4 ms·

I don’t understand why people are so up in arms about Cloudflare being a MITM, but not e.g. AWS API Gateway being a MITM.

Minor49er 4y ago
Probably due to the recent news about Cloudflare dropping their clients, namely Kiwi Farms, claiming things as severe as "unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike (Cloudflare has) previously seen" [1] without disclosing what exactly it was that they saw (also curiously without law enforcement getting involved). To my knowledge, AWS API Gateway has not dropped a client without adequate reason, which is why I'd imagine that Cloudflare is being specifically talked about [1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/
- dave4420 4y ago
  To my knowledge, there’s never been a concerted campaign to get AWS to drop anyone as a client, whereas this seems to happen a lot to Cloudflare (Kiwi Farms being the latest example). And anyway, if Cloudflare MITMing the internet is bad, then isn’t them having one fewer client a good thing? (Even if said ex-client would rather still be a current client.)
  - NathanKP 4y ago
    Parler was an example of AWS dropping a bad customer, both for TOS violations, and because of a concerted campaign to get all the major providers to drop them.
- breaker-kind 4y ago
  what do you mean, exactly what it was that they saw!?!? Kiwi Farms was actively sanctioning stalking, doxxing, and large-scale cyber-harassment against the trans community
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    ...all evidence of which was on the very website which they rendered inaccessible. So now that it's gone, all we have is their word.
    - johnklos 4y ago
      Are you serious? This has got to be the dumbest attempt to legitimize Kiwifarms I've seen yet.
      - throwawayallday 4y ago
        >Are you serious? Yes? They also convinced web archives to delete their backups of Kiwifarms so we're not able to verify any claims.
        hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
        "They" the anti-KF activists, sure. I haven't heard that Cloudflare had anything to do with the pressure campaign on archive.org; do you have a source for that?
    - omg_ponies 4y ago
      If only there was a way to keep copies of web pages
      - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
        Such as? Archive.org has nothing for Kiwifarms.
        Zababa 4y ago
        Making archives yourself? 4chan has a constant rotating cast of archive websites, with custom software developed. Internet is not only archive.org and cloudflare. You're a user too, you could make archives. Rejecting the responsibility on two big entities is just too easy.
WallyFunk 4y ago
Cloudflare is one Internet choke-point among a handful of others. But it still means content is centralized, only centralized across a handful of different providers.
johnklos 4y ago
Did Amazon make a deal with Firefox to send all browsing DNS lookups to them without asking end users? Is Amazon trying to encourage people to use DNS-over-https with specious claims that your ISP is evil, but of course Cloudflare is not, without telling us that DoH takes control away from us so we can't block ads or otherwise decide what we want to allow or block? Is Amazon trying to push everything through just a handful of IPs so that people can't block nefarious content without also blocking legitimate content? If everyone were on-board with what Cloudflare wants, the Internet would be re-centralized around them, and because they don't "host" (which is a special kind of bullshit) and they don't "censor", bad actors will have free reign, so long as Cloudflare is making $$$.
- majke 4y ago
  > If everyone were on-board with what Cloudflare wants, the Internet would be... You got me lost here. Cloudflare is making money by having everyone re-centralized around it? Where is the revenue from?
  - johnklos 4y ago
    Not sure if you're trolling here, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a legitimate question. People asked the same about Facebook and Google. Monopolies can extract money from all sorts of things that appear to not necessarily directly generate revenue. What happens when all the large players are using Cloudflare? They become a monopoly. Businesses small and large can't afford to not use them, because businesses don't want to give the appearance of being at a disadvantage. DDoS gangs will extort money from the holdouts, and it'll just become what businesses use. Cloudflare already has a problem where they block large portions of the Internet and either make it so their access to Cloudflare hosted sites either has to go through CAPTCHAs or outright are blocked. If this starts happening to large ISPs, they'll be in a position where they, the ISPs, will be expected to solve problems of Cloudflare's creation. I bet there'll be paid programs for ISPs where ISPs pay for the privilege to correspond with Cloudflare, agree to be "good" (Cloudflare's definition of good), and will suffer financially (because their traffic will be marginalized) if they don't agree to whatever Cloudflare wants. We're seeing the pieces being assembled now.

Minor49er 4y ago

Probably due to the recent news about Cloudflare dropping their clients, namely Kiwi Farms, claiming things as severe as "unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike (Cloudflare has) previously seen" [1] without disclosing what exactly it was that they saw (also curiously without law enforcement getting involved). To my knowledge, AWS API Gateway has not dropped a client without adequate reason, which is why I'd imagine that Cloudflare is being specifically talked about [1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/

dave4420 4y ago
To my knowledge, there’s never been a concerted campaign to get AWS to drop anyone as a client, whereas this seems to happen a lot to Cloudflare (Kiwi Farms being the latest example). And anyway, if Cloudflare MITMing the internet is bad, then isn’t them having one fewer client a good thing? (Even if said ex-client would rather still be a current client.)
- NathanKP 4y ago
  Parler was an example of AWS dropping a bad customer, both for TOS violations, and because of a concerted campaign to get all the major providers to drop them.
breaker-kind 4y ago
what do you mean, exactly what it was that they saw!?!? Kiwi Farms was actively sanctioning stalking, doxxing, and large-scale cyber-harassment against the trans community
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  ...all evidence of which was on the very website which they rendered inaccessible. So now that it's gone, all we have is their word.
  - johnklos 4y ago
    Are you serious? This has got to be the dumbest attempt to legitimize Kiwifarms I've seen yet.
    - throwawayallday 4y ago
      >Are you serious? Yes? They also convinced web archives to delete their backups of Kiwifarms so we're not able to verify any claims.
      - hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
        "They" the anti-KF activists, sure. I haven't heard that Cloudflare had anything to do with the pressure campaign on archive.org; do you have a source for that?
  - omg_ponies 4y ago
    If only there was a way to keep copies of web pages
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      Such as? Archive.org has nothing for Kiwifarms.
      - Zababa 4y ago
        Making archives yourself? 4chan has a constant rotating cast of archive websites, with custom software developed. Internet is not only archive.org and cloudflare. You're a user too, you could make archives. Rejecting the responsibility on two big entities is just too easy.

WallyFunk 4y ago

Cloudflare is one Internet choke-point among a handful of others. But it still means content is centralized, only centralized across a handful of different providers.

johnklos 4y ago

Did Amazon make a deal with Firefox to send all browsing DNS lookups to them without asking end users? Is Amazon trying to encourage people to use DNS-over-https with specious claims that your ISP is evil, but of course Cloudflare is not, without telling us that DoH takes control away from us so we can't block ads or otherwise decide what we want to allow or block? Is Amazon trying to push everything through just a handful of IPs so that people can't block nefarious content without also blocking legitimate content? If everyone were on-board with what Cloudflare wants, the Internet would be re-centralized around them, and because they don't "host" (which is a special kind of bullshit) and they don't "censor", bad actors will have free reign, so long as Cloudflare is making $$$.

majke 4y ago
> If everyone were on-board with what Cloudflare wants, the Internet would be... You got me lost here. Cloudflare is making money by having everyone re-centralized around it? Where is the revenue from?
- johnklos 4y ago
  Not sure if you're trolling here, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a legitimate question. People asked the same about Facebook and Google. Monopolies can extract money from all sorts of things that appear to not necessarily directly generate revenue. What happens when all the large players are using Cloudflare? They become a monopoly. Businesses small and large can't afford to not use them, because businesses don't want to give the appearance of being at a disadvantage. DDoS gangs will extort money from the holdouts, and it'll just become what businesses use. Cloudflare already has a problem where they block large portions of the Internet and either make it so their access to Cloudflare hosted sites either has to go through CAPTCHAs or outright are blocked. If this starts happening to large ISPs, they'll be in a position where they, the ISPs, will be expected to solve problems of Cloudflare's creation. I bet there'll be paid programs for ISPs where ISPs pay for the privilege to correspond with Cloudflare, agree to be "good" (Cloudflare's definition of good), and will suffer financially (because their traffic will be marginalized) if they don't agree to whatever Cloudflare wants. We're seeing the pieces being assembled now.