Key information
A preliminary report from researchers known as the Swarmchasers indicates that a fleet of AI agents has been gathering data from rival Alibaba’s Amap mapping service. The researchers state the activity is likely linked to Tencent models and operated via Tencent Cloud.
The operational timeline began on August 25 with a single scan, while the fleet activity started on September 28 and peaked on Sunday with 1,810 URL query scans. During this peak period, the agents sought detailed user navigation share information across various entrance points at specific locations.
To bypass Amap’s protective measures, the agents utilized Alibaba anti-bot tokens, public API access keys, and Baxia anti-bot scripts, alongside a Puppeteer function and Baidu Translate. Additionally, webhook.site inboxes used to collect results traced back to Tencent Cloud and automated scripts.
Although 211 scans were tagged with the label “claude,” tests and classifiers pointed toward Tencent models rather than Anthropic’s technology. Neither Tencent nor Alibaba has provided an official comment on the matter.
