this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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[–] tarknassus@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I don't see a problem here. Maybe Perplexity should consider the reasons WHY Cloudflare have a firewall...?

[–] Glitchvid@lemmy.world 255 points 1 week ago (3 children)

When a firm outright admits to bypassing or trying to bypass measures taken to keep them out, you think that would be a slam dunk case of unauthorized access under the CFAA with felony enhancements.

[–] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 103 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fuck that. I don't need prosecutors and the courts to rule that accessing publicly available information in a way that the website owner doesn't want is literally a crime. That logic would extend to ad blockers and editing HTML/js in an "inspect element" tag.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 60 points 1 week ago (35 children)

That logic would not extend to ad blockers, as the point of concern is gaining unauthorized access to a computer system or asset. Blocking ads would not be considered gaining unauthorized access to anything. In fact it would be the opposite of that.

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[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They already prosecute people under the unauthorized access provision. They just don’t prosecute rich people under it.

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[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 245 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's difficult to be a shittier company than OpenAI, but Perplexity seems to be trying hard.

[–] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 74 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Step 1, SOMEHOW find a more punchable face than Altman

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[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 153 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is a nice CloudFlare ad

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (13 children)

yeah. still not worth dealing with fucking cloudflare. fuck cloudflare.

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[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 107 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Perplexity argues that a platform’s inability to differentiate between helpful AI assistants and harmful bots causes misclassification of legitimate web traffic.

So, I assume Perplexity uses appropriate identifiable user-agent headers, to allow hosters to decide whether to serve them one way or another?

[–] lime@feddit.nu 38 points 1 week ago (4 children)

yeah it's almost like there as already a system for this in place

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[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 94 points 1 week ago
[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 74 points 1 week ago

Traveling snake oil salesman complains he can't pick people's locks.

[–] Amberskin@europe.pub 72 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Uh, are they admitting they are trying to circumvent technological protections setup to restrict access to a system?

Isn’t that a literal computer crime?

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No-no, see. When an AI-first company does it, it's actually called courageous innovation. Crimes are for poor people

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 69 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 54 points 1 week ago

As far as security is concerned, their w's are pretty common tbh. It's just the whole centralization issue.

[–] tibi@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago

You could say they are... Perplexed.

[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That’s the entire point, dipshit. I wish we got one of the cool techno dystopias rather than this boring corporate idiot one.

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[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 51 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You'd think that a competent technology company, with their own AI would be able to figure out a way to spoof Cloudflare's checks. I'd still think that.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Or find a more efficient way to manage data, since their current approach is basically DDOSing the internet for training data and also for responding to user interactions.

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[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 32 points 1 week ago

see, but they're not competent. further, they don't care. most of these ai companies are snake oil. they're selling you a solution that doesn't meaningfully solve a problem. their main way of surviving is saying "this is what it can do now, just imagine what it can do if you invest money in my company."

they're scammers, the lot of them, running ponzi schemes with our money. if the planet dies for it, that's no concern of theirs. ponzi schemes require the schemer to have no long term plan, just a line of credit that they can keep drawing from until they skip town before the tax collector comes

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[–] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 50 points 1 week ago
[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 46 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Good. I went through my CF panel, and blocked some of those "AI Assistants" that by default were open, including Perplexity's.

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] Electricd@lemmybefree.net 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't like cloudflare but it's nice that they allow people to stop AI scrapping if they want to

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 week ago (7 children)

CloudFlare has become an Internet protection racket and I'm not happy about it.

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[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can't believe I've lived to see Cloudflare be the good guys

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[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 33 points 1 week ago

Well... Good.

[–] wosat@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

This is why companies like Perplexity and OpenAI are creating browsers.

good, that means it’s working

I’m gonna be frustrated (though not surprised) if the response is anything other than this.

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