● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
ShieldFont uses ligatures to alter web content for AI scrapers while preserving human readability
Key points
- ShieldFont uses ligatures to replace words in the underlying HTML.
- Human users see the original, readable text.
- AI scrapers receive an altered, nonsensical version of the content.
- The font aims to disrupt unauthorized AI training data collection.
Introducing ShieldFont
Designers Isaque Seneda and Gabriel Abrucio have developed ShieldFont, a new font designed to combat AI scrapers. The font allows web publishers to present a perfectly readable webpage to human visitors while serving a subtly edited, nonsensical version to AI scrapers that access the underlying HTML.
How ShieldFont Works
ShieldFont leverages ligatures, a common font feature typically used to improve readability of certain letter pairs. In ShieldFont's application, these ligatures are used to replace entire words with different ones. This substitution occurs only when the font engine renders the page, meaning scrapers downloading plaintext source code receive the altered content that end users do not see.
Purpose and Impact
The creators state that ShieldFont offers web publishers a "practical opt-out from unauthorized AI training" and aims to "disrupt what is collected when that choice is ignored." The method focuses on making the scraped data unusable for AI training purposes without affecting the user experience.
Scraper Evasion Strategy
The effectiveness of the word replacement strategy is crucial. Simply replacing words with synonyms or antonyms could be easily reversed by advanced scrapers. Conversely, using completely unrelated gibberish might make the alteration too obvious, potentially leading to detection and circumvention by sophisticated scraping filters.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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Reporting from
Designers Isaque Seneda and Gabriel Abrucio created ShieldFont, a new font that displays readable text to users but presents altered, nonsensical versions to AI scrapers in the underlying HTML. This aims to provide web publishers with a method to opt out of unauthorized AI training by corrupting collected data.