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Absolutely not. I believe in privacy and have zero tolerance for big businesses who throw their weight around at the expense of minority communities (Tor users

Absolutely not. I believe in privacy and have zero tolerance for big businesses who throw their weight around at the expense of minority communities (Tor users in this case). I understand CloudFlare's need to make a profit. That is why we need to turn treating Tor traffic like normal traffic into a good business decision.

pathy 11y ago
I think you underestimate how much of the traffic from Tor that is malicious. I have barely ever seen any legitimate Tor traffic, it has all been spam bots or other kinds of traffic I would rather avoid.
drinchev 11y ago
Why so much hate against CloudFlare? What's the big deal about being a "company" if you can see the CEO replying to you right here, right now? On top of that CloudFlare as a free service helped lots of small controversial, hated-by-some-government websites to stay alive. They protect >ANYONE< that is being DDoS-ed usually for free. If keeping freedom of speech ( as in "being online" ) for all those users they protect, for you is "at the expense of minority", I think you are totally biased.
markonen 11y ago
You misunderstand the problem. The issue is that CloudFlare is treating Tor traffic like any other traffic. What you want is special treatment for Tor above and beyond the whitelisting feature CloudFlare already offers to site owners.
- falcolas 11y ago
  > CloudFlare is treating Tor traffic like any other traffic I don't see this in any practical fashion. I can visit a CloudFlare hosted site from the regular internet for hours (even scrape automatically) with no problems; the first time I hit the same site through Tor, it gets a double or triple capchca. Perhaps it should be a blacklist instead of a whitelist. Defaults matter.
  - mynameisvlad 11y ago
    Of course you can visit it for hours, because you are most likely one of very few people who are accessing the CloudFlare netrwork from that IP. If you were to go through a public VPN, then the chance of captcha will also go up. The issue is that with higher traffic out of a single IP, there is a much higher likelihood of malicious activity. A blacklist would do nothing to solve this, since the fundamental problem is the way Tor and VPNs work, by aggregating traffic into exit nodes at specific IPs. Edit: And upon further thought, it most likely is a blacklist. A bunch of malicious requests go out from one IP, so that IP is blocked. Because it's an exit node, it also blocks a bunch of other legitimate people.
    - falcolas 11y ago
      > A blacklist would do nothing to solve this I mean blacklist "Tor" to give them capchcas, instead of having to whitelist them to not give them capchcas.
  - jjnoakes 11y ago
    > I don't see this in any practical fashion. You don't? > I can visit a CloudFlare hosted site from the regular internet for hours (even scrape automatically) with no problems Ah but this is not the same. Try doing so from an IP which is also sending malicious traffic, and you will see the same issue.
    - falcolas 11y ago
      Technically, no, it's not the same thing. But, for a user, it is the same thing. Ultimately, it's the user's experience that matters, not the technical details. Much like I don't care which bus gets me from point A to point B, or if I'm the only the one on the bus or not... it's the experience of the trip between points that matters.
      - jjnoakes 11y ago
        If you don't care which bus gets you from point A to point B, then stay off of the bus that all of the malicious packets are riding...
nickpsecurity 11y ago
"Absolutely not. I believe in privacy and have zero tolerance for big businesses who throw their weight around at the expense of minority communities (Tor users in this case)." You're fine with the anonymity industry throwing their weight around at the expense of a handful of CDN's, though. I understand Tor's need to protect users. That's why they need to find a way to treat malicious traffic different than normal traffic. Then adopting them might be a good business decision.

pathy 11y ago

I think you underestimate how much of the traffic from Tor that is malicious. I have barely ever seen any legitimate Tor traffic, it has all been spam bots or other kinds of traffic I would rather avoid.

drinchev 11y ago

Why so much hate against CloudFlare? What's the big deal about being a "company" if you can see the CEO replying to you right here, right now? On top of that CloudFlare as a free service helped lots of small controversial, hated-by-some-government websites to stay alive. They protect >ANYONE< that is being DDoS-ed usually for free. If keeping freedom of speech ( as in "being online" ) for all those users they protect, for you is "at the expense of minority", I think you are totally biased.

markonen 11y ago

You misunderstand the problem. The issue is that CloudFlare is treating Tor traffic like any other traffic. What you want is special treatment for Tor above and beyond the whitelisting feature CloudFlare already offers to site owners.

falcolas 11y ago
> CloudFlare is treating Tor traffic like any other traffic I don't see this in any practical fashion. I can visit a CloudFlare hosted site from the regular internet for hours (even scrape automatically) with no problems; the first time I hit the same site through Tor, it gets a double or triple capchca. Perhaps it should be a blacklist instead of a whitelist. Defaults matter.
- mynameisvlad 11y ago
  Of course you can visit it for hours, because you are most likely one of very few people who are accessing the CloudFlare netrwork from that IP. If you were to go through a public VPN, then the chance of captcha will also go up. The issue is that with higher traffic out of a single IP, there is a much higher likelihood of malicious activity. A blacklist would do nothing to solve this, since the fundamental problem is the way Tor and VPNs work, by aggregating traffic into exit nodes at specific IPs. Edit: And upon further thought, it most likely is a blacklist. A bunch of malicious requests go out from one IP, so that IP is blocked. Because it's an exit node, it also blocks a bunch of other legitimate people.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    > A blacklist would do nothing to solve this I mean blacklist "Tor" to give them capchcas, instead of having to whitelist them to not give them capchcas.
- jjnoakes 11y ago
  > I don't see this in any practical fashion. You don't? > I can visit a CloudFlare hosted site from the regular internet for hours (even scrape automatically) with no problems Ah but this is not the same. Try doing so from an IP which is also sending malicious traffic, and you will see the same issue.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    Technically, no, it's not the same thing. But, for a user, it is the same thing. Ultimately, it's the user's experience that matters, not the technical details. Much like I don't care which bus gets me from point A to point B, or if I'm the only the one on the bus or not... it's the experience of the trip between points that matters.
    - jjnoakes 11y ago
      If you don't care which bus gets you from point A to point B, then stay off of the bus that all of the malicious packets are riding...

nickpsecurity 11y ago

"Absolutely not. I believe in privacy and have zero tolerance for big businesses who throw their weight around at the expense of minority communities (Tor users in this case)." You're fine with the anonymity industry throwing their weight around at the expense of a handful of CDN's, though. I understand Tor's need to protect users. That's why they need to find a way to treat malicious traffic different than normal traffic. Then adopting them might be a good business decision.