• Ulrich@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    they can already block VPN traffic unless it goes through their VPN

    Yeah that’s how most VPNs work.

    their whole business model is based on them being a man in the middle that decrypts ssl and analyses the requests plainly

    Okay? Analyze all you want. They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

    about a third of the worldwide websites are using cloudflare so they have a pretry good birds eye view on behaviour of any machine that will be visiting a lot of websites

    Great. Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

    • HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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      2 days ago

      They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

      They can and do. What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

      Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

      If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

        And how does the owner know which connections are bots?

        If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

        They don’t care, they have trillions of dollars of VC money to power through.

        • HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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          2 days ago

          The owner sets the level. If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

          They do care. VC funding happens because the result is profitable. If it is less profitable, there will be less funding because of higher investment risk.

          • Ulrich@feddit.org
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            2 days ago

            If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

            I don’t know what you don’t understand. These bots are not labeling themselves as bots. They are camouflaging themselves to look like any other type of traffic.

            VC funding happens because the result is profitable.

            No, VC funding happens because investors are duped into thinking the result is profitable.

              • Ulrich@feddit.org
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                1 day ago

                I’m not and your tone is completely unnecessary so maybe dial it back a bit.

                Yes, VC funding can be profitable. It’s also often not. Like any other investment. Corporations will absolutely lie and blow smoke up their ass if they think it can get them more money.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

      Why not? They are doing edge caching, they can literally just block the connection from visiting the site just like they do with their DDoS mitigation.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        they can literally just block the connection

        block which connection? Again, these AI companies know people don’t want them crawling their sites and they do everything they can to be invisible. This has been an issue for years at this point.

        just like they do with their DDoS mitigation

        blocking DDoS is trivial by comparison.