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Cloudflare want to be the internets backbone. And they've honestly succeeded. Now it's almost impossible to access websites in an automated way -- the CTO post
by thejosh 3y ago
Cloudflare want to be the internets backbone. And they've honestly succeeded.
Now it's almost impossible to access websites in an automated way -- the CTO posted you can just email him (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34639212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34639212) and he'll sort it. Because that scales.
edit: Mispoke about the CTO, said he would approve you, I was wrong. Apologies.
Their DNS is "privacy focused", but they provide "aggregated results" of domains. How is that privacy focused?
Cloudflare came from the approach of being a developers friend ("Look! SSL is now free!") but was given the internet on a silver platter.
- tenpies 3y agoAlso remember, Cloudflare is de-facto the moderator of the internet. Whatever you may think of Kiwifarms, we all saw how that narrative unfolded from a technical perspective.
- kmeisthax 3y agoYes. Cloudflare was irresponsible in fighting to keep 8chan, Daily Stormer, and Kiwifarms up as long as they did. Every other ISP with a competent abuse desk dropped them. If you don't think that's bad, then let me remind you that back in 2012, Malwarebytes actually had a policy of blocking all Cloudflare services specifically because they were hosting malware and refused to remove it[0]. The excuse Cloudflare used for not removing malware from their network was the same language used to justify keeping the aforementioned sites operational. If Cloudflare was paid to run the Great Firewall of China they'd bend over backwards to try and claim it was to protect Xi Jinping's freedom of speech. Remember that moderators can be abusive not just in terms of removing content that shouldn't be removed, but also by forcing you to accept things that harm you. Moderation is a trust relationship because I'm delegating my own personal decision to accept or block traffic/content/etc to someone else. Cloudflare is not trustworthy. Cloudflare also used to be a big pain in the ass for Tor/VPN users because competent DDoS protection requires some kind of traceable identity. Their solution was Privacy Pass - an extension that let you pre-solve their CAPTCHAs. However, this wasn't good enough, so their next solution... was to literally partner with Apple to implement Web Environment Integrity, years before Google even proposed it. Nobody noticed this - not even me - because it was sold as a way to make CAPTCHAs less annoying. It was literally the trojan horse Google could only dream of building. [0] https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/108447-my-site-using-cloudflare-is-being-blocked/#comment-542408 https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/108447-my-site-using-c...
- tzs 3y agoKiwifarms did not have to use Cloudflare.
- redman25 3y agoI've never understood why so many tech oriented people have turned a blind eye to Cloudflare.
- jgrahamc 3y agoI don't have a mechanism to "approve you". We don't have any clue who people are and so even if I wanted to "approve you" I couldn't.
- thejosh 3y agoSorry, this was wrong. I was a fool to post that without providing context and I apologise. I have updated my comment. I sometimes forget there are real people on the other side of the computer sometimes. It was this thread, where you mentioned emailing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34639212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34639212
- jgrahamc 3y agoAh. Makes sense now. I did wonder what you were talking about.
- CalRobert 3y agoDon't worry, Gmail is breaking email too and the CTO will never see your non-google email.