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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: 0s | source
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dlcarrier ◴[29 Aug 25 17:20 UTC] No.45066858[source]▶
I use uncommon web browsers that don't leak a lot of information. To Cloudflare, I am indistingushable from a bot.

Privacy cannot exist in an environment where the host gets to decide who access the web page. I'm okay with rate limiting or otherwise blocking activity that creates too much of a load, but trying to prevent automated access is impossible withou preventing access from real people.

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verdverm ◴[29 Aug 25 17:27 UTC] No.45066957[source]▶
The website owner has rights too. Are you arguing they cannot choose to implement such gatekeeping to keep their site operating in a financially viable manner?
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SoftTalker ◴[29 Aug 25 17:41 UTC] No.45067158[source]▶
If you put your information freely on the web, you should have minimal expectations on who uses it and how. If you want to make money from it, put up a paywall.

If you want the best of both worlds, i.e. just post freely but make money from ads, or inserting hidden pixels to update some profile about me, well good luck. I'll choose whether I want to look at ads, or load tracking pixels, and my answer is no.

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verdverm ◴[29 Aug 25 18:14 UTC] No.45067555[source]▶
I'm not talking about ads or pixels, I'm referring to bot operators creating so much traffic that the network bill makes the hosting financially impossible

> my answer is no.

Rights for me, but not for thee?

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1. somerandom2407 ◴[30 Aug 25 06:13 UTC] No.45072307[source]▶
You have every right to take the content offline, or to put any technical barriers you desire in place to access it - but that's about all you should be able to do.

If you don't want to lose money and don't feel confident that you can protect your content with technical measures, best to take your stuff off the internet.

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2. rkomorn ◴[30 Aug 25 19:38 UTC] No.45077404[source]▶
I'm confused as to what you consider "technical barriers" that doesn't cover, say, using Cloudflare's solution. Or some other way of blocking things that look like bots.