Our lab observationRecorded 2026-10-22, re-check by 2027-01-22
18 of 21 sites we scanned (2026-10-03 to 2026-10-21) answered a request that claimed to be an AI fetcher, such as ChatGPT-User or Claude-User, sent from a non-AI IP address, exactly as they answered our own scanner.
- Basis
- Our scanner's checks of 21 sites, 90 scans with AI fetcher user agents, 2026-10-03 to 2026-10-21; a follow-up on 61 .jp sites, 2026-11-02.
- Does not prove
- It does not show how real fetchers from verified IPs are treated; a CDN may admit real IPs and still block fake names. One request per user agent, home page only. A 200 for a fake name is not harm in itself: public content may need no protection.
- Sources
- our own data, no outside link
What a site owner can doFetch your home page with the ChatGPT-User and Claude-User user agents and compare with a normal request. If you need to tell real bots from fakes, check the IP against the AI company's published list, not the name.
Our lab observationRecorded 2026-10-22, re-check by 2027-01-22
On our sites many requests hunting for secret files (.env, .git) use AI bot names: on migurei.ai, 2026-10-24 to 2026-11-07, only 105 of 499 requests (21.0%) under six AI and search bot names could be verified.
- Basis
- Our own logs on pw.migurei.ai and migurei.ai (October to November 2026) and a large Vietnamese site's logs, checked against vendors' IP lists and signatures.
- Does not prove
- An IP outside a vendor list is not always fake: lists change, and some logs hold only proxy IPs. No probe obtained a secret: on our two sites, 0 probes got a success response. It says nothing about other sites.
- Sources
- our own data, no outside link
What a site owner can doNever trust a user agent alone. Verify AI bots by the vendor's published IP list or Web Bot Auth signature, return 404 for .env, .git and similar paths, and count only verified requests as bot visits.
External source(partly: our lab observation)Recorded 2026-11-04, re-check by 2026-11-18
AI vendors change their published bot IP lists without notice: between our 2026-10-21 copy and 2026-11-04, 3 of 16 lists changed (PerplexityBot 8 to 13 ranges, Perplexity-User 4 to 10, ChatGPT-User 234 to 235), so checks using our old copy ran on outdated lists.
- Basis
- Perplexity's and OpenAI's published bot IP lists, downloaded 2026-11-04 and compared with our 2026-10-21 copy; our own server logs.
- Does not prove
- We found no real request judged wrongly because of the old lists: every PerplexityBot IP we logged fits both old and new ranges. Requests carrying a bot name but no recorded IP could not be rechecked, and may be fake or real.
What a site owner can doIf you verify AI bots by IP, re-download each vendor's IP list regularly (ours went stale within two weeks) rather than bundling a fixed copy, and keep identifying bots by IP range, not by user-agent name alone.
External sourceRecorded 2026-11-05, re-check by 2026-12-05
On 2026-11-04 Cloudflare made "Personal Assistants" (AI agents acting for a person) a separate group in Bot Analysis, with request counts per agent, and lets site owners choose "Allow (do not block)", "Block on pages with ads" or "Block".
- Basis
- Cloudflare's blog post of 2026-11-04, read 2026-11-05, plus our own server logs on migurei.ai and pw.migurei.ai, 2026-10-28 to 2026-11-05.
- Does not prove
- Which plans get it, the default setting, and which bots Cloudflare puts in the group. In our logs only 6 requests over 9 days came from these agents' published IP ranges; most others using their names were fakes probing for secret files, so no effect is visible yet.
What a site owner can doOpen Bot Analysis in your Cloudflare dashboard, see which personal agents reach you, and choose the setting on purpose. Do not judge agents by name alone: check requests against each vendor's published IP list.
Our lab observation(partly: external source)Recorded 2026-11-06, re-check by 2026-12-06
On migurei.ai, in the 14 days to 2026-11-06, 100 requests used the DuckAssistBot name: the 20 signed with Web Bot Auth all had valid signatures and fetched normal pages, while 79 unsigned ones probed for secret files such as .env.
- Basis
- Our own server logs on migurei.ai, 2026-10-23 to 2026-11-06, signatures checked against the published key directory; DuckDuckGo's DuckAssistBot help page.
- Does not prove
- A valid signature proves the signer holds a key listed at assistbot.duckduckgo.com, not that DuckDuckGo owns it; we have not matched IPs with DuckDuckGo's published list. Whether DuckAssist has users in Japan or sends visitors is unknown.
What a site owner can doDo not trust a bot by its name. Verify DuckAssistBot by its Web Bot Auth signature or DuckDuckGo's published IP list, and block requests for paths like /.env, which a real crawler never needs.
External sourceRecorded 2026-11-06, re-check by 2026-12-06
On 2026-11-05 Cloudflare launched a Trusted Agent Delegation coalition and named Web Bot Auth (signed requests) as the way to recognise personal AI agents; site owners can already see personal-agent traffic and set allow or block rules per agent and per site section.
- Basis
- Cloudflare's blog post of 2026-11-05, read 2026-11-06 through a web reading tool's summary.
- Does not prove
- We read a tool's summary, not every sentence of the original. It does not show that OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Perplexity will sign their requests: in 14 days of our logs, none of their requests were signed.
What a site owner can doIf you use Cloudflare, look at the personal-assistants view in Security Analytics and set per-agent policies only for the site sections you care about. Prefer signed identity over user-agent names when deciding.