[new]
OK, new bot defence! 😄 Instead of switching on basic authentication when load goes up, I'm going to use a "press this button" form instead. The idea is described by [https://fedi.splitbrain.org/@splitbrain @splitbrain] in the [https://www.patreon.com/posts/fighting-bots-145820472 Fighting Bots] post and the code is adapted from the [https://github.com/splitbrain/botcheck botcheck repository].

I'm sure this will disrupt a lot of bots, services, feed aggregators and other automations, but before looking into all of that I need to know if it does the job it's intended to do.

The idea is that this defence layer is always on which prevents the regular bots from running into the [https://transjovian.org/view/fight-bots/index Butlerian Jihad] defence system which blocks whole autonomous systems. Because /that/ is a really heavy hammer that is affecting a lot of people, unfortunately.

Let's see how it goes. For more info, see [https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2026-02-17-bot-check my blog post].

Text browsers so far:

* ##eww## in Emacs doesn't work;
* ##lynx## works;
* ##w3m## works;
* ##links2## works, if you reload.

-- [[Alex Schroeder]]

[new]
Oh man, I had nearly forgotten that spam is still an issue, in addition to everything else. Thank you very much, [[Cena]], for your tireless efforts!

-- [[Alex Schroeder]]