Why use a "web bot" instead of an API? Either can be driven by an AI "agent"...but this just seems like an "API key for a visual api interface", and rather wasteful in cost and resources. If a company could afford to pay a partner for an API key they wouldn't need this. If they can't afford to pay the partner for access -- they'd still be blocked with or without "Web Bot Auth". I don't understand what this is for. I…

Part of it, at least, is people thinking they've solved some perceived problem and being told by their chatbot that it's a terrific, brilliant new innovation and they should build a whole new protocol spec for it.

Re: Web Bot Auth

#15

Post by notatoad »

nerdsniper wrote: post #10

Why use a "web bot" instead of an API? Either can be driven by an AI "agent"...but this just seems like an "API key for a visual api interface", and rather wasteful in cost and resources. If a company could afford to pay a partner for an API key they wouldn't need this. If they can't afford to pay the partner for access -- they'd still be blocked with or without "Web Bot Auth". I don't understand what this is for. I…

if you already have an api that exposes all the information that your parter who is willing to pay for an API key wants, then sure, that's perfect. but what if you don't have an API, or your API doesn't expose the information that crawlers are looking for? they want to crawl your website, they're willing to pay for the ability to crawl your website, but you don't want to build an API...

i'm sure the next step here will be a cloudflare product that sits in front of your website and blocks all bot traffic except for the bots that are verified to have paid for access. (or maybe that already exists?)

Re: Web Bot Auth

#16

Post by mtrovo »

As much as I understand this is needed it rubs me the wrong way.

The standard looks fine as a distributed protocol until you have to register to pay a rent to Cloudflare, which they say will eventually trickle down into publishers pocket but you know what having a middleman this powerful means to the power dynamics of the market. Publishers have a really bad hand no matter what we do to save them, content as we know it will have to adapt.

Give it a couple more iterations and some MBA will come up with the brilliant idea of introducing an internet toll to humans and selling a content bundle with unlimited access to websites.

Re: Web Bot Auth

#17

Post by blackswatter »

bobbiechen wrote: post #4

I disagree with the other top-level comments at the moment: I believe Web Bot Auth is a useful and non-centralized emerging standard for self-identifying bots and agents. This press release today is a better statement of _why_ this feature exists (as opposed to the submission link, which is nuts-and-bolts of implementing): https://blog.cloudflare.com/signed-agents/ Web Bot Auth is a way for bots to self-identify cryp…

[dead]

Re: Web Bot Auth

#18

Post by observationist »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #6
zb3 wrote: post #3

Seems like Cloudflare wants to regulate the internet.. they should not have that power.

Disagree. Not everybody wants their sites scraped and their content used to train a model that they'll never see a penny from. Cloudflare is the only party who wants to build a system where both the models and individual sites have their interests respected.

Then put up a goddamn login wall.

The internet was designed to work the way it does for good reasons.

You not understanding those reasons is not an excuse for allowing a giant tech company to step in and be the gatekeeper for a huge portion of the internet. Nor to monetize, enshittify, balkanize, and fragment the web with no effective recourse or oversight.

Cloudflare shouldn't be allowed to operate, in my view.

Re: Web Bot Auth

#19

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

esseph wrote: post #12
cuuupid wrote: post #11

Cloudflare is the last party that should be running this for two reasons. 1. THey have already proven to be a bad faith actor with their "DDoS protection." 2. This is pretty much the typical Cloudflare HN playbook. They release soemthing targeted at the current wave and hide behind an ideological barrier; meanwhile if you try to use them for anything serious they require a call with sales who jumps you with absurdly…

Have you seen large cloud provider billing????? There is a whole segment of tech designed around helping you understand and manage cloud costs, through consultations, automations, etc. It has spawned companies and career paths!

Ime, cloud cost centres are intentionally confusing and annoying. I get emails telling me to check their dashboard for billing info which I inevitably never do. It’s designed that way.

Re: Web Bot Auth

#20

Post by tick_tock_tick »

mtrovo wrote: post #16

As much as I understand this is needed it rubs me the wrong way. The standard looks fine as a distributed protocol until you have to register to pay a rent to Cloudflare, which they say will eventually trickle down into publishers pocket but you know what having a middleman this powerful means to the power dynamics of the market. Publishers have a really bad hand no matter what we do to save them, content as we know…

There is just too much spam and it's not clear that is a solvable problem without Cloudflare (or some other similar service). Maybe if they get big enough the incentives to spam will vanish and non Cloudflare sites can exist in peace (at-least until enough people leave Cloudflare that spam become profitable again).
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