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Cloudflare states the same thing. In fact, Cloudflare provides much more detail than Comcast/Xfinity [0]. And, personally, I actually believe Cloudflare. If

Cloudflare states the same thing. In fact, Cloudflare provides much more detail than Comcast/Xfinity [0]. And, personally, I actually believe Cloudflare. If I have to choose between the two companies it's a no brainer. This is Cloudflare's business, and their business relies on them upholding their privacy promise. Comcast/Xfinity has, in the past, engaged in DNS hijacking [1]. Comcast has had the worst ACSI score over all other businesses in the US more than once and consistently ranks very low [2]. Comcast won the worst company in America in 2014 by the Consumerist [3]. Comcast has intentionally deceived it's customers as we understand due to lawsuits [4]. I'm not sure what sort of jaded world we live in if one can say Comcast/Xfinity is a "safe harbor amidst the rest" with mountains of public information stating the complete opposite. [0] https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to-privacy/privacy-policy/privacy-policy/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to-priv... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/08/comcasts-dns-redirect-service-goes-nationwide/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/08/comcasts-dns-red... [2] https://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/press-2019/press-release-telecommunications-2018-2019 https://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/pr... [3] https://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcast-your-2014-worst-company-in-america/ https://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcas... [4] https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-announces-lawsuit-against-comcast-more-100-million https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-announces-lawsu...

MoronInAHurry 7y ago
Cloudflare's business lost them over $100 million last year alone. The way they operate right now is not a viable business, and we have no idea what they will change when they need to become one.
- windexh8er 7y ago
  Maybe you're new to the tech/security space, but the majority of companies operate at a loss as they grow and pivot their business. If you follow Cloudflare they've only recently begun to start to sell into the enterprise space with new products as in the SASE space and beyond their traditional DDoS/WAF/encryption plays. Even with those "legacy" products - Cloudflare never heavily sold into large enterprise compared to more notable names in the hardware security space that they now are beginning to compete with. Their business is evolving to include field sales that are aligned to selling in this manner, which is relatively new for Cloudflare (comparatively). But just stating that Cloudflare is operating in the red currently isn't a justification for anything as it doesn't mean anything positive or negative without understanding their operational business model and targets. I'm guessing your statement is making a leap by assuming that because Cloudflare is operating at a loss currently that they're going to sell your data against what they publicly state in their privacy policy? For a growth company - that would be one of the dumbest things for them to do. Because if they are caught in that lie they will sink themselves.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    No, it clearly says that if they haven't figured out a business model yet, the business model they will end up figuring out might just as well be selling your data, so it's maybe not wise to make the internet depend on them not doing so.
    - windexh8er 7y ago
      Let's be clear here... The Internet is not dependent on Cloudflare now, or in the future. While FireFox has made a choice (a polarized one), the end user still has the freedom to completely disable DoH and CloudFlare - or choose whatever other service they'd like to use. Mozilla has an agreement with Cloudflare. Again, it is in Cloudflare's best interest to not break that agreement. If they do, then we can all have that conversation. But just because they could break the agreement does not mean we should jump to any conclusion that they are currently. It's odd to me that there are a lot of defenders of the status quo that is DNS. Something that is easy to manipulate, easy to profile and scrape passively on the wire (no need to even ask if nobody knows you're doing it), and is generally (with regard to security models) less secure than DoH. Could Cloudflare nefariously start NXDOMAINing everything? Sure. So could your current ISP (it's likely they already are or already have). Cloudflare hasn't done that. While I have some reservations on the 3 letter agency involvement, that is my only unfounded reservation at this point. Until someone exposes, factually, that Cloudflare has considered selling users data, is selling users data, is planning on monetizing data collected around DNS, etc. I, personally, feel that Cloudflare is offering up a good service. They do allow APNIC to see DNS query data, but not source IP info (go read their privacy policy I linked in this thread). The Internet has inherent underpinnings of trust. You have to trust your ISP to not MitM your traffic. You have to trust someone to resolve your DNS without manipulation. You have to trust websites to not sell your data back to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. It seems as though DNS data hand waving with regard to Cloudflare is only a fraction of what we should really be concerned about. Do you really want your DNS traffic to continue to be unencrypted? DNS has always been centrally controlled. We have the ease with which we can distribute our DNS queries across multiple providers to not give insight to everything we do all the time. But at the end of the day we have to ask someone where Google is. DNS is the problem, not DoH - at least in my opinion. You have to trust someone. Cloudflare has done a good job of being a good steward as I see it so far. I'm not saying anyone should trust them blindly or forever by default. But - who do you trust? Who is so free from monetary gain that they should be the single source of truth for all of your DNS queries? Who? I don't see anyone on the playing field that isn't selling something. They're either selling you access to the Internet, or they're selling ads, or they're building up a social graph of you by giving you access to free services. The Internet is built on trust and that give and take.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  How do you think Akamai makes money? CF is a competition.

MoronInAHurry 7y ago

Cloudflare's business lost them over $100 million last year alone. The way they operate right now is not a viable business, and we have no idea what they will change when they need to become one.

windexh8er 7y ago
Maybe you're new to the tech/security space, but the majority of companies operate at a loss as they grow and pivot their business. If you follow Cloudflare they've only recently begun to start to sell into the enterprise space with new products as in the SASE space and beyond their traditional DDoS/WAF/encryption plays. Even with those "legacy" products - Cloudflare never heavily sold into large enterprise compared to more notable names in the hardware security space that they now are beginning to compete with. Their business is evolving to include field sales that are aligned to selling in this manner, which is relatively new for Cloudflare (comparatively). But just stating that Cloudflare is operating in the red currently isn't a justification for anything as it doesn't mean anything positive or negative without understanding their operational business model and targets. I'm guessing your statement is making a leap by assuming that because Cloudflare is operating at a loss currently that they're going to sell your data against what they publicly state in their privacy policy? For a growth company - that would be one of the dumbest things for them to do. Because if they are caught in that lie they will sink themselves.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  No, it clearly says that if they haven't figured out a business model yet, the business model they will end up figuring out might just as well be selling your data, so it's maybe not wise to make the internet depend on them not doing so.
  - windexh8er 7y ago
    Let's be clear here... The Internet is not dependent on Cloudflare now, or in the future. While FireFox has made a choice (a polarized one), the end user still has the freedom to completely disable DoH and CloudFlare - or choose whatever other service they'd like to use. Mozilla has an agreement with Cloudflare. Again, it is in Cloudflare's best interest to not break that agreement. If they do, then we can all have that conversation. But just because they could break the agreement does not mean we should jump to any conclusion that they are currently. It's odd to me that there are a lot of defenders of the status quo that is DNS. Something that is easy to manipulate, easy to profile and scrape passively on the wire (no need to even ask if nobody knows you're doing it), and is generally (with regard to security models) less secure than DoH. Could Cloudflare nefariously start NXDOMAINing everything? Sure. So could your current ISP (it's likely they already are or already have). Cloudflare hasn't done that. While I have some reservations on the 3 letter agency involvement, that is my only unfounded reservation at this point. Until someone exposes, factually, that Cloudflare has considered selling users data, is selling users data, is planning on monetizing data collected around DNS, etc. I, personally, feel that Cloudflare is offering up a good service. They do allow APNIC to see DNS query data, but not source IP info (go read their privacy policy I linked in this thread). The Internet has inherent underpinnings of trust. You have to trust your ISP to not MitM your traffic. You have to trust someone to resolve your DNS without manipulation. You have to trust websites to not sell your data back to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. It seems as though DNS data hand waving with regard to Cloudflare is only a fraction of what we should really be concerned about. Do you really want your DNS traffic to continue to be unencrypted? DNS has always been centrally controlled. We have the ease with which we can distribute our DNS queries across multiple providers to not give insight to everything we do all the time. But at the end of the day we have to ask someone where Google is. DNS is the problem, not DoH - at least in my opinion. You have to trust someone. Cloudflare has done a good job of being a good steward as I see it so far. I'm not saying anyone should trust them blindly or forever by default. But - who do you trust? Who is so free from monetary gain that they should be the single source of truth for all of your DNS queries? Who? I don't see anyone on the playing field that isn't selling something. They're either selling you access to the Internet, or they're selling ads, or they're building up a social graph of you by giving you access to free services. The Internet is built on trust and that give and take.
badrabbit 7y ago
How do you think Akamai makes money? CF is a competition.