[netsectoday]

Anyone who monitors their web traffic would tell you the bots are ruining the web.

I hate these "are you human" checks too, but when a persistent threat is poking your defenses and legitimate web traffic is only 10% - 20% of your server load... you have to do something.

So the alternative here to receiving a challenge is that the site would just be blocked in your country or for your network provider.

Would you prefer to be outright blocked, or is it ok to have an annoying "are you human?" challenge?

[hotpotamus]

https://major.io/2021/06/06/a-new-future-for-icanhazip/

Pretty interesting story about a tiny IP checking tool and how it sort of got out of hand sadly due to abuse. The solution? Major sold the site to Cloudflare for $1. But really kind of a shame overall.

[netsectoday]

> Seeing that over 90% of my traffic load was malicious and abusive was frustrating.

That story nailed it.

> If you’re curious, Cloudflare did pay me for the site. We made a deal for them to pay me $8.03; the cost of the domain registration. The goal was never to make money from the site.

A little more than $1, but basically the same idea.

[hotpotamus]

Ah yes, I remembered it as a token amount, but obviously not completely accurate lol. But I worked with the author just a bit, so I used and still use the utility, and it's a shame because he's one of the more gracious people I've come across in the industry.