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Cloudflare shields criminals from cops. They do so because of "free speech" or whatever. There was recently a story about a swatting victim, who tried to get th

Cloudflare shields criminals from cops. They do so because of "free speech" or whatever. There was recently a story about a swatting victim, who tried to get the forum the swatters use to shut down. Cloud flare refused to give the identity of the criminals, the case even went to court and the victim lost and now apparently has to pay court costs. Our legal system is unfortunately not perfect, which is why it matters what infrastructure providers do. Do they enable criminals by shielding them from the police? Or do they have policies in place that prevent abuse of their service? With Cloudflare, I'm pretty sure they lean towards the former.

ehutch79 3y ago
I'm reasonably sure cloudflare would comply with any subpoenas / warrants sent their way.
- derefr 3y ago
  Which is a catch-22, because subpoenas / warrants for collection of digital information have to name a specific intended target (a real legal identity under suspicion, not some pseudonym) — and "the real legal identity of the suspect" is exactly the thing that Cloudflare's proxy-shielding prevents you from learning. Courts won't act until they have some specific individual to act toward. (This is also why, whenever you hear about e.g. police stings on Tor forums, they never mention requesting courts to issue warrants to ISPs for collection of e.g. traffic-analysis-correlation info about locations of servers hosting illegal content. Instead, this de-anonymization step is something they always have to achieve extra-judicially, usually by contracting a private network threat intelligence firm.)
  - struant 3y ago
    Or you don't hear about the methods they are using for deanonymizing because they would get the cases thrown out of a court. Warrantless wiretapping and the like... And the private firm is just lying for them so law enforcement can do parallel construction.
mcfedr 3y ago
Obviously with no context but what I hear Is the website illegal? Or maybe the police need to deal with spam calls more sensibly. Presumably they can trace where the calls are coming from in real life
internetter 3y ago
wait, are you mad cloudflare decided not to be an active participant in a doxxing campaign? Swatting is awful but I'm inclined to side with cloudflare here.
- newaccount74 3y ago
  I'm mad that they offer anonymity to criminals. If you offer a service that lets people hide their identity, you ought to perform a bit of due diligence.

ehutch79 3y ago

I'm reasonably sure cloudflare would comply with any subpoenas / warrants sent their way.

derefr 3y ago
Which is a catch-22, because subpoenas / warrants for collection of digital information have to name a specific intended target (a real legal identity under suspicion, not some pseudonym) — and "the real legal identity of the suspect" is exactly the thing that Cloudflare's proxy-shielding prevents you from learning. Courts won't act until they have some specific individual to act toward. (This is also why, whenever you hear about e.g. police stings on Tor forums, they never mention requesting courts to issue warrants to ISPs for collection of e.g. traffic-analysis-correlation info about locations of servers hosting illegal content. Instead, this de-anonymization step is something they always have to achieve extra-judicially, usually by contracting a private network threat intelligence firm.)
- struant 3y ago
  Or you don't hear about the methods they are using for deanonymizing because they would get the cases thrown out of a court. Warrantless wiretapping and the like... And the private firm is just lying for them so law enforcement can do parallel construction.

mcfedr 3y ago

Obviously with no context but what I hear Is the website illegal? Or maybe the police need to deal with spam calls more sensibly. Presumably they can trace where the calls are coming from in real life

internetter 3y ago

wait, are you mad cloudflare decided not to be an active participant in a doxxing campaign? Swatting is awful but I'm inclined to side with cloudflare here.

newaccount74 3y ago
I'm mad that they offer anonymity to criminals. If you offer a service that lets people hide their identity, you ought to perform a bit of due diligence.