**Clive Thompson** @clive@saturation.social · Jan 23, 2025, 18:06 *

**Clive Thompson** @clive@saturation.social · Jan 23, 2025, 18:06 *

Clive Thompson @clive@saturation.social

A hacker developed an "infinite maze" to trap web-crawlers/scrapers from AI companies

basically, if the server code detects that a web crawler from an AI firm is trying to scrape the site ...

... the code begins spinning up an infinite, nesting warren of new sham pages, filled with random text

so the crawler gets stuck crawling and scraping endless and meaningless pages

**Paul Sutton** @zleap@qoto.org · 2025-01-24T08:30:39Z

Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org

I would welcome something like this being integrated in to websites running say WriteAs or at least give people the option.

But as editors of blogs we need better legal protection from scraping which is just another term for copyright violation.