Comment on Cheapskate's Guide: Nuking web-scraping bots
sxan@midwest.social 4 weeks agoYou’re saying targeting people who are taking steps to improve their privacy and security is ethical? Out do you just believe that there’s no such thing as ethics in CIS?
elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say that. Targeting sounds like specifically doing it with an agenda.
What you’re saying the equivalent of being offended that you can’t bring guns inside someone’s private property. “It is not ethical that you forbid me to exercise my constitutional rights of bearing arms in your house. How dare you not allowing me to put my AK-47 in your kitchen counter!”
Nope. I said that if someone doesn’t want to deal with VPN users because it’s more hassle than worth (e.g. bots), then so be it. Joe Blogger may get 20 visitors a month instead of 24. Oh the horror!
I am a huge advocate of privacy laws. But if Joe Blogger doesn’t allow me in his personal website, eh. I might try archive.org.
sxan@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Hold on a tick.
Specifically blacklisting a group of users because of the technology they use is, by definition, “targeting”, right? I mean, if not, what qualifies as “targeting” for you?
And, yeah. Posting a sign saying “No Nazi symbolism is allowed in this establishment” is - I would claim - targeting Nazis. Same as posting a sign, “no blacks allowed” - you’re saying that’s not targeting?
I know we’re arguing definitions and have strayed from the original topic, but I think this is an important point to clarify, since you took specific objection to my use of it in that context; and because I’m being pedantic about it.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You may be right. I guess it’s a matter of semantics. But the way you described it sounded more nefarious. “I’ll target this group of VPN users because fuck them, I hope they all die in a tsunami!!!” when it’s more like “ugh, another VPN bot. The 9th this hour and I’m hungry. You know what - I’ll just block VPN altogether and go fix me a sandwich.” Maybe that’s just my perception.
But anyway - it’s Joe Blogger’s machine, at his home, for him to do whatever he likes. Some rando from the street knocks on the door and says “excuse me, do you mind if I send an e-mail from your computer?” Joe Blogger can perfectly say no, not even an excuse is owed.
You’d have a point if it was a business or a corporation. Some home machine? Out of billions? Why bother?
I guess we’re two pedantic folks. I enjoy these discussions. I sometimes gain some new knowledge out of them.
sxan@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Oh. Yeah, I don’t think they’re being malicious; I just get frustrated with that sort of behavior. The primary DNS servers for usps.com, neakasa.com, and vitacost.com all block DNS queries from Mullvad’s DNS servers, and one of them blocks all traffic from at least some of Mullvad’s exit nodes. It means I have to waste time working around these blocks, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to take down the house VPN just to visit their stupid sites. So, I hard-code DNS entries for them, and route traffic to the one through one of my VPSes. It’s annoying, a waste of my time, and I’m just generally offended by the whiff of surveillance state about it, even when that’s not the reason why they’re doing it.
Really, it boils down to the fact that I’m offended by the presumption that their (not OP, but VPN-hostile companies in general) anti-spam or whatever they’re trying to accomplish takes priority over my right to privacy. So, yeah; I generally have a bone to pick with any site that’s hostile to VPNs.
I have no doubt at all that you’re right. And, they have no obligation to accommodate me (which I think is not true for companies I’m trying to do business with).
I’m just uppity about the topic, is all.
I’ll happily have a cordial disagreement with anyone arguing in good faith. It’s echo-ey enough, and these are good conversations.