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i belatedly came to this realization that this is a common problem for all hosting (CDNs, because free bandwidth, and CI/CD, because free compute, and anything

by swyx 4y ago

i belatedly came to this realization that this is a common problem for all hosting (CDNs, because free bandwidth, and CI/CD, because free compute, and anything that offers free storage) companies. I call this the PCN problem - free tier hosting for anything means you eventually have to deal with Porn, Crypto, Nazis. everyone handrolls prevention measures, i once proposed an industry council where we swap tips, but everyone views it as competitive advantage for some reason so it didnt go anywhere.

shrewduser 4y ago
Porn and crypto sure, but what are nazi's using free hosting and bandwidth for?
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Presumably, "nazi" here is a stand-in for any form of communication not protected by free speech laws and / or is actively forbidden by government censors (or perhaps merely undesirable by social standards). Hate speech, anti-government advocacy, promotion of violence and terrorism etc will use "free" tier accounts because they want as little capability of being tracked to in-real-life people as possible. They may or may not fully utilize the bandwidth, but they will absolutely take advantage of access to resources that don't require real identification, and that adds an extra burden of regulatory compliance on the company offering it (even if it is just hiring a few extra people to manage takedown orders, etc).
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Things like Kiwifarms which provide a risk of substantial reputational damage if you're seen to be supporting them. There's a campaign on Twitter to deplatform KF from Cloudflare after more SWATting incidents, for example.
    - brightball 4y ago
      Everyday I learn about a new dark corner of the internet.
      - mynameishere 4y ago
        You're just now learning about Twitter?
  - jkaplowitz 4y ago
    No, "nazi" is pretty literal - Cloudflare hosted Stormfront and the Daily Stormer for a while, both of which are actually neo-Nazi. Wikipedia and Axios seem to think Cloudflare stopped hosting Stormfront in 2017, and I don't want to visit a neo-Nazi site even to determine how true this is, but stormfront.org's A records in DNS do still point to Cloudflare IPs. [Edit: someone found an article from later in 2017 where it seems like Cloudflare resumed hosting Stormfront just over a month after it had stopped hosting it.]
alx__ 4y ago
Only recently learned that crypto jerks will try to abuse free compute during the build step for hosting services
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- epolanski 4y ago
  They injected miners in websites and even free CI pipelines on GitHub and similar.
collegeburner 4y ago
missed the opportunity to call it NPC which lowkey fits better :)

by swyx 4y ago

shrewduser 4y ago

Porn and crypto sure, but what are nazi's using free hosting and bandwidth for?

zdragnar 4y ago
Presumably, "nazi" here is a stand-in for any form of communication not protected by free speech laws and / or is actively forbidden by government censors (or perhaps merely undesirable by social standards). Hate speech, anti-government advocacy, promotion of violence and terrorism etc will use "free" tier accounts because they want as little capability of being tracked to in-real-life people as possible. They may or may not fully utilize the bandwidth, but they will absolutely take advantage of access to resources that don't require real identification, and that adds an extra burden of regulatory compliance on the company offering it (even if it is just hiring a few extra people to manage takedown orders, etc).
- pjc50 4y ago
  Things like Kiwifarms which provide a risk of substantial reputational damage if you're seen to be supporting them. There's a campaign on Twitter to deplatform KF from Cloudflare after more SWATting incidents, for example.
  - brightball 4y ago
    Everyday I learn about a new dark corner of the internet.
    - mynameishere 4y ago
      You're just now learning about Twitter?
- jkaplowitz 4y ago
  No, "nazi" is pretty literal - Cloudflare hosted Stormfront and the Daily Stormer for a while, both of which are actually neo-Nazi. Wikipedia and Axios seem to think Cloudflare stopped hosting Stormfront in 2017, and I don't want to visit a neo-Nazi site even to determine how true this is, but stormfront.org's A records in DNS do still point to Cloudflare IPs. [Edit: someone found an article from later in 2017 where it seems like Cloudflare resumed hosting Stormfront just over a month after it had stopped hosting it.]

alx__ 4y ago

Only recently learned that crypto jerks will try to abuse free compute during the build step for hosting services

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
epolanski 4y ago
They injected miners in websites and even free CI pipelines on GitHub and similar.

collegeburner 4y ago

missed the opportunity to call it NPC which lowkey fits better :)