Julian OliverWorking on some poison-as-a-service (PaaS). Looking to launch in the next few days.
Also working on a zip bomb, to randomly scatter in among the links.
Thanks to @anaiscrosby I came across this excellent method, using LZ77:
https://natechoe.dev/blog/2025-08-04.html
TBH I was just going to `dd if=/dev/urandom` my way to a titanic RAM flooding *.gz, but am getting great results with the above, and with bonus site data honey inside to keep bots on the chase.
@anaiscrosby After seeing ChatGPTBot blow 123 seconds on my drip-feed poison tarpit and then never come back, I got reading on how modern LLM scrapers might employ mechanisms to detect tarpits and blacklist.
During research I came across this tarpit evading scraper that provides some interesting insights into how modern LLM scrapers might do this.
https://github.com/Draconiator/Ipema
This gives me pause and has me looking at other solutions for counter-detection.
The GeoCities CSS is going nowhere.
Dan Stowell@JulianOliver @anaiscrosby I haven't looked into tarpits but it smells to me very much like an "arms race" situation and there's no reason to think your side could prevail.
@danstowell @anaiscrosby Winning would be nice, but I don't think it's always about prevailing. Just as a likelihood of failing need not undermine the will to act. Resistance, doing something, standing ground, rather than letting this predatorial broligarchy have their way.
Much of the time it's just about pushing back. If concerted, and at scale, it can indeed bring about tangible change.
Anais@danstowell @JulianOliver It’s about pushing back, not prevailing. “Tarpitting” has already emerged as a widely adopted response to AI, both a strategic approach and a meaningful act of resistance.
@anaiscrosby @JulianOliver Thanks. I see that it's been adopted. My concern is that it might cost us a lot developing these tarpits that have very little strategic effect if they become outmoded v quickly. But I really don't know - it's a very murky phase rn