Sorry, you are not allowed to access tcrf.net right now.
If you are using a VPN, try disabling it first. We block many VPNs because of abuse.
If that does not work, the block may be due to one of the following reasons:
You are connecting using a network we have blocked.
Your connection is still using a VPN or proxy (incl. Apple Private Wi-Fi, CloudFlare relays, etc.)
You are a badly-behaving or unwelcome bot (ChatGPT, bingbot, yandex, etc.)
You are using a badly-behaving extension (eg. Imagus, etc) that is trying to load every single version of a file in the background
If you were able to view pages before, and this error message has suddenly appeared in place of what you were expecting, make sure you are not running any extensions or tools that are attempting to download everything at once. It is possible you were manually blocked, and it might be removed soon. If not, well, sorry.
If this page always apppeared, there is likely not a lot you can do. If you are using a VPN, turn off your VPN and try again.
Sorry for the trouble. We have been under a long-running DDoS attack.
From my logging, most people can access it just fine.
As for "what gives", I have no idea. The article itself isn't interesting and doesn't contain much of value; the "game" itself is what is interesting, but that's not what the article is there to cover.
So my guess is it's just only the people who can't see it, because for others there's not really much to discuss. I don't know why this was even posted here, to be honest.
I had some good fun writing non-gaming apps for the playdate console including a browser [1] and Kagi news mirror [2] and feel the device has great potential as an alternative to android/iOS duopoly
Yeah, the community run TCRF wiki is banning VPNs just so they can mine your data along with the luxurious $400/mo they're getting from Patreon. And not because they're constantly being besieged by rampant bots that they have to resort to such drastic measures.
This is fascinating to me, because you just said you can't see it, but also that there are "trackers from multiple big corporations". Can you tell me what those are?
I ask primarily because we explicitly don't use any trackers, to a degree I actually pride myself on running a website that doesn't contact anything else:
https://mini.xkeeper.net/private/C58L77azpY.png
The sole exceptions are YouTube embeds, afaik. I even switched out the MediaWiki and CC badges to be local.
uBlock Origin shows nothing out of the ordinary but Youtube, Google and Doubleclick, so Google, Google and Google, and I assume all of those are due to the embed.
The story has not changed much. Every so often I will remove most of the blocks put in place, and within a few hours I'm back to having to block them. Many of the cheaper VPNs are also hosted on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure (or other cloud providers), which are also unilaterally blocked.
I would much prefer we did not have to do this, but it is what it is.
VPNs even from big public providers have not been a reliable way to protect anonymity for a while now. Use VPNs for cryptographic security and circumventing region control.
The problem is the whack-a-mole game with hackers and script kiddies. It used to be the case that banning known colo ASNs was enough to get rid of nuisance by STROs, then there was a flood of hacked routers being used for DDoS that was really annoying to get rid of, and then came "residential IP" VPNs and commercial VPNs, both of which get routinely abused by AI scrapers and frankly, the AI scrapers are a worse enemy than the skiddies of 10 years ago. They ruin everything.
And you as a site operator can't really tell apart skiddies, griefers, AI scrapers and legitimate users apart any more.
The "you might be a bot" bullet point now explicitly listing ChatGPT is a pretty good snapshot of where the web is in 2026. For years sites optimized for search engine crawlers; now they're increasingly optimizing against AI crawlers. It's a fundamental shift in who site operators see as their largest source of unwanted traffic.
It's probably a bot account that tried to read the article to come up with a reasonable comment, but TCRF likely serves a "you're a bot, go away" static response page when it's accessed by bots. Pretty funny.
There do seem to be annoying false positives, but this particular account really is a bit strange. Months of silence after signing up, and then this non sequitur…
Access seems pretty strict
——
403 Forbidden
You are unable to access this site.
Sorry, you are not allowed to access tcrf.net right now.
If you are using a VPN, try disabling it first. We block many VPNs because of abuse.
If that does not work, the block may be due to one of the following reasons:
You are connecting using a network we have blocked. Your connection is still using a VPN or proxy (incl. Apple Private Wi-Fi, CloudFlare relays, etc.) You are a badly-behaving or unwelcome bot (ChatGPT, bingbot, yandex, etc.) You are using a badly-behaving extension (eg. Imagus, etc) that is trying to load every single version of a file in the background If you were able to view pages before, and this error message has suddenly appeared in place of what you were expecting, make sure you are not running any extensions or tools that are attempting to download everything at once. It is possible you were manually blocked, and it might be removed soon. If not, well, sorry.
If this page always apppeared, there is likely not a lot you can do. If you are using a VPN, turn off your VPN and try again.
Sorry for the trouble. We have been under a long-running DDoS attack.
403 Forbidden is just the modern version of blowing into the cartridge.
That's weird, I can connect just fine over mullvad.
I'm on Mullvad and got blocked.
30 out of 34 comments are about the content blocking.
Only four comments are about the content of the article, and none of them really go into depth.
This has been at the top of HN all day. If people can't see it, what gives?
People who can see the article can see that it's incredibly mid and not worth commenting on.
But for people who can't see the article, it could be anything! For all they know, they're being kept out of the greatest content of all time!
From my logging, most people can access it just fine.
As for "what gives", I have no idea. The article itself isn't interesting and doesn't contain much of value; the "game" itself is what is interesting, but that's not what the article is there to cover.
So my guess is it's just only the people who can't see it, because for others there's not really much to discuss. I don't know why this was even posted here, to be honest.
I had some good fun writing non-gaming apps for the playdate console including a browser [1] and Kagi news mirror [2] and feel the device has great potential as an alternative to android/iOS duopoly
[1]: https://github.com/remysucre/ORBIT
[2]: https://github.com/remysucre/cranky-news
Blocking Apple iCloud privacy is pretty extreme.
It isn’t blocked. It is on for me and the site loaded fine.
It was at the time. Now it’s loading fine. In the 403 screen it specifically called out iCloud privacy.
It’s basically “give me your IP address before you can continue so we can better data mine you”
Yeah, the community run TCRF wiki is banning VPNs just so they can mine your data along with the luxurious $400/mo they're getting from Patreon. And not because they're constantly being besieged by rampant bots that they have to resort to such drastic measures.
I don’t know anything about TCRF or what they do as their website blocks me. I do see trackers from multiple big corporations on tcrf.net.
What bots are using Apple Private Relay?
> I don’t know anything about TCRF or what they do as their website blocks me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cutting_Room_Floor_(websit...
This is fascinating to me, because you just said you can't see it, but also that there are "trackers from multiple big corporations". Can you tell me what those are?
I ask primarily because we explicitly don't use any trackers, to a degree I actually pride myself on running a website that doesn't contact anything else: https://mini.xkeeper.net/private/C58L77azpY.png
The sole exceptions are YouTube embeds, afaik. I even switched out the MediaWiki and CC badges to be local.
uBlock Origin shows nothing out of the ordinary but Youtube, Google and Doubleclick, so Google, Google and Google, and I assume all of those are due to the embed.
ooo free data!
https://archive.ph/t3SI6
The original "work from anywhere" setup, as long as anywhere had two AA batteries.
Four AA
10 AA
Anywhere with enough ambient light.
When I try to share this page on iMessage it unfurls the link as "LLM / AI Standard Test Page" so I guess I won't share it!
you can do the period trick:
> . http://example.com .
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/03/15/how-to-send-links-w...
You can choose to display the text of the link,
instead of letting your device’s defaults decide who you are,
and then telling all of us about it.
Site blocks VPN users.
Unfortunately true. I wrote about it early last year here: https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting...
The story has not changed much. Every so often I will remove most of the blocks put in place, and within a few hours I'm back to having to block them. Many of the cheaper VPNs are also hosted on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure (or other cloud providers), which are also unilaterally blocked.
I would much prefer we did not have to do this, but it is what it is.
This is why you should self host your VPN.
But where do you self-host it? Most sites that block VPNs also block VPSes
Does that not defeat the anonymity aspect?
VPNs even from big public providers have not been a reliable way to protect anonymity for a while now. Use VPNs for cryptographic security and circumventing region control.
You mean pseudo anonymity, from advertisers mostly?
Many of us only like legitimate users, and therefore block VPNs.
What makes a VPN user inherently “illegitimate” in your view?
The problem is the whack-a-mole game with hackers and script kiddies. It used to be the case that banning known colo ASNs was enough to get rid of nuisance by STROs, then there was a flood of hacked routers being used for DDoS that was really annoying to get rid of, and then came "residential IP" VPNs and commercial VPNs, both of which get routinely abused by AI scrapers and frankly, the AI scrapers are a worse enemy than the skiddies of 10 years ago. They ruin everything.
And you as a site operator can't really tell apart skiddies, griefers, AI scrapers and legitimate users apart any more.
What are they doing exactly?
Almost as if you shouldn't be banning users because of their IP unless that IP specifically has openly attacked you.
Or I guess you can just DENY ALL.
The linked video seems to provide a much deeper story: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SZcrPM-jDqY&ra=m
yes, amazing complement to a super rare non-release (but protoype) exists.
The "you might be a bot" bullet point now explicitly listing ChatGPT is a pretty good snapshot of where the web is in 2026. For years sites optimized for search engine crawlers; now they're increasingly optimizing against AI crawlers. It's a fundamental shift in who site operators see as their largest source of unwanted traffic.
Where are you seeing this?
It's probably a bot account that tried to read the article to come up with a reasonable comment, but TCRF likely serves a "you're a bot, go away" static response page when it's accessed by bots. Pretty funny.
I take that back! It seems to be happening to multiple people using VPNs. My bad. I should have been more charitable.
There do seem to be annoying false positives, but this particular account really is a bit strange. Months of silence after signing up, and then this non sequitur…
The style is also very LLM-y, though not a complete slam dunk.
Funnily I think you are still right re. the specific account under discussion.