5 ms·

Isn't this for stopping DDoS?

bombcar 4y ago
That's what it is for, but most setups don't have it setup correct (the verification page should ONLY appear during an actual DDoS, and even then only against IPs that appear to be participating). It wants to do a bit of cryptography, which means that if scripts/WASM/etc are disabled, you can be out of luck.
- statquontrarian 4y ago
  I have noticed my CPU spike during these checks; however, I have factory settings for Firefox and haven't disabled scripts/WASM/etc. Is there some setting that Firefox might default to that could cause this?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    No idea as I use brave, but check the console log for blocking or anything like that.
sn41 4y ago
Yes, but aren't there more viable options? Like: a transition page that just waits for 5 seconds before loading. Then I don't have to, as an Asian, wonder how American school buses look like when I "click on all squares that have a bus". As though stop signs, buses and yachts are somehow universally the same all over the world. CAPCHA/RECAPCHA is the internet version of the infamous "regatta" question on SAT [1]. [1] https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-infamous-example-of-cultural-bias-on-the-sat https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-i...
- skissane 4y ago
  > Then I don't have to, as an Asian, wonder how American school buses look like when I "click on all squares that have a bus" It is funny how our five year old daughter can recognise what American school buses look like, simply through media exposure, despite the fact that buses in our country look completely different (and our school buses don't look different from public transport buses, since they are the exact same buses and drivers, just scheduled on school routes instead of public ones.) Sometimes I can get rather critical of American cultural imperialism, but this kind of thing is more at the amusing than concerning end of that spectrum. It is a good example though of how many American businesses are happy to offer their products outside the US with minimal or no attempt at localisation–and either don't realise the reality of that lacking localisation, or do yet don't care. It is particularly a problem I think with other English-speaking countries, where people just assume that if the language is the same everything else must be, or else their idea of the differences is limited to a handful of well-known items like date formats
MatthiasPortzel 4y ago
No. Cloudflare offers different levels of protection. One level is ‘prevent DDoS.’ Another level is ‘prevent bots from accessing the site at all.’ Not all bots are part of a DDoS. The problem is that many website owners turn on the second setting, because ‘bots are bad,’ without realizing that this means that some of their users are going to have to fill out Captchas. (Comment written from memory, I may have details wrong.)
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Sometimes it's a lesser evil. Clouflare blocks about 1.6 million bot search queries per day on my search engine. Simply could not operate it without this inconvenience.
  - KomoD 4y ago
    1.6 million out of how many total?
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      50k legitimate queries / day on a slow day. A HN hug of death is maybe 100-150k/day.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        I think those who haven't operated a publicly-visible server on the open Internet in some time might be surprised at just how shark-infested these waters are now. It's, like, mostly sharks.
  - justinclift 4y ago
    > I'm currently looking for hosting for a large term frequency data file that is necessary for several of the search engine's core functions. Did you get that sorted out? Asking because we (sqlitebrowser.org, dbhub.io) have a bunch of Hetzner dedicated servers that are nowhere near fully utilised. Could probably figure something decent out using those, as Hetzner doesn't charge for bandwidth.

That's what it is for, but most setups don't have it setup correct (the verification page should ONLY appear during an actual DDoS, and even then only against IPs that appear to be participating). It wants to do a bit of cryptography, which means that if scripts/WASM/etc are disabled, you can be out of luck.

statquontrarian 4y ago
I have noticed my CPU spike during these checks; however, I have factory settings for Firefox and haven't disabled scripts/WASM/etc. Is there some setting that Firefox might default to that could cause this?
- bombcar 4y ago
  No idea as I use brave, but check the console log for blocking or anything like that.

sn41 4y ago

Yes, but aren't there more viable options? Like: a transition page that just waits for 5 seconds before loading. Then I don't have to, as an Asian, wonder how American school buses look like when I "click on all squares that have a bus". As though stop signs, buses and yachts are somehow universally the same all over the world. CAPCHA/RECAPCHA is the internet version of the infamous "regatta" question on SAT [1]. [1] https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-infamous-example-of-cultural-bias-on-the-sat https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-i...

skissane 4y ago
> Then I don't have to, as an Asian, wonder how American school buses look like when I "click on all squares that have a bus" It is funny how our five year old daughter can recognise what American school buses look like, simply through media exposure, despite the fact that buses in our country look completely different (and our school buses don't look different from public transport buses, since they are the exact same buses and drivers, just scheduled on school routes instead of public ones.) Sometimes I can get rather critical of American cultural imperialism, but this kind of thing is more at the amusing than concerning end of that spectrum. It is a good example though of how many American businesses are happy to offer their products outside the US with minimal or no attempt at localisation–and either don't realise the reality of that lacking localisation, or do yet don't care. It is particularly a problem I think with other English-speaking countries, where people just assume that if the language is the same everything else must be, or else their idea of the differences is limited to a handful of well-known items like date formats

MatthiasPortzel 4y ago

No. Cloudflare offers different levels of protection. One level is ‘prevent DDoS.’ Another level is ‘prevent bots from accessing the site at all.’ Not all bots are part of a DDoS. The problem is that many website owners turn on the second setting, because ‘bots are bad,’ without realizing that this means that some of their users are going to have to fill out Captchas. (Comment written from memory, I may have details wrong.)

marginalia_nu 4y ago
Sometimes it's a lesser evil. Clouflare blocks about 1.6 million bot search queries per day on my search engine. Simply could not operate it without this inconvenience.
- KomoD 4y ago
  1.6 million out of how many total?
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    50k legitimate queries / day on a slow day. A HN hug of death is maybe 100-150k/day.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      I think those who haven't operated a publicly-visible server on the open Internet in some time might be surprised at just how shark-infested these waters are now. It's, like, mostly sharks.
- justinclift 4y ago
  > I'm currently looking for hosting for a large term frequency data file that is necessary for several of the search engine's core functions. Did you get that sorted out? Asking because we (sqlitebrowser.org, dbhub.io) have a bunch of Hetzner dedicated servers that are nowhere near fully utilised. Could probably figure something decent out using those, as Hetzner doesn't charge for bandwidth.