[altairprime]

There’s no substitute for 401 Auth Required with a resource description of “Please enter any username or password to proceed”. Automated scrapers would be legally liable under US criminal hacking statutes if they started attempting random credentials at random sites, even if one claimed that an AI interpreted the message to indicate it was permissible; meanwhile, human beings can simply follow the directions to be authorized access without vulnerability under any common sense interpretation by a judge.