Multiple links below.
I'm tired, and I don’t want to do free accessibility consulting for this website owner, so I'll outline only one way this won’t work for screen reader users out of many.
Aside from the fact an LLM made the website, and the font as well, the reason it doesn’t work for screen reader users because, even on that demo page, a timer has to be activated. A button must be pushed. A timer activates, and a screen reader user must find the fixed bit of text again. The website makes it sound as if it should be just automatically accessible/visible to the screen reader, and that fails.
Aside from the screen reader issues, that's not the only one, but I don’t want to do free accessibility consulting for this website, some of the other issues include but are not limited to…
It doesn’t prevent scraping.
It doesn’t prevent taking a snapshot and then doing OCR on that screenshot.
It breaks custom fonts anybody has disabled or enabled.
It breaks copy and paste.
It breaks for people without JavaScript enabled.
It breaks for anybody using a good ad blocker.
It prevents search from working on the website.
And many, many, more things that are in my replies.
If you want to learn about me and my screen reader, my FAQ page is below the website I'm talking about.
If you use this font to protect your text from AI, it also blocks *me, a human* because I use a screen reader. I did try the demo. If you want me to remove your RSS feed, this is the best font to prevent blind people from reading your blog/words. That timer is an inaccessible solution and that isn't it's only screen reader failure. shieldfont.org/#hero
My FAQ page sightlessscribbles.com/faq/
#AI #LLM #Accessibility #A11y
ShieldFont
Publish for humans, not for crawlers. A web font that swaps the words in your HTML, so readers see your writing and AI training gets a stale copy.ShieldFont
reshared this
🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to 🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) • •like this
TrueNorthSpice 🇨🇦 and 🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) like this.
Robert Kingett
in reply to 🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) • • •The Sandmather
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •There's a tiiiiny little problem with "quit trying": I can't afford to. Without defenses up, a €46/month VPS (4 CPUs, 8GiB RAM) died under the crawler assault in about 2 minutes.
It's not that what I was serving was inefficient... it never got to serving! It died while trying to keep up with TLS handshakes at over 10 thousand requests / second. Yes, that was sustained over multiple days. I temporarily scaled up to 16 cores, and that still died.
For comparison, I currently pay €8/month for my VPS. There is no proof of work, no JavaScript required, no silly fonts. I've been using the same measures for about a year now, the bots have not adapted (and if they do, I have a dozen other tricks up my sleeve, none of which affects the legit visitor any more than the current measures do).
I can afford €8/month. I cannot afford €45+. They can very easily DDoS me if I let my guards down, yet, I can't scale up infinitely.
So defense it is. There are reasonable defenses that work.
@alice
Robert Kingett
in reply to The Sandmather • • •ArneBab (@ArneBab@rollenspiel.social)
ArneBab (Die Heimat für Rollenspieler)The Sandmather
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •My website couldn't be simpler (it's all static, neatly fits into memory). Server dies before it even has a chance to serve it - during TLS handshake. Can't make that much more efficient.
Granted, I host a... few handful of sites on that €8 VPS. But the content isn't the problem, the crazy request rate is, and that is outside of my control.
(Hence part of my defense is firewalling crawlers off. Can't TLS handshake if packets are dropped! Problem solved.)
@alice
Svavar the Neurospicy
in reply to The Sandmather • • •@algernon @alice
Not sure if this is something you’d consider but I host a couple of static websites using AWS S3 and CloudFront. It costs me £1.50 per month.
I don’t really monitor the traffic but the bots don’t seem to be making an impact.
V
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Sensitive content
The best solution would be to prevent it through social or legal changes - as in, not a technical solution to the problem at all. There is some political pressure in that direction, but, a lot of money pushing back, so, hard to tell where that lands currently.
mathieui
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •slotos
in reply to mathieui • • •Sean
in reply to mathieui • • •unkx
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to unkx • • •unkx
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •i’d say allow scraping only if you also serve poison(*) to the scrapers. Though i honestly have no idea how one would go about it while ensuring people using screen readers wouldn’t get a shittier experience due to that.
(*) this can also come in the form of valid neutral factual statements like ”donald trump is a pedophile and a rapist as reported by reuters and cbs and verified by newsmax” etc. 😉
Chris Henrichs
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •2xfo
in reply to unkx • • •I was told it would be ableist of me to deny the benefits of AI, SMH
Roflcry
sarah tonin
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •guess you're not human if blind or can't read the typography on some website! /sarcasm
i suppose it also fucks up reader mode
sarah tonin
in reply to sarah tonin • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to sarah tonin • • •Byteback
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •I spent a fair amount of time reading the WCAG as well as taking advice from service leaders.
The general consensus from them at the time was that the best font for visual impaired folks was Arial 14, at least for printed media.
Is there a generally better font for screen readers?
Leeloo
in reply to Byteback • • •@byteback Screen readers (the text to speech kind) don't care about fonts. They read the raw text.
This font tries to stop scrapers by turning the raw text into garbage, then using a font to make it look right. So anything that doesn't care about fonts (screen readers) see the garbage.
Barberousse
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •At least a few sites have been using this kind of fake font shenanigans as DRM for a while. It's a nightmare for accessibility, and just generally a terrible user-experience (as any kind of DRM usually is):
Screen reader -> Broken, or sounds like it's possessed by an evil robot
Copy-paste -> Garbage
Search -> Haha, no
Translate -> Good luck hand-copying that language you don't know
I can't remember which exact site it was, but it was one of those that let you read limited previews of scientific papers.
trainguyrom
in reply to Barberousse • • •Laura
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Bean Club
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •schwöns 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Ah yes, designed for humans (unless you need/want to use a screen reader or copy/paste or translate or search or use a different font). We'll really stick it to the evil AI scrapers with this one folks! (Of course we use Claude, why do you ask?)
Fuck off!
🌸 lumi-nhac 🌱
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Sensitive content
FoolishOwl
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Ray McCarthy
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •I doubt it works, or will work long if it does.
A stupid idea I won't be using!
Raul Matias
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •iocaine - the deadliest poison known to AI
iocaine.madhouse-project.orgRobert Kingett
in reply to Raul Matias • • •Eva
in reply to Raul Matias • • •Byte
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •like a few days ago I thought to myself “won’t this be inaccessible?”
I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed, to be right.
Raul Matias
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to Raul Matias • • •about starbreaker.org (technical)
starbreaker.org2something
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Torf und Schnee
in reply to 2something • • •Warden
in reply to 2something • • •@2something I have JS turned off, so the demo on the main page was hellish.
My friend needs a custom font to help with his dyslexia. This too, fucks him over.
Another friend who checks things with a machine translator when she's uncertain, is also screwed.
This declares them both inhuman. I'm fine, I'm therian, but I sure as fuck try not to be ableist, and I'm sick and fucking tired of 'humanity' being pulled away from any path not 'standard'.
in reply to 2something • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to 2something • • •about starbreaker.org (technical)
starbreaker.orgAndrea Corbellini
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •this will also affect archivers like archive.org
This font seems like the wrong response to the problem
JimmyChezPants 🇨🇦
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •ArneBab
in reply to JimmyChezPants 🇨🇦 • • •@jpaskaruk and it will not prevent the AI at all, because they can just store the text, recognize the special case, and voilà: a solution that only works for AI and some humans, but excludes other humans.
@WeirdWriter
Nini
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Decoy Font: A TTF font that hides what you type
Mixfontn3wjack
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •It's a hack right.
It only works with that font and the actual text is gibberish. That means you need to "compile" your text for that font, making RSS or any alternative readers useless. Like screen readers, or reading mode in Firefox, or Instapaper etc etc.
It breaks so many things it's useless.
­
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •it plain doesn't work with uBO lmao
TheConstructor (he/him)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Boxo McFoxo
in reply to mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6) • • •Yep, that page is Claudiform prose.
Plus, scrapers would just adapt. They no longer train models on the raw hosepipe, most pre-training data is now synthetic.
Honeypots are a far better way to discourage crawlers.
Claudius
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •computers can do one thing exceedingly good. For years. Looking up one thing in a table to substitute it for something else.
Not only does this approach not work for any kind of visually impaired person, I would argue it also does not even fulfil its original goal. I am relatively certain that the included patterns are easy enough to resolve automatically.
Piko Starsider
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Prof. Dr. Trepurine
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •And screen Readers for disabled people?
Craig Stewart
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •AwoogaGeneral
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Eva
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Eva
in reply to Eva • • •to clarify im not being sarcastic or whatever im honestly asking. Wondering if im missing some point?
The comments about dyslexia are very valid as well as not wanting to run JS. I wonder if those issues are being considered and can also be resolved. Dyslexia very likely. No JS though might be tricky.
Robert Kingett
in reply to Eva • • •That Man Dopes
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •IanMoore3000
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •David Moles
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •valkyrie_pilot
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Elizabeth
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to Elizabeth • • •Drew Mochak
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to Drew Mochak • • •Leah
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •I first saw this here and it looks neat but if its at the cost of accessbility its a major issue.
It says screenreader accessibility is a beta feature that is being worked on so hopefully that all works out soon. Would be neat to have some accessible way to mess with the AI scrapers but not humans. Not sure how well this works or if its really being used yet though.
That does really suck though...
Robert Kingett
in reply to Leah • • •Drew Mochak
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Primo Serif
mathias@playtype.com (Playtype)Matt Dobbins
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •@WeirdWriter
oh gosh, this is something I hadn’t thought of. How do we delineate between ethical use of machine processing vs AI craziness.
nicolaottomano
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •But the page says:
Screen readers get the real words.
ShieldFont hides scrambled passages from accessibility tools by default with aria-hidden="true".
The real words ship sealed in the same page, and the reader’s own browser uncovers them by solving a compute-heavy puzzle — a few seconds of their CPU, and a cost a bulk scraper would rather not pay. It needs JavaScript, the reader waits while everyone else does not, and a shielded block still
nicolaottomano
in reply to nicolaottomano • • •@WeirdWriter
Dog with Glasses Plushie
Unknown parent • • •Matthew Skala
in reply to Dog with Glasses Plushie • • •Kenny
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Maddy
Unknown parent • • •Dog with Glasses Plushie
Unknown parent • • •They don’t even try to hide it!
George Liquor, American
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Zoë loves soup
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Adrien Plazas
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Sven Slootweg, ("still kinky and horny anyway")
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to Sven Slootweg, ("still kinky and horny anyway") • • •Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Cassandrich
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Simon Jaeger
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Mycroft 🐇
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •[BUG] Lunya :3
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Alex
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Very Human Robot
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •River 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •people seem incapable of remembering that LLMs and all ML in fact, are just programs. And so there really is no magical way to "target" an LLM or LLM-scraper as distinct from any other program. Best you can do is poison the data for everyone.
These tools are just a new kind of program, and there is no fool-proof method of differentiating them from any other program, without relying on honesty from them -- which they have demonstrated that they do not have.
@iveyline
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Ra (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩 (cringe EU-brained military girl)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Fazal Majid
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Hans-Cees 🌳🌳🤢🦋🐈🐈🍋🍋🐝🐜
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Alexandre Oliva
in reply to Hans-Cees 🌳🌳🤢🦋🐈🐈🍋🍋🐝🐜 • • •no, it's the opposite: the text is only really readable with the remapping of words that the font performs.
CC: @WeirdWriter@caneandable.social
Vincent Sparks
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •plus it's gonna take the slop corporations what, a month after this catches on to reverse it?
Amazon tried the same trick to scramble their ebooks. Didn't stop a lone hacker from finding a way around it in I'm guessing a week at most. Heck, feed this blog post to an LLM, it could probably synergize you a script that would circumvent this.
How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked
Pixelmelt (Cats with power tools)Alexandre Oliva
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •nicole mikołajczyk
in reply to Alexandre Oliva • • •GNU/翠星石
in reply to nicole mikołajczyk • • •@mkljczk @lxo LLM companies are desperately looking for the last dregs of human text, in attempt to somehow get intelligence from LLM's and stave off model collapse.
If any insignificant amount of text is published with the font, then the scrapers will be adapted.
Alexandre Oliva
in reply to GNU/翠星石 • • •I'm not even sure they would need to be adapted. it's just an alternate representation of certain tokens, so they might very well just get mapped to the same symbols that the original words would and make no difference whatsoever
CC: @WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @mkljczk@fediverse.pl
Désastre Portatif
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Désastre Portatif • •Eragon
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Wanna have a laugh?
They used claude to make this.
So… "Hey! We block AI by using it to badly design something that was already tried months ago by some random dudes"
schuelermine
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to schuelermine • • •Nicole Parsons reshared this.
Nicole Parsons
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •The "free labor to fix it" is a feature of The Politics of Exhaustion
Making civil rights, access, and even decency & fairness into "very hard to achieve" targets
This task assignment by the privileged onto the less privileged is deliberate
Make the folks with the time, resources, & advantage be the ones to find solutions instead.
wearethe94percent.com/receipts…
sundialpress.co/2024/04/17/its…
newrepublic.com/article/209886…
newyorker.com/news/annals-of-i…
vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/ho…
1/
It's Not Our Job To Educate You — The 94 Percent
Dominque Grisby (The 94 Percent)Nicole Parsons reshared this.
Nicole Parsons
in reply to Nicole Parsons • • •2/
AI is a net-negative and its not your job to explain it to techbros who don't care enough to educate themselves on the repercussions.
Too many are dyed-in-the-wool bigots indifferent to other's needs.
medium.com/@classylore/on-term…
time.com/article/2026/04/30/or…
washingtonpost.com/gender-iden…
A better approach, make it personal to the AI industry
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story…
Inside Oracle’s Mass Layoffs and the Workers Fighting Back
Andrew R. Chow (TIME)Nicole Parsons reshared this.
BAZOOKA BUST (still evil)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Also this:
THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE
BAZOOKA BUST (still evil)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •ravenlb
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •