AI agent’s scan of DN42 racked up a $3,200 cloud bill.
The operator ran an open-source AI‑driven scanner on a public cloud instance on June 10, 2026. The tool attempted to enumerate nodes in DN42, a volunteer‑run, private IPv4/IPv6 mesh used by hobbyists and researchers. The scan never completed, and the instance kept running until the provider cut it off on June 12, 2026, leaving a $3,200 charge.
DN42 isn’t a commercial service; it’s a sandbox for network experiments. The incident shows that even low‑cost AI tools can generate unexpectedly high operational expenses when pointed at unbounded environments.
If you’re tinkering with AI‑assisted networking, expect the cloud bill to grow faster than the data you collect.