6 ms·

The geographical blocks are not enforced by Cloudflare as a blanket ban, but are chosen by each account owner (it's a setting you configure). I've worked with a

The geographical blocks are not enforced by Cloudflare as a blanket ban, but are chosen by each account owner (it's a setting you configure). I've worked with a few companies that saw this as a very valuable service (like small domestic companies blocking international traffic, especially from Russia and China, because we had no presence there anyway and that cut down bot traffic by like 95%). Likewise, TOR access is similarly configurable. Companies choose to block it because more often than not it IS bot traffic, and the few potential real customers who use TOR are deemed not worth the headaches of the rest of the network. Cloudflare's WAF is really pretty granular, with a lot of toggles and overrides: https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/managed-rules/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/managed-rules/ Anecdote: For small businesses with limited web resources, these are just everyday tradeoffs they have to make in order to keep hosting and security fees reasonable. At the place I worked at, previously we were spending tens of thousands a year on hosting and thousands more for a competing WAF that cost like 10x more and didn't work very well. Cloudflare let us move to a much lower hosting plan and cost like $240/yr and drastically reduced bot traffic. Not a single customer complained over the next year or two. It was a huge improvement in both performance and costs.

itake 3y ago
It’s so annoying when I travel and I can’t access login to my Utility provider’s website to pay my bill. I understand they don’t want get hacked but believe it or not, customers travel.
- solardev 3y ago
  I agree, it is annoying. But it's also your utility's choice. Complain to them about it or choose a different provider if you can? Security and convenience are always tradeoffs. I think 2FA is annoying as heck too (much prefer passkeys these days), or ridiculous password requirements, email passwordless login, etc., but those are all choices some admin or manager made on behalf of their business.
- mozman 3y ago
  There’s always auto pay or give them a call?
- lolinder 3y ago
  I found out a few months ago that my router has a built-in VPN that I just had to turn on. Now it doesn't matter where in the world I am, it can always look like I'm not only in the US, I'm actually on my home network. That might be worth considering if you're traveling a lot: it's about as benign-looking to providers as is possible.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I'd be afraid of doing that, knowing how insecure most home routers are. Seems like a zero day (or really even a "zero year", considering how behind updates can be) away from having your home router become part of a botnet...
    - lolinder 3y ago
      It's just OpenVPN, and the version was up to date when I enabled it.
- devmor 3y ago
  That’s like saying it’s annoying that I can’t get my favorite chips at the grocery store because they don’t ship them to my country, so I’m upset at the grocery store for not having them.
figassis 3y ago
I am convinced that while harder, there are more intelligent ways to block these DDoS attacks other than blocking entire geographies. I often travel between Africa and US, and there are things like buying furniture (home depot blanket blocks non US customers, but they would simply allow shipping only to US addresses), buying cars (there are large car sites that don't allow browsing from outside US, even if you've already have an account or bought from them in the past), etc. I feel like geoblocking is the easy way out, because if developing countries suddenly started waving their cards en masse, these merchants would find a way to let them in. Speaking of card waving, it likely only appears that developing countries are not a large customer base because to merchants, they look like US customers. Most African countries don't have access to Visa/Master cards, so often they'll have a US account where they can transfer some of their money. Others might earn in the US (like remote workers), and spend considerably in the US. Then, because most merchants don't ship outside the US, these customers would use shipping forwarders, like myus.com. So when making the decision to "block Nigeria because we don't really have any customers there", they're likely not considerig this potentially large customer base they're alienating. Even worse, these are usually customers that do not have access to credit, only debit, so for example, when buying large ticket items (like a car), they tend to pay for it all upfront, so likely great customers. Then there are the business customers, the ones what want to buy containers full of merchandise. Those too get blocked.
- solardev 3y ago
  > I am convinced that while harder, there are more intelligent ways to block these DDoS attacks other than blocking entire geographies. Sure. Even by default, Cloudflare won't block entire countries. That's a CHOICE some businesses make if the default blocks aren't enough, and they don't have the time or resources to configure more nuanced WAF rules. (OWASP isn't exactly straightforward). Edit: For example, at that job I was talking about, we had different rulesets for different regions... China and Russia were completely banned, Africa was put behind stricter JS security checks and CAPTCHAs but allowed in, Europe had a medium security level (we did occasionally sell there, but very rarely), while the US had entirely custom WAF rules. It just depends on who we wanted to sell to or not. It goes the other way around, too, you know. I've seen European and Asian sites that geoblock US customers. It's not out of malice, they just don't want to deal with the edge cases. Even if a foreign customer can access your website and buy stuff, dealing with international customs, consumer laws, credit card fraud, wire transfers, etc. can be a pain that's not worth it for smaller merchants. And if the foreign buyer is using a reshipper anyway, well, the reshipper can just buy the whole thing for them and deal with payments, etc. as an intermediary, like how Tenso/BuyFromJapan/JapanRabbit work. Big companies have proper international presences, but for small local businesses, the amount of effort it takes to support international buyers just isn't worth the profit they typically bring in. Even on eBay, with its built-in international payment and shipping rules, sellers often won't want to bother. This isn't really a matter of security rules, really, but just business cost/benefit decisions. Besides, it helps businesses in each country stay local! Do you really want Amazon taking over everywhere...?
theamk 3y ago
Leaded gasoline was also popular and provided a valuable service to car ownwrs (more power, less engine wear). And yet we banned it. It is not just about customers, you have to thibk about ecosystem as a whole.
- solardev 3y ago
  What do you mean? You want to force every business to sell internationally?
kkielhofner 3y ago
I don’t understand the parent viewpoint. “I don’t like Cloudflare because they’re trying to centralize the Internet and block me” It’s not as though Cloudflare goes out and randomly inserts themselves in Internet traffic and has some blanket policy of ruining TOR or blocking you. Cloudflare has customers (site hosts) that have choice in the marketplace and choose them. The customer configures whether their services use Cloudflare or not. The customer configures TOR access, CAPTCHA level, geoblocks, and any other number of hundreds of parameters. Then people get mad at Cloudflare when a site/host selects Cloudflare and configures it in a way that blocks them? Cloudflare is selling what people want to buy and providing the service in the way they configure it. If you have a problem with that take it up with the site/host/CF customer, I truly don’t understand how/why they can or should be blamed for their success. I think what you’ll find is that many Cloudflare customers are practical and pragmatic. Want access to our site over Tor? Sorry but Tor is 99.999% shady/malicious traffic we don’t care about. The risk vs reward isn’t there so blocked. Maybe if a customer says something we’ll enable it but that has never and will never happen so blocked. Our PCI scans and auditing systems are showing weird traffic from Asia even though we have no customers or business there? Blocked. Repeat this for any other number of factors and you can start to understand why Cloudflare has double the market share of their nearest competitor (AWS Cloudfront). They offer a product suite site owners and hosts love. The collateral damage from a tiny fringe of legitimate users who get stuck in the CAPTCHAs, use tor, etc just don’t matter to the site hosts. If they did they would configure Cloudflare differently or leave them altogether.
- solardev 3y ago
  Exactly.
- NicoJuicy 3y ago
  Yeah. I think cloudflare is even the only one that supports the "onion routing" to improve the situation for real Tor users.
raffraffraff 3y ago
Absolutely this. Cloudflare simply provide website owners with the tools. I've used them on a number of sites. For example, someone provides a local service and is sick of hacking attempts from the same 5 countries. Block 'em. Or they sell products that can't be delivered internationally, so why expose yourself to pointless inquiries or hacking attempts?

itake 3y ago

It’s so annoying when I travel and I can’t access login to my Utility provider’s website to pay my bill. I understand they don’t want get hacked but believe it or not, customers travel.

solardev 3y ago
I agree, it is annoying. But it's also your utility's choice. Complain to them about it or choose a different provider if you can? Security and convenience are always tradeoffs. I think 2FA is annoying as heck too (much prefer passkeys these days), or ridiculous password requirements, email passwordless login, etc., but those are all choices some admin or manager made on behalf of their business.
mozman 3y ago
There’s always auto pay or give them a call?
lolinder 3y ago
I found out a few months ago that my router has a built-in VPN that I just had to turn on. Now it doesn't matter where in the world I am, it can always look like I'm not only in the US, I'm actually on my home network. That might be worth considering if you're traveling a lot: it's about as benign-looking to providers as is possible.
- solardev 3y ago
  I'd be afraid of doing that, knowing how insecure most home routers are. Seems like a zero day (or really even a "zero year", considering how behind updates can be) away from having your home router become part of a botnet...
  - lolinder 3y ago
    It's just OpenVPN, and the version was up to date when I enabled it.
devmor 3y ago
That’s like saying it’s annoying that I can’t get my favorite chips at the grocery store because they don’t ship them to my country, so I’m upset at the grocery store for not having them.

figassis 3y ago

I am convinced that while harder, there are more intelligent ways to block these DDoS attacks other than blocking entire geographies. I often travel between Africa and US, and there are things like buying furniture (home depot blanket blocks non US customers, but they would simply allow shipping only to US addresses), buying cars (there are large car sites that don't allow browsing from outside US, even if you've already have an account or bought from them in the past), etc. I feel like geoblocking is the easy way out, because if developing countries suddenly started waving their cards en masse, these merchants would find a way to let them in. Speaking of card waving, it likely only appears that developing countries are not a large customer base because to merchants, they look like US customers. Most African countries don't have access to Visa/Master cards, so often they'll have a US account where they can transfer some of their money. Others might earn in the US (like remote workers), and spend considerably in the US. Then, because most merchants don't ship outside the US, these customers would use shipping forwarders, like myus.com. So when making the decision to "block Nigeria because we don't really have any customers there", they're likely not considerig this potentially large customer base they're alienating. Even worse, these are usually customers that do not have access to credit, only debit, so for example, when buying large ticket items (like a car), they tend to pay for it all upfront, so likely great customers. Then there are the business customers, the ones what want to buy containers full of merchandise. Those too get blocked.

solardev 3y ago
> I am convinced that while harder, there are more intelligent ways to block these DDoS attacks other than blocking entire geographies. Sure. Even by default, Cloudflare won't block entire countries. That's a CHOICE some businesses make if the default blocks aren't enough, and they don't have the time or resources to configure more nuanced WAF rules. (OWASP isn't exactly straightforward). Edit: For example, at that job I was talking about, we had different rulesets for different regions... China and Russia were completely banned, Africa was put behind stricter JS security checks and CAPTCHAs but allowed in, Europe had a medium security level (we did occasionally sell there, but very rarely), while the US had entirely custom WAF rules. It just depends on who we wanted to sell to or not. It goes the other way around, too, you know. I've seen European and Asian sites that geoblock US customers. It's not out of malice, they just don't want to deal with the edge cases. Even if a foreign customer can access your website and buy stuff, dealing with international customs, consumer laws, credit card fraud, wire transfers, etc. can be a pain that's not worth it for smaller merchants. And if the foreign buyer is using a reshipper anyway, well, the reshipper can just buy the whole thing for them and deal with payments, etc. as an intermediary, like how Tenso/BuyFromJapan/JapanRabbit work. Big companies have proper international presences, but for small local businesses, the amount of effort it takes to support international buyers just isn't worth the profit they typically bring in. Even on eBay, with its built-in international payment and shipping rules, sellers often won't want to bother. This isn't really a matter of security rules, really, but just business cost/benefit decisions. Besides, it helps businesses in each country stay local! Do you really want Amazon taking over everywhere...?

theamk 3y ago

Leaded gasoline was also popular and provided a valuable service to car ownwrs (more power, less engine wear). And yet we banned it. It is not just about customers, you have to thibk about ecosystem as a whole.

solardev 3y ago
What do you mean? You want to force every business to sell internationally?

kkielhofner 3y ago

I don’t understand the parent viewpoint. “I don’t like Cloudflare because they’re trying to centralize the Internet and block me” It’s not as though Cloudflare goes out and randomly inserts themselves in Internet traffic and has some blanket policy of ruining TOR or blocking you. Cloudflare has customers (site hosts) that have choice in the marketplace and choose them. The customer configures whether their services use Cloudflare or not. The customer configures TOR access, CAPTCHA level, geoblocks, and any other number of hundreds of parameters. Then people get mad at Cloudflare when a site/host selects Cloudflare and configures it in a way that blocks them? Cloudflare is selling what people want to buy and providing the service in the way they configure it. If you have a problem with that take it up with the site/host/CF customer, I truly don’t understand how/why they can or should be blamed for their success. I think what you’ll find is that many Cloudflare customers are practical and pragmatic. Want access to our site over Tor? Sorry but Tor is 99.999% shady/malicious traffic we don’t care about. The risk vs reward isn’t there so blocked. Maybe if a customer says something we’ll enable it but that has never and will never happen so blocked. Our PCI scans and auditing systems are showing weird traffic from Asia even though we have no customers or business there? Blocked. Repeat this for any other number of factors and you can start to understand why Cloudflare has double the market share of their nearest competitor (AWS Cloudfront). They offer a product suite site owners and hosts love. The collateral damage from a tiny fringe of legitimate users who get stuck in the CAPTCHAs, use tor, etc just don’t matter to the site hosts. If they did they would configure Cloudflare differently or leave them altogether.

solardev 3y ago
Exactly.
NicoJuicy 3y ago
Yeah. I think cloudflare is even the only one that supports the "onion routing" to improve the situation for real Tor users.

raffraffraff 3y ago

Absolutely this. Cloudflare simply provide website owners with the tools. I've used them on a number of sites. For example, someone provides a local service and is sick of hacking attempts from the same 5 countries. Block 'em. Or they sell products that can't be delivered internationally, so why expose yourself to pointless inquiries or hacking attempts?