64 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
64 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
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template = 'custom/blog-post.html'
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title = 'duckduckgo ai chat thing'
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description = 'its kinda cool'
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date = '2024-04-11'
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slug = 'duckduckgo-ai-chat'
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year = 2024
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month = 4
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day = 11
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lang = 'en'
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[extra]
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author = 'b1ek <me@blek.codes>'
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+++
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so, a few days ago i've noticed that duckduckgo has this weird new "ai chat" option:
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it allows you to select two models: claude 1.2 and chatgpt 3.5. the last one is widely known, however you can find some info on claude [here](https://www.anthropic.com/news/releasing-claude-instant-1-2)
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as i've always wondered just how real their claims are that your identity is never attached to the models, i've decided to research into the API.
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## chat APIs
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| Disclaimer: The following section is of educational purposes only. Please do not scrape DuckDuckGo's APIs, as it would only hurt the company which honestly cares about your privacy. |
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| --- |
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obviously the first thing i wanted to do see if there is a public chat API. i wasn't suprised when i couldn't find info on any of the public duckduckgo APIs(probably because there isn't any), other than [this stackoverflow answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29346239/duckduckgo-api-how-to-get-more-results)
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however i've investigated a bit and turns out that client API is not that complicated as i thought.
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now, first of all you need yo obtain the API token via `GET https://duckduckgo.com/duckchat/v1/status` with a header `x-vqd-accept: 1`. the api token will be in the `x-vqd-4` header. it seems a bit tricky to get the right token without it throwing a `ERR_INVALID_VQD` error later, so its best to copy the request as cURL from your browser.
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it is quite weird actually that it seems to be accepting only genuine browser-generated headers. however they contain little to no identifying data.
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after you got the api key, send a `POST https://duckduckgo.com/duckchat/v1/chat` with a header `x-vqd-4: the-vqd-header-from-previous-request`.
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the payload seems to be of this TS type and encoded via JSON:
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```ts
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type ChatPayload {
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messages: { content: string, role: 'user' }[],
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model: 'claude-instant-1.2' | 'gpt-3.5-turbo-0125'
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}
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```
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then the API will return the response word-by-word in a good ol' streamed http response in chunks like this:
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```json
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\n
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data: {"role":"assistant","message":".","created":1712840811713,"id":"compl_8pC9nVX8QJlN92jUtcJR8TgB","action":"success","model":"claude-instant-1.2"}
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```
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also the `/duckchat/v1/chat` request gives you the new VQD which you gotta use for the future requests.
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i guess someone could fashion a cli program to read data from that API and print it out in the console.
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upd a few days later: i did. [heres the link](https://git.blek.codes/blek/hey)
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## the verdict
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i think its safe to say that no identity data is collected via the chat APIs, other than your IP address, which by itself is not usually enough to identify a user, especially if you're sitting on a public network.
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also if someone from the team who made the API reads this, please tell me if i missed some points, and what the hell does VQD even mean.
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