5 ms·

For the amount of traffic information they leech from your visitors, yes they should consider offering this for free, you are already paying with the privacy of

For the amount of traffic information they leech from your visitors, yes they should consider offering this for free, you are already paying with the privacy of your users. And i'll give example, you can create forced browser checks for countries you select. You want to block the country completely? Only available for enterprise. While imho, the first requires the exact check to determine if a forced browser check should happen, but a block of the country requires an enterprise grade service? Bull shit. You go to mcdonalds, order a burger without cheese and get charged more then when you order a burger with cheese where you ask the cheese to be checked before it gets applied to the burger, more work. Is this metaphor simple enough?

Klathmon 10y ago
Well just because they have access to some data doesn't mean they use it. Your ISP gets all of this data and more, and if you want you can setup CF to have anything really secure pass through their servers encrypted so they can't see it, and there are a variety of options for less-secure stuff (including a scenario where CF can inspect SSL encrypted information without needing direct access to the private keys so you can only allow them to inspect specific things). But how do you run a service like cloudflare without having access to the data? Short of efficient fully homomorphic encryption it's not possible. And from your analogy it sounds like you have issue with what they are putting behind the "paywall" not that they are doing it? If this is the case I understand where you are coming from, but I still don't really agree. The web and the physical world aren't analogous, forced "checking" and blocking are 2 completely different things, and treating them as separate features doesn't set off any alarm bells in my head.
- thinkMOAR 10y ago
  "Well just because they have access to some data doesn't mean they use it." This reads very naive in my opinion. But no you didn't understand much of what i intended to bring across and even created a point for me i did write. I did not say they should not have access to your data. I wrote, for the amount traffic information (if you can't or don't understand how to monetise that, please google a bit), they should _consider offering_ the service for free, including features that matter. And to block something what do you have to do first? 'Check' if the condition to block is true or false. If country == x move request to the nearest recycle-bin seems to be the most efficient action, requiring the least of anything. So it would make more sense in my opinion if it was vice versa, block countries for the default subscription, filter more 'advanced' as premium feature. For some reason i doubt you have ever enabled CF in a ddos situation?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - pfg 10y ago
    I don't like the fact that a significant percentage of page views on the Internet can be intercepted by a single organization either, but I think it's a bit weird to be concerned about privacy while arguing they should pivot to monetizing the traffic they see rather than continue to charge for the service they offer.
paulddraper 10y ago
Tech companies don't charge based on marginal cost. They charge based on marginal cost, customer expectations, development, and general supply/demand.
- iRobbery 10y ago
  "Tech companies don't charge based on marginal cost. They charge based on marginal cost" ??
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    I think it is plenty clear from context. A BLT isn't bacon. A BLT is bacon, lettuce, and tomato.
eastdakota 10y ago
Interesting choice of an example. I'll tell you the actual reason we don't let most customers block countries entirely: we don't want to help facilitate the balkinazation of the Internet. Cutting an entire country's population from being able to access some content is, per se, a bad thing. You're correct that the challenges we do allow for all customers are more work for us. However, they resolve the (largely bogus) perceived security risks some people cite for blocking whole countries while only minorly inconveincing legitimate users from those countries. This was a decision I made early on in Cloudflare's history, anticipating someday we may operate at a scale where it would matter. And, now that we do operate at that scale, I'm glad I did or I fear we would be a force in carving up the Internet into increasingly regional pockets of information. Matthew Prince, cofounder & CEO, Cloudflare
- thinkMOAR 10y ago
  Aha the CEO, what a pity i noticed it so late, I hope you actually do something about their non stop posting of CF blog content here for advertisement. That is careful or convenient use the word 'most'; But it is not an answer to the question that has been asked. And you still offer the feature (if paid for), so saying you do not want to facilitate balkanisation and still having the feature, seems a bit contradicting to me. Will you be removing this option/feature from your services totally? Currently it IS possible, and CF lets everybody do it, as long as they pay for the enterprise membership. At least that is what understood from CF admin panel, i assume the information it displays is correct. And your reply lacks any proper reasoning why it costs serious money to block while it technically requires less resources, meaning less costs, that was the actual question. "Cutting an entire country's population from being able to access some content is, per se, a bad thing." Yes, to filter solely based on the origin, race etc of a person is even (often) unlawful(, some people even call it racism, though i think we are belong to the same human race, homo sapiens sapiens.) Though we both know we are not talking about human users, that is not the reason why people put their site behind cloudflare? Nobody generally complaints about having too many legit visitors on their website..... You want to use this feature when under DDOS (been target of 'quite' a few). And when you see 99.999% bogus crap traffic from a country (or countries; which normally doesn't give you any site visitors) give me one real reason why not to block it (be it temporarily), and for allowing CF to keep passing through requests from BAD hosts? I will just leave it at this before i catch myself writing another rant. Though i honestly and respectfully hope, you will think about taking more responsibility about the junk flowing through your network and the amount of HN posts for marketing purposes. thinkMOAR, Internet Surfer, RBL operator & owner, Systems Engineer, Network Engineer, SysAdmin, Programmer, Webdesigner, Husband, Brother & Son.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> You go to mcdonalds, order a burger without cheese and get charged more then when you order a burger with cheese where you ask the cheese to be checked before it gets applied to the burger, more work. Will McD even allow you to order like that? Even if, I wouldn't be surprised if you had to pay extra - McD operates a standardized process for food preparation that ensures you get uniform quality everywhere in the world. They don't hire chefs, they hire people that follow detailed instructions to assemble your food. Making you a custom burger is a cost for them.

Klathmon 10y ago

Well just because they have access to some data doesn't mean they use it. Your ISP gets all of this data and more, and if you want you can setup CF to have anything really secure pass through their servers encrypted so they can't see it, and there are a variety of options for less-secure stuff (including a scenario where CF can inspect SSL encrypted information without needing direct access to the private keys so you can only allow them to inspect specific things). But how do you run a service like cloudflare without having access to the data? Short of efficient fully homomorphic encryption it's not possible. And from your analogy it sounds like you have issue with what they are putting behind the "paywall" not that they are doing it? If this is the case I understand where you are coming from, but I still don't really agree. The web and the physical world aren't analogous, forced "checking" and blocking are 2 completely different things, and treating them as separate features doesn't set off any alarm bells in my head.

thinkMOAR 10y ago
"Well just because they have access to some data doesn't mean they use it." This reads very naive in my opinion. But no you didn't understand much of what i intended to bring across and even created a point for me i did write. I did not say they should not have access to your data. I wrote, for the amount traffic information (if you can't or don't understand how to monetise that, please google a bit), they should _consider offering_ the service for free, including features that matter. And to block something what do you have to do first? 'Check' if the condition to block is true or false. If country == x move request to the nearest recycle-bin seems to be the most efficient action, requiring the least of anything. So it would make more sense in my opinion if it was vice versa, block countries for the default subscription, filter more 'advanced' as premium feature. For some reason i doubt you have ever enabled CF in a ddos situation?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pfg 10y ago
  I don't like the fact that a significant percentage of page views on the Internet can be intercepted by a single organization either, but I think it's a bit weird to be concerned about privacy while arguing they should pivot to monetizing the traffic they see rather than continue to charge for the service they offer.

paulddraper 10y ago

Tech companies don't charge based on marginal cost. They charge based on marginal cost, customer expectations, development, and general supply/demand.

iRobbery 10y ago
"Tech companies don't charge based on marginal cost. They charge based on marginal cost" ??
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I think it is plenty clear from context. A BLT isn't bacon. A BLT is bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

eastdakota 10y ago

Interesting choice of an example. I'll tell you the actual reason we don't let most customers block countries entirely: we don't want to help facilitate the balkinazation of the Internet. Cutting an entire country's population from being able to access some content is, per se, a bad thing. You're correct that the challenges we do allow for all customers are more work for us. However, they resolve the (largely bogus) perceived security risks some people cite for blocking whole countries while only minorly inconveincing legitimate users from those countries. This was a decision I made early on in Cloudflare's history, anticipating someday we may operate at a scale where it would matter. And, now that we do operate at that scale, I'm glad I did or I fear we would be a force in carving up the Internet into increasingly regional pockets of information. Matthew Prince, cofounder & CEO, Cloudflare

thinkMOAR 10y ago
Aha the CEO, what a pity i noticed it so late, I hope you actually do something about their non stop posting of CF blog content here for advertisement. That is careful or convenient use the word 'most'; But it is not an answer to the question that has been asked. And you still offer the feature (if paid for), so saying you do not want to facilitate balkanisation and still having the feature, seems a bit contradicting to me. Will you be removing this option/feature from your services totally? Currently it IS possible, and CF lets everybody do it, as long as they pay for the enterprise membership. At least that is what understood from CF admin panel, i assume the information it displays is correct. And your reply lacks any proper reasoning why it costs serious money to block while it technically requires less resources, meaning less costs, that was the actual question. "Cutting an entire country's population from being able to access some content is, per se, a bad thing." Yes, to filter solely based on the origin, race etc of a person is even (often) unlawful(, some people even call it racism, though i think we are belong to the same human race, homo sapiens sapiens.) Though we both know we are not talking about human users, that is not the reason why people put their site behind cloudflare? Nobody generally complaints about having too many legit visitors on their website..... You want to use this feature when under DDOS (been target of 'quite' a few). And when you see 99.999% bogus crap traffic from a country (or countries; which normally doesn't give you any site visitors) give me one real reason why not to block it (be it temporarily), and for allowing CF to keep passing through requests from BAD hosts? I will just leave it at this before i catch myself writing another rant. Though i honestly and respectfully hope, you will think about taking more responsibility about the junk flowing through your network and the amount of HN posts for marketing purposes. thinkMOAR, Internet Surfer, RBL operator & owner, Systems Engineer, Network Engineer, SysAdmin, Programmer, Webdesigner, Husband, Brother & Son.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> You go to mcdonalds, order a burger without cheese and get charged more then when you order a burger with cheese where you ask the cheese to be checked before it gets applied to the burger, more work. Will McD even allow you to order like that? Even if, I wouldn't be surprised if you had to pay extra - McD operates a standardized process for food preparation that ensures you get uniform quality everywhere in the world. They don't hire chefs, they hire people that follow detailed instructions to assemble your food. Making you a custom burger is a cost for them.