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

(positiveblue.substack.com)
454 points positiveblue | 3 comments | 29 Aug 25 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.701s | source
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calmbonsai ◴[29 Aug 25 20:04 UTC] No.45068770[source]▶
While I concur with the effective tech, I don't think this is something that's a net win for society.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should and I don't feel any one entity (private or public) should be an arbiter on these matters.

This is something that can, and should, be negotiated at the "last virtual mile".

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1. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs ◴[30 Aug 25 10:01 UTC] No.45073381[source]▶
>Just because you can, doesn't mean you should and I don't feel any one entity (private or public) should be an arbiter on these matters.

What do you mean by private? Should I not be allowed to block AI agents on my sites using Cloudflare?

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2. calmbonsai ◴[31 Aug 25 23:58 UTC] No.45088197[source]▶
More precisely, Cloudflare should not be able to offer this service. AI agents should be blocked at the hosted API endpoint ("last mile"), not at a CDN or other sort of intermediary.

That said, if you're using Cloudflare Workers, where the endpoint itself is hosted by Cloudflare, that would be ethical.

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3. kentonv ◴[01 Sep 25 00:13 UTC] No.45088274[source]▶
If the CDN is implementing the explicitly-configured preferences of the specific site, what difference does it make if the blocking happens at the CDN vs. the site's origin server?