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Cynicus Rex@lemmy.ml to Privacy@lemmy.mlEnglish · 9 months ago

How to block AI Crawler Bots using robots.txt file

www.cyberciti.biz

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How to block AI Crawler Bots using robots.txt file

www.cyberciti.biz

Cynicus Rex@lemmy.ml to Privacy@lemmy.mlEnglish · 9 months ago
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Just a moment...
www.cyberciti.biz
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  • ɐɥO@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
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    9 months ago

    I disallow a page in my robots.txt and ip-ban everyone who goes there. Thats pretty effective.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      Did you ban it in your humans.txt too?

      • bountygiver [any]@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        humans typically don’t visit [website]/fdfjsidfjsidojfi43j435345 when there’s no button that links to it

        • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I used to do this on one of my sites that was moderately popular in the 00’s. I had a link hidden via javascript, so a user couldn’t click it (unless they disabled javascript and clicked it), though it was hidden pretty well for that too.

          IP hits would be put into a log and my script would add a /24 of that subnet into my firewall. I allowed specific IP ranges for some search engines.

          Anyway, it caught a lot of bots. I really just wanted to stop automated attacks and spambots on the web front.

          I also had a honeypot port that basically did the same thing. If you sent packets to it, your /24 was added to the firewall for a week or so. I think I just used netcat to add to yet another log and wrote a script to add those /24’s to iptables.

          I did it because I had so much bad noise on my logs and spambots, it was pretty crazy.

          • Mikelius@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            This thread has provided genius ideas I somehow never thought of, and I’m totally stealing them for my sites lol.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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          9 months ago

          I LOVE VISITING FDFJSIDFJSIDOJFI435345 ON HUMAN WEBSITES, IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE HUMAN HOBBIES. 🤖👨

    • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Can you explain this more?

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        9 months ago

        Imagine posting a rule that says “do not walk on the grass” among other rules and then banning anyone who steps on the grass with the thought process that if they didn’t obey that rule they were likely disobeying other rules. Except the grass is somewhere that no one would see unless they actually read the rules. The rules were the only place that mentioned that grass.

        • Anonymouse@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I like the Van Halen brown M&M version. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-did-van-halen-demand-concert-venues-remove-brown-mms-from-the-menu-180982570/

    • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
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      9 months ago

      Is the page linked in the site anywhere, or just mentioned in the robots.txt file?

      • ɐɥO@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
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        9 months ago

        Only in the robots.txt

        • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
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          9 months ago

          Excellent.

          I think I might be able to create a fail2ban rule for that.

    • asudox@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Not sure if that is effective at all. Why would a crawler check the robots.txt if it’s programmed to ignore it anyways?

      • ɐɥO@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
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        9 months ago

        cause many crawlers seem to explicitly crawl “forbidden” sites

      • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Google and script kiddies copying code…

      • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        You could also place the same page as a hidden link on your home page.

    • whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      smart

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I doubt it’d be possible in most any way due to lack of server control, but I’m definitely gonna have to look this up to see if anything similar could be done on a neocities site.

    • spookedintownsville@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Can this be done without fail2ban?

      • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        Should be able to do it with Crowdsec

      • ɐɥO@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
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        9 months ago

        probably. never used it tho

        • spookedintownsville@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          How did you do it? Looking to do this on my own site.

          • ɐɥO@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
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            9 months ago

            My websites Backend is written in flask so it was pretty easy to add

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