Making Sure You're Not a Bot: The Story Behind Anubis

As you try to access our website, you may notice a temporary delay or an unexpected message that asks you to prove you're not a bot. This is all part of a security measure designed to protect our server from the scourge of AI-powered scraping companies that are aggressively scraping websites across the web.

The administrator of this website has set up Anubis, a system that uses a Proof-of-Work scheme similar to Hashcash, which was originally proposed as a solution to reduce email spam. The idea behind Anubis is simple: at an individual level, the added load is negligible, but when it comes to mass scrapers, it becomes expensive and difficult to circumvent.

But why would anyone want to create such a system? It may seem counterintuitive, but ultimately, Anubis serves as a "good enough" placeholder solution that allows more time to be spent on developing fingerprinting techniques to identify headless browsers, which are often used by AI-powered scraping companies. By making it harder for legitimate users to access our website without JavaScript, the challenge page can remain hidden from these malicious actors.

However, Anubis comes with a catch – or rather, multiple catches. Firstly, it requires the use of modern JavaScript features, which plugins like JShelter will disable. This means that you must either disable JShelter or other similar plugins for our website to function properly. Secondly, and more importantly, Anubis requires JavaScript to be enabled in order to pass the challenge.

So, why is this necessary? The social contract around how website hosting works has changed dramatically with the rise of AI-powered scraping companies. These entities have shown that they are willing to compromise on user experience and security to scrape websites quickly and efficiently. As a result, Anubis has become an essential tool in our fight against these malicious actors.

While this may seem like a work-in-progress solution, we're committed to finding a more permanent fix that balances user convenience with website security. Until then, please enable JavaScript and disable any plugins that may interfere with the Anubis challenge page.