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█ █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m[38;5;10m
[38;5;7m█[38;5;10m C[38;5;14mO[38;5;13mL[38;5;11mO[38;5;15mR[38;5;12mZ[38;5;7m █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m
█ █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m[38;5;10m
[38;5;7m█ [38;5;10m... in an attempt to deliberatly confuse[38;5;7m █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m[38;5;10m
[38;5;7m█[38;5;10m spiders and robots crawling my gopher hole in[38;5;7m █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m[38;5;10m
[38;5;7m█[38;5;10m search for content to feed LLM "ai" datasets.[38;5;7m █[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m
█[38;5;10m [38;5;7m█[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m
██████████████████████████████████████████████████[38;5;8m▒░[38;5;7m
[38;5;8m░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░[38;5;7m
[38;5;14mOk ok ok,... so I've been a bit quiet lately. There's a few reasons[38;5;7m
[38;5;14mfor that:[38;5;7m
[38;5;14m1) R34L L1F3 STUFFs... [38;5;6mAdmittedly things have been a bit rough[38;5;7m
[38;5;6mlately. My wife has been struggling with some health issues[38;5;7m
[38;5;6mand I've been spending most of my time helping her out.[38;5;7m
[38;5;14m2) TR4V3LZzz... [38;5;6mI visited the homeland (Belgium) for 2 weeks, it[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
was fun but also extremely stressful and exhausing. Many[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
things went wrong. Long story.[38;5;7m
[38;5;14m3) W0RLD STUFFs... [38;5;6mShit's seriously fucked up lately. Alas, the
internet we once knew is no more. It seems no where is safe[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
any longer... and that's kind of what I wanted to talk about[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
in this post.[38;5;7m[38;5;8m
A few[38;5;7m months ago, I happen to notice some crazy spikes in my [38;5;15mgophe[38;5;7mr[38;5;8m
server [38;5;7mstats. It is not unusual for various robots and spid[38;5;15mers to[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mcrawl my[38;5;7m gopher s[38;5;9merver [38;5;7mfor indexing an[38;5;9md what[38;5;7m not, but this [38;5;15mwas ver[38;5;7my[38;5;8m
unlike an[38;5;7mything e[38;5;9mlse. I[38;5;7mn the span of a[38;5;9m few h[38;5;7mours, my serve[38;5;15mr receive[38;5;7md[38;5;8m
26699 req[38;5;7muests. T[38;5;9mhat's [38;5;7mthe highest rat[38;5;9me this[38;5;7m server has ev[38;5;15mer had to[38;5;7m[38;5;8m
serve. So[38;5;7m I dug a bit deeper into my dashboard and sure e[38;5;15mnough, all[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mIP's doi[38;5;7mng the crawling belon[38;5;9mged to[38;5;7m Yandex. You may kno[38;5;15mw Yandex as[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mthe Ru[38;5;7mssian equivalent [38;5;9mof Google. And[38;5;7m sure enough, th[38;5;15mey are also[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mworking[38;5;7m on building A[38;5;9mI crap. Seeing gophe[38;5;7mr DIRECTLY i[38;5;15mndexed by one[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mof these [38;5;7mhuge comp[38;5;9manies was kind of a shock[38;5;7m to me. I[38;5;15m did not expec[38;5;7mt[38;5;8m
this, but [38;5;7mI gues[38;5;9ms I shoul[38;5;7md have see[38;5;9mn it com[38;5;7mming wi[38;5;15mth all of these[38;5;8m
companies try[38;5;7ming t[38;5;9mo one-u[38;5;7mp one another [38;5;9min the[38;5;7m new A[38;5;15mI boom, gopher is[38;5;8m
prime loot [38;5;7mfor t[38;5;9mhem,[38;5;7m given that it's al[38;5;9ml hi[38;5;15mgh quality text-only[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mcont[38;5;7ment, often of a highly technica[38;5;15ml nature.[38;5;7m
Well,...
▄▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄▄ ▀ ▀
▄ █ ▀ █▄ ▄ █ █ ▄▄▄▄▄▄
▀▄ ▀▄ █ █ █ █ █ █[38;5;8m
[38;5;7m▀▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀[38;5;8m
I g[38;5;7muess truly there is no safe places left. :( Because of this I[38;5;15m've[38;5;8m
bec[38;5;7mome very disheartened and demotivated to post anything mor[38;5;15me on[38;5;8m
goph[38;5;7mer. What's the point if it's all to be ingested into so[38;5;15mme AI[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mdata[38;5;7mset anyway? I have blocked yandex' IP ranges, but it i[38;5;15ms of too[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mlit[38;5;7mtle too late of course, the ingestion has already happ[38;5;15mened.[38;5;8m
Also, all of my HTTP stuff got ingested by Microsoft's AI dataset,[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mcompletely ignoring robots.txt ---- COOL.
Now [38;5;7mwe're also[38;5;9m hea[38;5;7mring about META spinning[38;5;9m up a [38;5;7mmastodon instanc[38;5;15me s[38;5;7mo[38;5;8m
they[38;5;7m can inges[38;5;9mt al[38;5;7ml of that sweet mastodon[38;5;9m chatt[38;5;7mer. Sigh. It r[38;5;15meally[38;5;7m[38;5;8m
just[38;5;7m made me w[38;5;9mant [38;5;7mto unplug my rj11 and go[38;5;9m perma[38;5;7m-offline. But[38;5;15m that'[38;5;7ms[38;5;8m
not re[38;5;7mally an o[38;5;9mpti[38;5;7mon. And also awefully defeatist. So instead[38;5;15m, I[38;5;8m
decide[38;5;7md to do something fun. I figured, why not run a BBS se[38;5;15mrver?![38;5;8m
With m[38;5;7most BBS'es[38;5;9m, y[38;5;7mou typically have to sign[38;5;9m up[38;5;7m for a usern[38;5;15mame firs[38;5;7mt[38;5;8m
and fi[38;5;7mll out som[38;5;9me fo[38;5;7mrm fields that at least[38;5;9m pro[38;5;7mve you're h[38;5;15muman. Thi[38;5;7ms[38;5;8m
is dif[38;5;7mferent fro[38;5;9mm havin[38;5;7mg to provide persona[38;5;9ml in[38;5;7mfo at your[38;5;15m typical[38;5;8m
corp0 [38;5;7msign-up fo[38;5;9mrm. I don'[38;5;7mt care about yo[38;5;9mur R33[38;5;7mL name or[38;5;15m your shoe[38;5;8m
size. I[38;5;7m just want[38;5;9m to know you're a human with [38;5;7minterest [38;5;15min wha[38;5;7mt[38;5;15m's o[38;5;7mn[38;5;8m
the boa[38;5;7mrd.[38;5;8m
... So I s[38;5;7mtarted lo[38;5;9moking at what's out t[38;5;7mhere,... M[38;5;15mYSTIC, ENIGMA,[38;5;8m
SYNCHRONET, e[38;5;7mtc,... they all[38;5;9m have their [38;5;7mproblems. [38;5;15mMystic is not open[38;5;8m
source any mo[38;5;7mre. Enigma is evil javascript. Synch[38;5;15mronet i[38;5;7ms[38;5;15m C but a[38;5;8m
terrible huge[38;5;7m codebase with a lot of dependencies[38;5;15m. The[38;5;7mre'[38;5;15ms little to[38;5;8m
no hope of g[38;5;7metting that to run on my solaris/spar[38;5;15mc server. So,...[38;5;8m
Nat[38;5;7murally I decided to do what any self[38;5;15m respecting h4x0r would, and[38;5;8m
fig[38;5;7mured I'd roll my own. Thusly, I brin[38;5;15mg you:[38;5;7m
[38;5;15m
[38;5;1mREVOLT[0m[38;5;9mBBS: [38;5;15m
https://linkerror.com:11175/jns/RevoltBBS[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mThis[38;5;7m thing is written in TRVECVLT C++ - all you nee[38;5;15md is a compiler[38;5;7m
[38;5;8mthat can [38;5;7mdo C++17 and an OS with either epoll or k[38;5;15mqueues, and a[38;5;8m
functional [38;5;7mlibcrypt - that's most POSIXy OSes afai[38;5;15mk. Excludes M$[38;5;8m
Wind0ze, sorr[38;5;7my not sorry. - and Lua. - No other de[38;5;15mpendencies. Nada.[38;5;7m[38;5;8m
Whilst the server [38;5;7mis implemented in[38;5;15m C++, it is intended to be fully[38;5;7m[38;5;8m
scriptable with lu[38;5;7ma - look in the d[38;5;15mata/ folder for examples of ho[38;5;7mw[38;5;8m
the current functi[38;5;7monality is implem[38;5;15mented.[38;5;8m
It is of [38;5;7mcourse, like most of my stuff, very much a work in p[38;5;15mrogress[38;5;8m
- It is[38;5;7m capable of serving telnet and you can def[38;5;15minitively write[38;5;8m
menus [38;5;7mand even little games in lua as [38;5;15mit stands though - but I'm[38;5;8m
stil[38;5;7ml working on file upload functi[38;5;15monality and figuring out how all[38;5;8m
the[38;5;7m XYZ-modem stuff is supposed to [38;5;15mwork.[38;5;8m
[38;5;7m
[38;5;6m
Aaanyhow... Moving all my [0m[38;5;14mstuff over to a BBS is [38;5;6mof[0m[38;5;14m co[38;5;15murse not[38;5;6m
particularly ideal eithe[0m[38;5;14mr. For one, gopher, and the s[38;5;15mmolnet at[38;5;6m
large[38;5;7m [38;5;6mare a community. O[0m[38;5;14mne I am happy (and privileged[38;5;15m) to be a[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
part of. For two, it's[0m[38;5;14m by no means a fool-proof sol[38;5;15mution.[38;5;7m
[38;5;6mAs such, I took some other mea[0m[38;5;14msures, like banning the [38;5;15mentirety[38;5;6m
of Yandex, Microsoft, Google, A[0m[38;5;14mmazon, and Meta at the fire[38;5;15mwall level[38;5;7m[38;5;6m
by banning their ASNs. Should a[0m[38;5;14mnyone want to follow suit, this [38;5;15mcan[38;5;6m
be accomplished relatively easi[0m[38;5;14mly if you're running one of the B[38;5;15mSDs[38;5;6m
with pf-badhost (
https://www.g[0m[38;5;14meog[38;5;6mh[0m[38;5;14megan.ca/pfbadhost.html ) - wh[38;5;15mich[38;5;6m
is essentially a little script [0m[38;5;14myou can shove in cron that will[38;5;6m
periodically check blacklist an[0m[38;5;14md BGP routes and update your fi[38;5;15mrewall[38;5;6m
rules accordingly. To block AN [0m[38;5;14mnumbers, just edit the script [38;5;15mand[38;5;6m
find the section where an examp[0m[38;5;14mle AN is already listed. Thes[38;5;15me should[38;5;6m
get you started:[38;5;7m
[38;5;6m[0m
Microsoft: AS8075
Yandex: AS13238
Amazon: AS14618
Google: AS15169
Amazon: AS16509
Google: AS16550
Google: AS19527
Meta: AS32934
Google: AS36040
Amazon: AS36263
Google: AS36492
Google: AS43515
Amazon: AS46489
Meta: AS54115
Meta: AS63293
Google: AS139070
Google: AS139190
Yandex: AS208722
Google: AS396982
[38;5;6m
Lastly, as a consequence of this,[0m[38;5;14m it is possible that[38;5;15m some people[38;5;6m
accessing gopher via a server or [0m[38;5;14mproxy on a cloud [38;5;15mservice of one o[38;5;14mf[38;5;6m
these companies can no longer acc[0m[38;5;14mess my gopher h[38;5;15mole. If that's the[38;5;14m[38;5;6m
case for you,... [0m[38;5;14mwell, I guess sorr[38;5;15my not sorry ;)[38;5;7m
( one unfortunate consequence in my case of this, is that anyone who
has a mastodon instance on a cloud service hosted by one of these
companies, will no longer be able to fetch posts from my server -
but ... oh well. something something omlettes & eggz )
[38;5;1m▄▀[38;5;7m
[38;5;1m▄▀█ ▄▀ █ █ [38;5;0m▄[48;5;1m▀[38;5;1m[49m▀█ █ █▀█▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀[38;5;7m
[38;5;1m▄▀█ ▀█▀ █ █ █ █ █ █[38;5;7m[38;5;1m
[38;5;1m▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▀ ▀▀ ▀▀ ▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▄[38;5;7m
Update: The_Gibson of htown joined 2600's Off the Hook show on WBAI
to talk about a lot of these issues. You can find the audio in their
archive here:
https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=41719
or on the 2600 website:
https://2600.com/hook/05-07-2023