5 ms·

> The best they do is forward your complaint to the owner of the website, who is free to ignore it. Or worse. Since I have no way to know beforehand who I woul

> The best they do is forward your complaint to the owner of the website, who is free to ignore it. Or worse. Since I have no way to know beforehand who I would be dealing with, this is actively dangerous - what if the mobster running this site is having a bad day and choses to retaliate ? Also what a stupid fucking policy that is. Even if you are not legally compelled to block content, what is the point of actively helping distibute harmful content? What they are doing is worse than just saying "We are not a hosting provider" - because while what is true, they are actively distributing content that is hosted elsewhere while hiding who is hosting it. One can easily write an email to abuse@hoster.example.com and usually these people do not want garbage on their networks. CF is making it impossible to do notify them, and they refuse to implement an alternative procedure. I still do not understand the moral position of profiting off of enabling criminal scum, when it would be so easy not to...

tlogan 5y ago
I do not think that it is up to Google or CloudFlare to police the internet. If a site is doing something illegal then report it to appropriate gov agency. If gov agency does not anything then get involved into political process to fix that.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Gov agencies and political processes take ages to do anything at all. At this point I'd still like the internet companies doing partial policing of content. At least they'll achieve something.
- hackbinary 5y ago
  If Google, or CF, or whoever are fronting illegal activity with their services, they are absolutely responsible for damages the party they are proxying. Platforms must be responsible for the content they are hosting, broadcasting, and publishing. One to one communications between two people exchanging ideas and having a private discussion is different from mass broadcasting.
  - fstrthnscnd 5y ago
    > Platforms must be responsible for the content they are hosting, broadcasting, and publishing. > One to one communications between two people exchanging ideas and having a private discussion is different from mass broadcasting. The highway is used both by those visiting their friends and those doing mass deliveries. Is it the job of the highway maintenance crew to control for what purpose their network is used? I would like to know if the above analogy stands. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994831
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - zizee 5y ago
      The "owner" of the highway is the government, who regulates commercial traffic differently to personal traffic. The government places strict rules on who is allowed to use the highway, and how it is used. The highway maintenance crew is akin to the person installing racks for CloudFlare.
    - hackbinary 5y ago
      Highway are a poor analogy for information broadcast systems in general. Highways are closer to a one to one transmission system rathe than a broadcast system of one to many.
- xorcist 5y ago
  If someone were to tell AT&T that this call center customer of theirs is in the business of extorting people for money, they'd at least look at it and help law enforcement accordingly. Cloudflare has a talk-to-the-hand attitude until actively forced by law enforcement. That's an important difference right there.
- franga2000 5y ago
  They're already removing things they don't like. I see no reason why they shouldn't remove things that are objectively 100% harmful. Like seriously, is there a single person on the planet that's going to defend online scams? It's immoral, it's illegal, it benefits no one and harms thousands. And it's not like it's very hard to detect and block either.
a2tech 5y ago
Because criminal scum pay their bills. You don't think 8Chan was on a free account do you? The sooner developers realize that Cloudflare is not saving the Internet the better.
- oblio 5y ago
  At this point I'm convinced that at least 10% of all legitimate economic activity is actually money laundering for crime organizations, in various forms. I imagine that percentage goes even higher in the financial capitals of the world.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    That’s the low estimate.
    - samstave 5y ago
      'ey... I'm trafficking Paintings 'ere -- ya know... Art
cratermoon 5y ago
> what if the mobster running this site is having a bad day and choses to retaliate ? I wonder if someone with malicious intent could set up a site designed to generate complaints (how exactly would be an exercise for the reader), put it behind Cloudflare, and purposely use the information in the forwarded complaints to harass, abuse, dox, or otherwise harm people.
FDSGSG 5y ago
>One can easily write an email to abuse@hoster.example.com and usually these people do not want garbage on their networks. CF is making it impossible to do notify them, and they refuse to implement an alternative procedure. But that's exactly what CF does. They forward your abuse complaints to the abuse contact of the IP address hosting the content.
arthur2e5 5y ago
The retaliation is quite real—CF keeps your entire e-mail address and name in there, so you are essentially doxxing yourself. Pretty sure 8chan posted a lot of the reports they got back in the day.

tlogan 5y ago

I do not think that it is up to Google or CloudFlare to police the internet. If a site is doing something illegal then report it to appropriate gov agency. If gov agency does not anything then get involved into political process to fix that.

pdimitar 5y ago
Gov agencies and political processes take ages to do anything at all. At this point I'd still like the internet companies doing partial policing of content. At least they'll achieve something.
hackbinary 5y ago
If Google, or CF, or whoever are fronting illegal activity with their services, they are absolutely responsible for damages the party they are proxying. Platforms must be responsible for the content they are hosting, broadcasting, and publishing. One to one communications between two people exchanging ideas and having a private discussion is different from mass broadcasting.
- fstrthnscnd 5y ago
  > Platforms must be responsible for the content they are hosting, broadcasting, and publishing. > One to one communications between two people exchanging ideas and having a private discussion is different from mass broadcasting. The highway is used both by those visiting their friends and those doing mass deliveries. Is it the job of the highway maintenance crew to control for what purpose their network is used? I would like to know if the above analogy stands. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994831
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - zizee 5y ago
    The "owner" of the highway is the government, who regulates commercial traffic differently to personal traffic. The government places strict rules on who is allowed to use the highway, and how it is used. The highway maintenance crew is akin to the person installing racks for CloudFlare.
  - hackbinary 5y ago
    Highway are a poor analogy for information broadcast systems in general. Highways are closer to a one to one transmission system rathe than a broadcast system of one to many.
xorcist 5y ago
If someone were to tell AT&T that this call center customer of theirs is in the business of extorting people for money, they'd at least look at it and help law enforcement accordingly. Cloudflare has a talk-to-the-hand attitude until actively forced by law enforcement. That's an important difference right there.
franga2000 5y ago
They're already removing things they don't like. I see no reason why they shouldn't remove things that are objectively 100% harmful. Like seriously, is there a single person on the planet that's going to defend online scams? It's immoral, it's illegal, it benefits no one and harms thousands. And it's not like it's very hard to detect and block either.

a2tech 5y ago

Because criminal scum pay their bills. You don't think 8Chan was on a free account do you? The sooner developers realize that Cloudflare is not saving the Internet the better.

oblio 5y ago
At this point I'm convinced that at least 10% of all legitimate economic activity is actually money laundering for crime organizations, in various forms. I imagine that percentage goes even higher in the financial capitals of the world.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  That’s the low estimate.
  - samstave 5y ago
    'ey... I'm trafficking Paintings 'ere -- ya know... Art

cratermoon 5y ago

> what if the mobster running this site is having a bad day and choses to retaliate ? I wonder if someone with malicious intent could set up a site designed to generate complaints (how exactly would be an exercise for the reader), put it behind Cloudflare, and purposely use the information in the forwarded complaints to harass, abuse, dox, or otherwise harm people.

FDSGSG 5y ago

>One can easily write an email to abuse@hoster.example.com and usually these people do not want garbage on their networks. CF is making it impossible to do notify them, and they refuse to implement an alternative procedure. But that's exactly what CF does. They forward your abuse complaints to the abuse contact of the IP address hosting the content.

arthur2e5 5y ago

The retaliation is quite real—CF keeps your entire e-mail address and name in there, so you are essentially doxxing yourself. Pretty sure 8chan posted a lot of the reports they got back in the day.