Fijxu
Ok, Youtube killed a tool that is essential to watch videos on Invidious (inv_sig_helper). Because of this my server literally exploded because invidious tried to reconnect to that tool which is not able to start at all *due to youtube changes*. There is nothing I can do (for now). I will try to find a way to fix it tho, but since that tool is written on Rust, I'm 100% clueless on how to fix it, and for sure, the fix is not an easy task. So yeah, Invidious is dead until a new update.
Dec 9, 2024 at 6:49pmWeb
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 26, 2025

@fijxu Thank you so much for using a proof-of-work #captcha https://nadeko.net/announcements/invidious-and-the-bot-problem/ instead of centralised proprietary mass #surveillance aka Google/CloudFlare!

You're a hero.

#Invidious #Anubis

nadeko.net - Invidious and the bot problem

Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 27, 2025
sure, throw more computing at the bots who are already wasteful at that, and exclude people like me who won't run software from strangers 😞

google used to block me by demanding to run javascript on my browser; now invidious instances fail in just the same way 😞

it was cool while it lasted, and thanks invidious for that, but now I can't even search for stuff to watch with mpv/ytdlp any more.

yet another brick on the WWWorst App Store Wall
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/wwworst-app-store.html

CC: @[email protected]
The WWWorst App Store - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 27, 2025

@lxo Yes it's unfortunate, but I mostly use it to share links. Does mpv/yt-dlp <URL> work for you?

Is there a way to make mCaptcha work with LibreJS?

Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 27, 2025
yeah, mpv/yt-dlp work for me

presumably tagging the javascript as free software, as recognized by LibreJS, would make it work for those who only use LibreJS for javascript blocking.

but really, this entire approach is backwards. I mean, I know scraping bots are making server operators miserable, but the solution to that can't be to make everyone else miserable, slowing things down, wasting computing resources and rendering old computers unusable.

the premise that blocking bots is questionable. sure, it makes things more costly for the evil scrapers, but also to everyone else, and guess who has more computing resources to waste? surely not the people who are on old computers who are now being rendered artificially obsolete because of a misguided reaction to scrapers. surely not to people who are trying to automate things on the client side to make up for the asymmetry between servers, that are automated, and clients, that are denied the convenience of automation by stupid captchas that increase the asymmetry and thus the injustice.
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 27, 2025
@lxo It is sad, but we have had captchas forever. The skills to solve captchas are unevenly distributed. A PoW captcha only asks you to spend some electricity, which is a commodity more evenly distributed (among those who already have a browser and are using it for compute-intensive purposes like video). I have not measured how much additional electricity is consumed by visiting this sort of captcha, but I expect it is negligible compare to the playing of the video.
Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 27, 2025
playing the video is supposed to be useful to the user, whereas the proof of work is one of the issues that has given cryptocurrencies a poor rep, and for good reason. why are we even considering that, and, of all reasons, to implement DRM on web sites?!? (yes, it is DRM, an attempt to keep some users from doing things they otherwise could, through technological means)

there has to be a better way to tell welcome users from unwanted ones than miseducating users into blindly running programs that web sites push onto their computers, and fighting wasted computing power with wasted computing power by making the overhead permanent and pushing it onto everyone
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 27, 2025

@lxo "playing the video is supposed to be useful to the user, whereas the proof of work [...]"

I don't really see the qualitative difference here. When I play the video or audio there are parts of the decoding that are redundant for me, for example the video may be too high resolution or contain a padding intro/outro I'm not interested in or audio frequencies I can't here.

"there has to be a better way"

Maybe. I don't run an Invidious instance so I don't know. On wikis, QueryCaptcha works.

Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
PoW captchas are essentially cryptocurrency miners for the server. when the server throws the result away, instead of using it to pay for the server or whatever, it's PoWaste

it wouldn't be quite as bad as if the server actually took the PoW/mined currency as payment, ideally also offering alternate means of anonymous proof of payment for access (GNU Taler, browserless mining, whatever) to bypass the on-browser PoW
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 28, 2025

@lxo It's not like currency, precisely because it can't be accumulated. Timeless accumulation is the problem with currency; without it, a number of problems vanish.

Anyway, we've still not established that any significant waste exists. That's not a philosophical question but something that a power meter can determine.

Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
PoW is by definition an expensive-ish computation.

Sometimes the result is used for something. Then it's not wasted.

What we're seeing is result that's not used for anything, only to slow down access indiscriminately, to burden LLM bots so they don't burden the sites so much. It's entirely wasted computing. How can there be any doubt about that?

This kind of waste multiplies and accumulates, whether or not one keeps track of it.
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 28, 2025
@lxo Captchas are always waste (compared to the user's task at hand). The question is whether this kind of captcha is more wasteful than the unfortunately more common ones. (The hypothetical benefits produced for datasets of proprietary captcha-makers are not verifiable and would only accrue to shareholders; they need not be counted.)
Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
I'm not really interested in comparing new sucky thing with old sucky thing; I'm interested in something that solves the problem without sucking.
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 28, 2025
@lxo Fair enough. I treat captchas like an addictive drug: I follow #HarmReduction principles.
Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
that wouldn't be a bad approach, but it's not what's going on: lots of sites that didn't use captchas are adopting ones now, because others are doing so. that's not harm reduction, that's epidemic contagion.
Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
Yes, I loathe captchas, precisely because they come across to me as the server (owner) saying "I get to automate, you don't, loser". Plus, they run under control of a remote server, so they're nonfree. I'd rather get rid of them all.

But I'm also sympathetic to the needs of server operators who're getting overwhelmed by LLM bots. PoW as micropayment, offering something tangible to the server, besides granting access to the client, with alternate means for anonymous payment available, seems a lot more sensible to me than PoWaste: it solves two problems, rather than barely solving one while inconveniencing everyone.
Show threadNemo_bis 🌈Mar 28, 2025
@lxo Truly privacy-respecting #micropayments could open many possibilities, yes. The #digitalEuro plans are interesting too, in this regard.
https://mamot.fr/@nemobis/111951626495391352
Nemo_bis 🌈 (@[email protected])

Recent #ECB speeches on the #DigitalEuro say (almost) all the right things on #privacy and other controversial areas. They've done their homework. ECB statements on the latest AML legislative package were far less clear. How to trust such promises? Did any MEP ask a question about the role of #FreeSoftware? "Preserving people's freedom to use a public means of payment: insights into the digital euro preparation phase": Piero Cipollone at the #EuropeanParliament". https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2024/html/ecb.sp240214_1~4bf1ab0319.en.html #EU

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net
Show threadAlexandre OlivaMar 28, 2025
now, cryptocurrency miners aren't exactly a great model to follow, not only because they're so wasteful, but because they're time-sensitive: whatever goes into computing a hash with slowish computers at high latency is likely to be PoWaste as well. protein folding, signal detection, and other massive computations that can be broken into smallish verifiable pieces would be more reasonable. and we don't even need a source of funding to "micropay" for such computing: websites that adopt such PoW access controls could refer users (transparently or not) to distributed computing platforms that issue tokens that can be used to micropay for access

CC: @[email protected]