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So? Like, I get it, a very vocal minority of HN is very much against Cloudflare for perfectly valid reasons, including this risk. But the value Cloudflare pro

So? Like, I get it, a very vocal minority of HN is very much against Cloudflare for perfectly valid reasons, including this risk. But the value Cloudflare provides to these sites far outweights the problems. Otherwise they'd dump them. This guy should do as said and just ask their ISP for another address to NAT from. I'll get severely downvoted for this tho.

hipadev23 2y ago
Cloudflare provides excellent services both to customers and the NSA. What’s not to love?
soulofmischief 2y ago
Probably because you're presenting a strawman and a false dichotomy.
tchbnl 2y ago
I think this highlights the problem with so much of the Internet being hosted behind a single provider that has the reachability of a porcupine.
kevincox 2y ago
I doubt most sites are aware of the problems that Cloudflare causes. - Lots of blogs (often product features and whatnot) that I would read and share with interested friends are broken because Cloudflare blocks their RSS feed. These companies are losing high quality traffic and referrals. - I regularly turn away from sites because a significant number of the pageloads are delayed. Both of these probably show up on the dashboard as "Threats Stopped". The user probably doesn't realize that a significant number of these are would-be customers.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  > Both of these probably show up on the dashboard as "Threats Stopped". The user probably doesn't realize that a significant number of these are would-be customers. My favorite experience with CF remains the time I got blocked by them and then... I think it was the same day, but very shortly thereafter... I got an email from them bragging about how many "threats" the block every day. Like... yeah, that number means something different to me than it does to your marketing team.
doawoo 2y ago
> This guy should do as said and just ask their ISP for another address to NAT from. Have you ever tried to contact an ISP before? Maybe it's because I live in the USA where we usually have a whopping 2 choices for providers, but it's a MASSIVE pain to get them to do basically anything rudimentary, like replace a modem. I can't imagine calling up Comcast and trying to get them to change something like this...
- bcrl 2y ago
  Those of us who run ISPs have just as much trouble getting large corporations like Cloudflare or Ticketbastard to respond to blocked IP address issues like this. I know as I have tried to fix things on behalf of my users in the past, and it was impossible to get anywhere with anyone. The issue was magically "fixed" several years after the problematic IPv4 /22 was put into service. For reference, it was a direct allocation from ARIN. It's not like the old days when NOC contacts actually responded to emails reporting problems.
probably_wrong 2y ago
> This guy should do as said and just ask their ISP for another address to NAT from. He clearly states "I don’t have the ability to change my IP with my ISP so that’s not an option".
- antihero 2y ago
  Hmm. What ISPs do this? Perhaps institutions like universities? Having to spend time verifying every alleged false positive would be expensive, and doing it for anyone that asks would undermine the security of their offering. I suppose they could temporarily delete if and see if it gets flagged as risky again. I’d be intrigued to hear more information about this person’s ISP, location, etc.
taosx 2y ago
I believe that cloudflare should at least have some kind of form where users can make their ip trustworthy. They can still be suspected for a period of time and in case there is another sign of malicious behaviour then they can get banned for even longer. Just ignoring them and throwing infinite amounts of redirects and captchas seems like a terrible experience for normal users. btw, you writing has such a dismissing, arrogant and undermining tone that I would downvote you if I could.
obviouslynotme 2y ago
What do you mean, "So?" This is maybe one step below being removed from the ability to have a checking account. He has been removed from Internet commerce with Zero Recourse and even gaslit by the company harming him. This will keep happening because people like you will just flippantly continue saying, "It's not my problem." It will become your problem soon. As companies continue ignoring completely screwing a slowly growing percentage of people, that demographic will do what he will likely do next, call his local congressional representative to grab your company by the metaphorical ear. Internet companies have incredible legal privilege right now. As expected, they are now abusing it as they have grown large enough. I'm glad these companies are filled with people like you because you don't even mask yourself. That is what will make the boot come down faster and harder.
ipaddr 2y ago
This post helps spread the news to the tech community. Decisions by those who recommend and have power to decide can change based on this information. Some sites may not want to block legitimate traffic.

hipadev23 2y ago

Cloudflare provides excellent services both to customers and the NSA. What’s not to love?

soulofmischief 2y ago

Probably because you're presenting a strawman and a false dichotomy.

tchbnl 2y ago

I think this highlights the problem with so much of the Internet being hosted behind a single provider that has the reachability of a porcupine.

kevincox 2y ago

I doubt most sites are aware of the problems that Cloudflare causes. - Lots of blogs (often product features and whatnot) that I would read and share with interested friends are broken because Cloudflare blocks their RSS feed. These companies are losing high quality traffic and referrals. - I regularly turn away from sites because a significant number of the pageloads are delayed. Both of these probably show up on the dashboard as "Threats Stopped". The user probably doesn't realize that a significant number of these are would-be customers.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
> Both of these probably show up on the dashboard as "Threats Stopped". The user probably doesn't realize that a significant number of these are would-be customers. My favorite experience with CF remains the time I got blocked by them and then... I think it was the same day, but very shortly thereafter... I got an email from them bragging about how many "threats" the block every day. Like... yeah, that number means something different to me than it does to your marketing team.

doawoo 2y ago

> This guy should do as said and just ask their ISP for another address to NAT from. Have you ever tried to contact an ISP before? Maybe it's because I live in the USA where we usually have a whopping 2 choices for providers, but it's a MASSIVE pain to get them to do basically anything rudimentary, like replace a modem. I can't imagine calling up Comcast and trying to get them to change something like this...

bcrl 2y ago
Those of us who run ISPs have just as much trouble getting large corporations like Cloudflare or Ticketbastard to respond to blocked IP address issues like this. I know as I have tried to fix things on behalf of my users in the past, and it was impossible to get anywhere with anyone. The issue was magically "fixed" several years after the problematic IPv4 /22 was put into service. For reference, it was a direct allocation from ARIN. It's not like the old days when NOC contacts actually responded to emails reporting problems.

probably_wrong 2y ago

> This guy should do as said and just ask their ISP for another address to NAT from. He clearly states "I don’t have the ability to change my IP with my ISP so that’s not an option".

antihero 2y ago
Hmm. What ISPs do this? Perhaps institutions like universities? Having to spend time verifying every alleged false positive would be expensive, and doing it for anyone that asks would undermine the security of their offering. I suppose they could temporarily delete if and see if it gets flagged as risky again. I’d be intrigued to hear more information about this person’s ISP, location, etc.

taosx 2y ago

I believe that cloudflare should at least have some kind of form where users can make their ip trustworthy. They can still be suspected for a period of time and in case there is another sign of malicious behaviour then they can get banned for even longer. Just ignoring them and throwing infinite amounts of redirects and captchas seems like a terrible experience for normal users. btw, you writing has such a dismissing, arrogant and undermining tone that I would downvote you if I could.

obviouslynotme 2y ago

What do you mean, "So?" This is maybe one step below being removed from the ability to have a checking account. He has been removed from Internet commerce with Zero Recourse and even gaslit by the company harming him. This will keep happening because people like you will just flippantly continue saying, "It's not my problem." It will become your problem soon. As companies continue ignoring completely screwing a slowly growing percentage of people, that demographic will do what he will likely do next, call his local congressional representative to grab your company by the metaphorical ear. Internet companies have incredible legal privilege right now. As expected, they are now abusing it as they have grown large enough. I'm glad these companies are filled with people like you because you don't even mask yourself. That is what will make the boot come down faster and harder.

ipaddr 2y ago

This post helps spread the news to the tech community. Decisions by those who recommend and have power to decide can change based on this information. Some sites may not want to block legitimate traffic.