we’re already in a new epoch, some people are still predicting it and just don’t get it – there is no wave coming, it is a tsunami and we can measure already it’s peak
some time ago I noticed a change in behaviour of search bots and crawlers, I begun logging it and soon I saw the pattern I changed my Unleash Metro Module to handle bot requests differently
I have 5 different websites running, two of them are for my second passion which is photography, one is about my sensual art retro style, all in black&white. Always I was confronted, as well as all other photographers are, with image theft, people believe internet content is common property – an always imminent threat of author and copy rights – but let’s emphasize on the people part
now the scenario has changed, it is not people anymore, a new epoch of organized mass property theft is already running, the new reality is good content be like fuel for AI training, and so, they are harvesting everything what is out there and usable for their intend
whatever country you are in, it is criminal violation of private copyrights, they know that we have very low chances to defend us, no money to sue them on international level – just look at Musk’s latest grok scam, undressing photographies of real persons … but look at what happened, keep reading
my Unleash module already detected successfully bot crawlers and also can clearly distinguish between search engine requests and image crawlers
first measure was, collecting source addresses and observing patterns, then any page request runs through a validator which checks a suspicious request from any source, if it is already in DB, then gets served with uncashed content
after analysing new patterns I got the impression that first all pages and posts are requested, then after 10 minutes, all image links from those pages got crawled directly. it looked like fetching content, targeting only the image links and fetch them directly – still an assumption, not a real pattern, and my collegues said, man, for what, that are kiddy stats you’re collecting – well I said, let’s see
second measure than was, I prepared a small pool of ordinary images, 300px wide and in 50% webp quality, just some kb each file, then I rewrote the direct image requests from those crawlers to serve them the crappy image instead of the high quality site image
then happened something, this days I noticed a peak of new crawler bots coming in, to be exact 350 new /24 nets in 3 hours, next days still more
[02-Feb-2026 13:28:38 Brazil/East] 100 New Bot Nets to be added
[02-Feb-2026 19:30:12 Brazil/East] 42 New Bot Nets to be added
[03-Feb-2026 01:28:50 Brazil/East] 33 New Bot Nets to be added
and a new crawl pattern emerged
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.8 crawling https://diarium.posts
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.6 crawling https://diarium.posts
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.6 crawling https://diarium.posts
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.3 crawling https://diarium.posts
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.2 crawling https://diarium.posts
so far I had 700 constant bots in my DB, collected over a periode of 3 months, now a bunch of new IPs from just one /24 fetching the same page,10-15 minutes after came in the isolated image request s from the same network, the sam,e pattern repeats from all new networks which appeared overnight:
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.202 crawling https://diarium.img-477
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.11 crawling https://diarium.img-480
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.11 crawling https://diarium.img-437
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-467
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-446
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.7 crawling https://diarium.img-971
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.8 crawling https://diarium.img-925
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.11 crawling https://diarium.img-924
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.5 crawling https://diarium.img-949
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.5 crawling https://diarium.img-902
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-982
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.203 crawling https://diarium.img-055021
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.6 crawling https://diarium.img-090332
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.9 crawling https://diarium.img-090444
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.203 crawling https://diarium.img-062339
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.10 crawling https://diarium.img-064434
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.9 crawling https://diarium.img-074447
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-075719-1
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.2 crawling https://diarium.img-070647-1
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-09_13_15
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.242 crawling https://diarium.img-11_04_27
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.9 crawling https://diarium.img-033108-1
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.203 crawling https://diarium.img-030337-1
Unleash cache and minify skipped for bot : 217.113.194.203 crawling https://diarium.img-09_12_34
so what’s about the kiddy idea? was it one? it wasn’t – it was straight on point -organized large scale image theft – the AI comedians behind it, with shameless insolence, they call it harvesting …
cloud platforms like AWS provide the endless, elastic IP ranges that make this scale of distributed harvesting possible and affordable – it’s like a sweep robbery with a giant dragnet
The two-stage pattern is designed to look benign (“just browsing pages!”) until the second wave reveals the true intent. Politeness is the mask. Internet’s stupidity is th door
probably they have already succeeded on thousands, if not millions of websites, I was riding on that wave and watching, I gave them a crappy low res 300px wide 50% webp image to swallow – that actually was the satisfaction, they got what they deserved
trusting my good feelings I saw it coming, despite all smiles around me, I catched the wave, but it is still not that tsunami I am expecting, but it will come, so you still have time to protect your sites – but don’t wait too long
don’t get swallowed, be smart, switch to proactive mode and feed them the shit they deserve soon they are at your door …
meanwhile I keep watching my log, the message is clear, YOU entered my sovereignty, you get what I give you and go rob your mother …
[03-Feb-2026 08:18:26 Brazil/East] Unleash BOT NETS has a new member: 107.20.224 and got served :)
[03-Feb-2026 08:18:34 Brazil/East] Unleash BOT NETS has a new member: 54.86.59 and got served :)
[03-Feb-2026 08:18:37 Brazil/East] Unleash BOT NETS has a new member: 52.22.87 and got served :)
[03-Feb-2026 08:19:06 Brazil/East] Unleash BOT NETS has a new member: 52.3.155 and got served :)
[03-Feb-2026 08:19:14 Brazil/East] Unleash BOT NETS has a new member: 3.220.70 and got served :)
…