Curl creator mulls nixing bug bounty awards to stop AI slop

Daniel Stenberg, curl’s founder, details a sharp rise in “AI slop” bug bounty submissions—now about 20% of reports—with only ~5% proving valid in 2025, straining a seven-person security team that reviews roughly two submissions weekly; a recent surge to eight times the usual rate and a compiled list of 22 poor reports underscore the burden, prompting consideration of measures such as discouraging AI use (already policy), charging submission fees, or dropping awards, while similar problems are reported across the Python ecosystem and Open Collective.