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The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

positiveblue.substack.com

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Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#171

Post by acdha »

bob1029 wrote: post #21
jjangkke wrote: post #3

I would love to get off Cloudflare but there are no real good alternatives

Writing backends that can actually handle public traffic and using authentication for expensive resources are fantastic alternatives. Also, cheaply rate limiting malicious web clients should be something that is trivial to accomplish with competent web tooling (i.e., on your own servers). If this seems out of scope or infeasible, you might be using the wrong tools for the job.

This sounds pretty unrealistic: the web is not better off if the only people who can host content are locking it behind authentication and/or have significant infrastructure budgets and the ability to create heavily tuned static stacks.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#172

Post by wvenable »

TIPSIO wrote: post #20

Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web. But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? E.g.: They just blindly trust someone is sending Agent vs Training bots and super duper respecting robots.txt? Get real... Or, fine what if they do respect robots.txt, but they buy the data that may or may not have been shielded through liability layers via "licensed d…

> Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web... But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots?

Aren't these statements entirely in conflict? You either have a free for all open web or you don't. Blocking AI training bots is not free and open for all.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#173

Post by ramoz »

We dont need gatekeepers. We do need to verify agents that act, in a reasonable way, on behalf of human vs an agent swarm/bot-mining operation (whether conducted by a large lab or a kid programming claude code to ddos his buddy's next.js deployment).

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#174

Post by jaredcwhite »

This article can easily be dismissed when hardly a moment in you see the headline "Agents Are Inevitable"

I'm sorry, but the "agents" of "agentic AI" is completely different from the original purpose of the World-Wide Web which was to support user agents. User agents are used directly by users—aka browsers. API access came later, but even then it was often directed by user activity…and otherwise quite normally rate-limited or paywalled.

The idea that now every web server must comply with servicing an insane number of automated bots doing god-knows-what without users even understanding what's happening a lot of the time, or without the consent of content owners to have all their IP scraped into massive training datasets is, well, asinine.

That's not the web we built, that's not the web we signed up for; and yes, we will take drastic measures to block your ass.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#175

Post by BrenBarn »

wvenable wrote: post #172
TIPSIO wrote: post #20

Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web. But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? E.g.: They just blindly trust someone is sending Agent vs Training bots and super duper respecting robots.txt? Get real... Or, fine what if they do respect robots.txt, but they buy the data that may or may not have been shielded through liability layers via "licensed d…

> Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web... But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? Aren't these statements entirely in conflict? You either have a free for all open web or you don't. Blocking AI training bots is not free and open for all.

I think that was the point. Everyone loves the dream, but the reality is different.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#176

Post by wilson090 »

BrenBarn wrote: post #175
wvenable wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web... But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? Aren't these statements entirely in conflict? You either have a free for all open web or you don't. Blocking AI training bots is not free and open for all.

I think that was the point. Everyone loves the dream, but the reality is different.

How so? If you don't want AI bots reading information on the web, you don't actually want a free and open web. The reality of an open web is that such information is free and available for anyone.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#177

Post by tiahura »

TIPSIO wrote: post #20

Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web. But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? E.g.: They just blindly trust someone is sending Agent vs Training bots and super duper respecting robots.txt? Get real... Or, fine what if they do respect robots.txt, but they buy the data that may or may not have been shielded through liability layers via "licensed d…

Why should your blog be protected? Information wants to be free.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#178

Post by jaredcwhite »

positiveblue wrote: post #126
avtar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait, what? I was referring to the following image: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zRK-!,w_1250,h_703,c...

I know the image, what I do not understand is the argument between using it being incompatible with "fairness" and "openness"

GenAI image generation is not fair.

also: “Cloudelare” ;-P

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#179

Post by infecto »

TIPSIO wrote: post #20

Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web. But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? E.g.: They just blindly trust someone is sending Agent vs Training bots and super duper respecting robots.txt? Get real... Or, fine what if they do respect robots.txt, but they buy the data that may or may not have been shielded through liability layers via "licensed d…

I personally love the idea of a free and open internet and also have no issues with bots scraping or training off of my data.

I would much rather have it open for all, including companies, than the coming dystopian landscape of paywall gates. I don’t care about respecting robots.txt or any other types of rules. If it’s on the internet it’s for all to consume. The moment you start carving out certain parties is the moment it becomes a slippery slope.

Re: The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

#180

Post by gradstudent »

wilson090 wrote: post #176
BrenBarn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was the point. Everyone loves the dream, but the reality is different.

How so? If you don't want AI bots reading information on the web, you don't actually want a free and open web. The reality of an open web is that such information is free and available for anyone.

How is it available for everyone if the AI bots bring down your server?
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