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

(positiveblue.substack.com)
454 points positiveblue | 2 comments | 29 Aug 25 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.416s | source
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impure ◴[29 Aug 25 16:55 UTC] No.45066528[source]▶
Well, if you have a better way to solve this that’s open I’m all ears. But what Cloudflare is doing is solving the real problem of AI bots. We’ve tried to solve this problem with IP blocking and user agents, but they do not work. And this is actually how other similar problems have been solved. Certificate authorities aren’t open and yet they work just fine. Attestation providers are also not open and they work just fine.
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1. ShakataGaNai ◴[29 Aug 25 17:37 UTC] No.45067091[source]▶
Agreed. It might not be THE BEST solution, but it is a solution that appears to work well.

Centralization bad yada yada. But if Cloudflare can get most major AI players to participate, then convince the major CDN's to also participate.... ipso facto columbo oreo....standard.

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2. positiveblue ◴[29 Aug 25 18:30 UTC] No.45067736[source]▶
yep, that's why I am writing this now :)

You can see it in the web vs mobile apps.

Many people may not see a problem on wallet gardens but reality is that we have much less innovation in mobile than in web because anyone can spawn a web server vs publish an app in the App Store (apple)