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Does cloudflare respect users? They don't even respect the intent of "do not track" enable it and you can do cloudflare captchas in an infinite loop which doesn

by harry8 4y ago

Does cloudflare respect users? They don't even respect the intent of "do not track" enable it and you can do cloudflare captchas in an infinite loop which doesn't seem so respectful in my understanding of that word.

Spivak 4y ago
This actually sounds like respecting DNT. If a site turns on the captcha feature and you have DNT then anything they do to mark your session as "person who did the captcha" is tracking.
- hendi_ 4y ago
  No, it's not. That's not what "tracking" means.
  - davidmurdoch 4y ago
    It is to some people.
brookst 4y ago
It's not meaningful to talk about a large company's opinions. It's entirely possible that some Cloudflare products respect users while others don't. Better to evaluate the merits of each product than to make a blanket judgment about the company and force your opinions of each product to confirm.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > Better to evaluate the merits of each product than to make a blanket judgment about the company and force your opinions of each product to confirm. I think that the point is that Cloudflare's business model lies largely on its ability to monitor individual end users. So when Cloudflare announces they are providing a service whose primary selling point is that it affects their ability to monitor users then this sounds like a blatant contradiction. I also think that begging people to blindly trust corporations, specially when it's without any rationale or reason, is to say the least very silly.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    > I think that the point is that Cloudflare's business model lies largely on its ability to monitor individual end users Sorry. Can you clarify what the business model is? Disclaimer: work at cloudflare and this is the first time I’ve heard our business is monitoring users.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      CF's business model is to protect websites from Bad traffic (which it apparently defines as non-human traffic). It does this by deciding whether any given connection is from an human or a not. And to decide that, in practice, requires it to track humans. Or from the opposite direction, in practice every single time I add more privacy tools to my collection, CF puts more "are you sure you're human?" pages in my way. Motivations they tell themselves they have ultimately matter very little in light of what they're actually doing to the web.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - harry8 4y ago
      >Disclaimer: work at cloudflare and this is the first time I’ve heard our business is monitoring users. You didn't read that at all. You read a claim that cloudflare depends on its ability to monitor individual end users. That's not actually a nitpick. Given you work at cloudflare can you point me to the part where clouflare state in some legal doc of consequence they do not monitor individual end users? I'd appreciate that.
jacooper 4y ago
You mean Hcaptcha, which is AFAIK independent and hot garbage, I have faced infinite captchas multiple times. Cloudflare Turnstile is an automatic or one-click captcha.
- JoshuaEN 4y ago
  I have definitely gotten infinite one-click captchas from Turnstile (because of being on a VPN I guess), I have also gotten non-infinite but multiple one-click captchas. If they are not going to let me past, I wish they would at least come out and say it. Are they trying to waste bot time like someone stringing along a scammer? Not everyone on a VPN is a bot or otherwise malicious user.
- harry8 4y ago
  No idea about whatever the hell this distinction you're touting is. As a user the infinite catchas are branded "cloudflare" So yes. I mean cloudflare. But don't pick a fight on the internet about it, set do not track in your browser and watch the web break for yourself. Cloudflare are pretty terrible and need to be called for it.

by harry8 4y ago

Spivak 4y ago

This actually sounds like respecting DNT. If a site turns on the captcha feature and you have DNT then anything they do to mark your session as "person who did the captcha" is tracking.

hendi_ 4y ago
No, it's not. That's not what "tracking" means.
- davidmurdoch 4y ago
  It is to some people.

brookst 4y ago

It's not meaningful to talk about a large company's opinions. It's entirely possible that some Cloudflare products respect users while others don't. Better to evaluate the merits of each product than to make a blanket judgment about the company and force your opinions of each product to confirm.

simplotek 4y ago
> Better to evaluate the merits of each product than to make a blanket judgment about the company and force your opinions of each product to confirm. I think that the point is that Cloudflare's business model lies largely on its ability to monitor individual end users. So when Cloudflare announces they are providing a service whose primary selling point is that it affects their ability to monitor users then this sounds like a blatant contradiction. I also think that begging people to blindly trust corporations, specially when it's without any rationale or reason, is to say the least very silly.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  > I think that the point is that Cloudflare's business model lies largely on its ability to monitor individual end users Sorry. Can you clarify what the business model is? Disclaimer: work at cloudflare and this is the first time I’ve heard our business is monitoring users.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    CF's business model is to protect websites from Bad traffic (which it apparently defines as non-human traffic). It does this by deciding whether any given connection is from an human or a not. And to decide that, in practice, requires it to track humans. Or from the opposite direction, in practice every single time I add more privacy tools to my collection, CF puts more "are you sure you're human?" pages in my way. Motivations they tell themselves they have ultimately matter very little in light of what they're actually doing to the web.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - harry8 4y ago
    >Disclaimer: work at cloudflare and this is the first time I’ve heard our business is monitoring users. You didn't read that at all. You read a claim that cloudflare depends on its ability to monitor individual end users. That's not actually a nitpick. Given you work at cloudflare can you point me to the part where clouflare state in some legal doc of consequence they do not monitor individual end users? I'd appreciate that.

jacooper 4y ago

You mean Hcaptcha, which is AFAIK independent and hot garbage, I have faced infinite captchas multiple times. Cloudflare Turnstile is an automatic or one-click captcha.

JoshuaEN 4y ago
I have definitely gotten infinite one-click captchas from Turnstile (because of being on a VPN I guess), I have also gotten non-infinite but multiple one-click captchas. If they are not going to let me past, I wish they would at least come out and say it. Are they trying to waste bot time like someone stringing along a scammer? Not everyone on a VPN is a bot or otherwise malicious user.
harry8 4y ago
No idea about whatever the hell this distinction you're touting is. As a user the infinite catchas are branded "cloudflare" So yes. I mean cloudflare. But don't pick a fight on the internet about it, set do not track in your browser and watch the web break for yourself. Cloudflare are pretty terrible and need to be called for it.