3 ms·

We can walk & chew gum here, spammers and DDoSers are poisoning the well for sure, but Cloudflare is responsible for externalities of their service.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zdragnar 4y ago
Server hosts want protection from DDoS. They hire a bouncer (I e. Cloudflare) to keep the hordes at bay. The bouncer asks for some way to distinguish your suspicious looking request from that of the start of a DDoS attack. How is this an "externality" of cloudflare's service? If anything, it is an "externality" of the server hosts.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Does it even matter? Blame is irrelevant, I find responsibility to be a more interesting thing to discuss in virtually all circumstances. The DDoSers and spammers should cut it out (but unfortunately we can't really count on them for anything), Cloudflare should make more of an effort to preserve accessibility, and their customers should care about it too & make it clear to Cloudflare that it's a priority to them. But if we take a step back it's clear that Cloudflare is the entity here that can have the biggest impact. Spammers and customers are diffuse, Cloudflare isn't. How much of the blame they deserve, I don't really care, but theres a problem, they're in the best position to act, so they have a responsibility to. In my opinion, that's the best mindset for solving problems.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    > Blame is irrelevant, I find responsibility to be a more interesting thing to discuss This is, to me, a bizarre notion. You're imposing some sort of moral edict upon cloudflare for providing an opt-in service to web hosts. > they're in the best position to act They have, and they decided that certain traffic requires additional consideration to distinguish from bad actors. Your refusal to cooperate is entirely on you. Just because you don't like their solution doesn't mean that there is a better one. If you have better ideas, I'm sure they're all ears, as less intrusive is generally cheaper to implement.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zdragnar 4y ago

Server hosts want protection from DDoS. They hire a bouncer (I e. Cloudflare) to keep the hordes at bay. The bouncer asks for some way to distinguish your suspicious looking request from that of the start of a DDoS attack. How is this an "externality" of cloudflare's service? If anything, it is an "externality" of the server hosts.

maxbond 4y ago
Does it even matter? Blame is irrelevant, I find responsibility to be a more interesting thing to discuss in virtually all circumstances. The DDoSers and spammers should cut it out (but unfortunately we can't really count on them for anything), Cloudflare should make more of an effort to preserve accessibility, and their customers should care about it too & make it clear to Cloudflare that it's a priority to them. But if we take a step back it's clear that Cloudflare is the entity here that can have the biggest impact. Spammers and customers are diffuse, Cloudflare isn't. How much of the blame they deserve, I don't really care, but theres a problem, they're in the best position to act, so they have a responsibility to. In my opinion, that's the best mindset for solving problems.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  > Blame is irrelevant, I find responsibility to be a more interesting thing to discuss This is, to me, a bizarre notion. You're imposing some sort of moral edict upon cloudflare for providing an opt-in service to web hosts. > they're in the best position to act They have, and they decided that certain traffic requires additional consideration to distinguish from bad actors. Your refusal to cooperate is entirely on you. Just because you don't like their solution doesn't mean that there is a better one. If you have better ideas, I'm sure they're all ears, as less intrusive is generally cheaper to implement.