Hi,
On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:01:20PM +0200, W. Kosior wrote:
> I became extremely concerned when I noticed that
> https://packages.debian.org now includes a bot blocker from Fastly.
> This email is (1) a complaint, (2) a request to the community to come up
> with something that treats users better, and (3) a justification for
> (1) and (2).
You've sent your mail to debian-user, a group of users of Debian like
you. We don't have any authority or ability to speak for the Debian
project nor to effect change in the Debian project's web sites. You may
be better off addressing your concern to the debian-project mailing
list, pr possibly debian-www.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/
https://lists.debian.org/debian-www/
So as regards (1) and (3) we're not the right place.
Having said that, I can't replicate what you're talking about. When I
visit https://packages.debian.org/ in Firefox and Chromium I don't
experience any problems. I do have JavaScript enabled. Are you disabling
that? Are you seeing a captcha or is it something else?
I do know that on the bug tracker web interface Debian is using a
different form of anti-bot software: Haphash. That won't work without
JS enabled.
As regards justification though, again I'm not speaking on behalf of
Debian but I would just note that volunteer efforts don't really need to
justify anything. We're all just trying to get by. When you do contact
Debian I would just stick to describing what doesn't work for you and
asking if it can be done better.
Personally I was a bit dismayed to see things requiring JS put in front
of Debian sites, even though I do routinely allow JS myself. But if
that's what was deemed necessary, so be it.
I don't know what the case is with what you're seeing because I don't
experience it.
I was researching anti-bot mechanisms myself recently, as some of my
sites are experiencing scraper bot problems. The most popular one seems
to be Anubis and that's a JS_based challenge. As is Haphas, as already
mentioned. I also found iocaine:
https://iocaine.madhouse-project.org/
That one doesn't seem to do a JS challenge, but it seemed quite complex
and strange to me. Especially when I started to read that its author's
own configuration was a whole other thing called Nam-Shub of Enki.
https://3.nam-shub-of-enki.iocaine.madhouse-project.org/index.html
The style is a bit impenetrable for me. I'll have to research more.
Thanks,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
