Building on an anti-spam cybersecurity tactic known as tarpitting, he created Nepenthes, malicious software named after a carnivorous plant that will “eat just about anything that finds its way inside.”
Aaron clearly warns users that Nepenthes is aggressive malware. It’s not to be deployed by site owners uncomfortable with trapping AI crawlers and sending them down an “infinite maze” of static files with no exit links, where they “get stuck” and “thrash around” for months, he tells users. Once trapped, the crawlers can be fed gibberish data, aka Markov babble, which is designed to poison AI models. That’s likely an appealing bonus feature for any site owners who, like Aaron, are fed up with paying for AI scraping and just want to watch AI burn.
Well, luckily for them, it’s a pretty simple fix. Congrats on being a part of making them jot down a note to prevent tarpitting when they get around to it. You’ve saved the internet!
And stop pretending like you’re unbiased either. We both have our preconceived notions, and you’re not more likely to be open to change yours than I am. In fact, given the hysterical hyperventilating anti-AI “activists” get to, we both know you’re not ever going to change your mind on AI, and as such you’ll glom onto any small action you think is gonna stick it to the man, no matter whether that action is going to have any practical effect on the push for AI or not.