"Nepenthes generates random links that always point back to itself - the crawler downloads those new links. Nepenthes happily just returns more and more lists of links pointing back to itself."

A pseudonymous coder has created and released an open source “tar pit” to indefinitely trap AI training web crawlers in an infinitely, randomly-generating series of pages to waste their time and computing power. The program, called Nepenthes after the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants which trap and consume their prey, can be deployed by webpage owners to protect their own content from being scraped or can be deployed “offensively” as a honeypot trap to waste AI companies’ resources.

“It’s less like flypaper and more an infinite maze holding a minotaur, except the crawler is the minotaur that cannot get out. The typical web crawler doesn’t appear to have a lot of logic. It downloads a URL, and if it sees links to other URLs, it downloads those too. Nepenthes generates random links that always point back to itself - the crawler downloads those new links. Nepenthes happily just returns more and more lists of links pointing back to itself,” Aaron B, the creator of Nepenthes, told 404 Media.

    • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 hours ago

      For anybody who ever had this happen, ChatGPT has some solutions to remedy the situation:

      • WolfLink@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        17·
        14 hours ago

        I’ve always been taught if you say “I adjust” before touching a piece then it’s ok to touch it (specifically so you can move an off-center piece into the center of its square)

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
          101·
          13 hours ago

          Not gonna fly if you say “I adjust” and then pick up a piece, move it to a new spot, then bring it back down and set it in the original spot.

          Also ffs, don’t adjust pieces unless it’s your turn.

        • Brumefey@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          57 minutes ago

          Just tried and got the expected answer :

          In chess, looking at your opponent’s pieces is not only allowed but essential to playing the game. Observing the placement and movement of your opponent’s pieces helps you plan your strategy and anticipate their moves. However, if you’re referring to situations like secretly peeking at a hidden plan (in correspondence chess, for example) or breaking rules in a specific chess variant, then it could be considered cheating. But in standard chess, observing your opponent’s pieces is part of fair play.

          • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
            221·
            14 hours ago

            Yeah thats not real, if you ask chat gpt it gives the obvious answer of you have to look at the pieces. Either its shopped or its leaving off previous messages where the user has deliberately conviced it that it is cheating.

              • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                11 minutes ago

                Se i understand that one, LLMs dont work with letters they work with token which are more like Chinese characters. So even though they display letters to the end used the models themselves dont see them which is why you can get dumb mistakes like that.

                The chess thing is strange though, its not like there is a lake of writing on chess so I do wonder where it got that idea from.

      • Petter1@lemm.eeEnglish
        21·
        11 hours ago

        We don’t know what they did above this prompt, maybe it was advised to answer like this in a prior prompt 🤗 we can not really know from the picture

        But 4o is not too old, I think, it is still the highest free unlimited tier.

        • BurnedDonutHole@ani.socialEnglish
          3·
          8 hours ago

          I wrote that prompt and just asked it as it’s without any other prompts before it. You can see other people got the same same answer or try it yourself.