Anti-bot engineering

Notes on bot defense and the cookies that decide whether you pass

I write about the parts of anti-bot systems that are documented nowhere: what _abck actually stores, why PerimeterX _px3 has two clocks, why Akamai's ApiURL matters more than cookie freshness, and the handful of checks that separate a real session from a replayed one.

Everything here is written for QA automation and integration testing on properties you own or are authorised to test.

Glossary

• cf_clearance — Cloudflare's clearance receipt
• _abck — Akamai Bot Manager's sensor ledger
• reese84 — Imperva / Incapsula sensor verdict
• datadome — DataDome clearance and why proxy rotation backfires
• _px3 — PerimeterX / HUMAN signed pass and its two expiries
• aws-waf-token — AWS WAF challenge token: domain-bound, about 180 seconds
• cf_bm — Cloudflare’s verdict cookie, and why it is not cf_clearance

All definitions, in one page

日本語

• _abck クッキーとは — Akamai Bot Manager が応答ごとに書き換える「台帳」
• reese84 クッキーとは — Imperva が数分で失効させるセンサー判定
• _px3 クッキーとは — PerimeterX / HUMAN の署名付きパスと 2 つの失効時間
• cf_clearance クッキーとは — Cloudflare のクリアランスと、IP が変わると切れる理由

日本語の用語集（全項目）

中文

• 打码平台怎么选：验证码识别 API 的六个核对项 — 覆盖哪些验证码、按次计费口径、失败是否收费、并发与超时、轮询还是回调、合规边界。

Articles

• Akamai _abck: the cookie that rewrites itself on every response — also on Blogger, Hashnode and Telegraph.
• PerimeterX _px3: the two expiries that kill your cookie (and the s2s path that has none)
• Imperva's reese84 cookie: what it is, why it dies, how to reuse it
• DataDome in Playwright: why rotating your proxy makes blocking worse
• FunCaptcha / Arkose Labs: why the token is bound to your session
• Cloudflare Turnstile in a Python scraper: tokens, expiry, three approaches
• AWS WAF challenge: you need the script URL, not just the token
• Eight checks before you buy a CAPTCHA solver

Reference

• Akamai endpoint — request fields, solution.headers, task.ApiURL
• PerimeterX endpoint
• Python SDK · Node SDK · MCP server

Bahasa Indonesia

• Apa itu cookie _abck — buku besar Akamai Bot Manager yang ditulis ulang pada setiap respons
• Apa itu cookie reese84 — token sensor Imperva yang kedaluwarsa dalam hitungan menit

Glosarium lengkap (Bahasa Indonesia)