[Leica] Is the gallery down?

[Brian Reid]

I also host the Large Format Photography site. I don’t contribute to it 
(the largest-format camera that I currently own and use is a Q2) but I 
help operate it and own its server computer. It has a vast number of 
huge pictures (most of them shot on 8x10 film). They often see 15,000 
simultaneous connections from thirsty AI bots.

On 2025-12-25 16:39, Douglas Barry wrote:
> Well Brian, it is Happy Chaosday today and, unfortunately for all of
> us, probably for the remainder of our lives.
> That downloading by multiple bots is what we, over here anyway, call a
> pain in the hole, but not really surprising, as any comforting notion
> of privacy these days vanishes faster than morning frost in the
> Sahara. What new horrors await us in 2026?
> Thanks for trying to defend our honour and our images against
> overwhelming odds. Have a happy christmas and a prosperous new year -
> and the same goes for all Luggers out there.
> 
> Douglas
> Blind busy, but sadly not in the photographic area at the moment.
> 
> 
> On 25/12/2025 05:44, Brian Reid wrote:
>> Every time I turn the gallery server on again, it immediately got 
>> flooded with AI bots stealing images.
>> So I have turned it off for the night. It is currently 21:45 
>> California time, so it’s going to stay off until my morning. Maybe the 
>> pirates will turn their attention elsewhere, and maybe they won’t. The 
>> torrent that arrived most recently was mostly from Russia.
>> 
>> On 2025-12-24 15:32, Brian Reid wrote:
>>> There are hundreds of different IPs in use, so blocking them is 
>>> futile.
>>> I turned off the server. We shall see if it goes away. I suspect it
>>> will be stubborn.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2025-12-24 09:56, Christopher Crawford via LUG wrote:
>>>> Why don’t you block the IP that the bot is coming from, and if not
>>>> possible, shut the server down until it goes away, instead of 
>>>> letting
>>>> it steal LUG members’ photos?
>>>> 
>>>> Christopher Crawford
>>>> Fort Wayne, Indiana
>>>> 
>>>> My Portfolio
>>>> https://chriscrawfordphoto.com
>>>> 
>>>> Learn From Me
>>>> https://crawfordphotoschool.com
>>>> 
>>>> Watchmaker Chris
>>>> https://watchmakerchris.com
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 24, 2025, at 12:51 PM, Brian Reid 
>>>>> <reid at mejac.carlsbad.ca.us> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Today again the gallery has a heavy load. Today there is an AI bot 
>>>>> in Brazil that is downloading every image, but it is being nicer 
>>>>> than was yesterday’s Chinese download, and is using only 20 
>>>>> parallel streams.
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
> 
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