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> a racketeer like CloudFlare Could anyone teach me what makes this a fair characterization of Cloudflare?

by sltr 1y ago

diggan 1y ago
Not sure exactly what it is referring to, but I could make a guess that it's because Cloudflare sells LLM inference as a service, but also a service that blocks LLMs. A bit like a Anti-DDOS company also selling DDOS services. For example, https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/guides/demos-architectures/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/guides/demos-ar... has examples visit websites, then for the people on the other side (who want to protect themselves against those visits) there is https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/detections/firewall-for-ai/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/detections/firewall-fo... Just a guess though, I don't know for sure the authors intentions/meanings.
- jsheard 1y ago
  > A bit like a Anti-DDOS company also selling DDOS services. That's not far off from what Cloudflare does either, the majority of DDoS-for-hire outfits are hidden behind and protected by Cloudflare. Whenever this comes up I do a quick survey of the top DDG results for "stresser" to see if anything's changed, and sure enough: mrstresser.com. 21600 IN NS sterling.ns.cloudflare.com. silentstress.cc. 21472 IN NS ernest.ns.cloudflare.com. maxstresser.com. 21600 IN NS edna.ns.cloudflare.com. darkvr.su. 21600 IN NS paige.ns.cloudflare.com. stresser.sh. 21600 IN NS luke.ns.cloudflare.com. stresserhub.org. 21600 IN NS fay.ns.cloudflare.com.
- rsync 1y ago
  "Just a guess though, I don't know for sure the authors intentions/meanings." I am reminded of this posting from years past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496499 "A lot of hacking groups, terror organizations and other malicious actors have been using cloud flare for a while without them doing shit about it. ... It's their business model. More DDoS means more cloudflare customers, yaaay." I've not spent much time on this topic but I am very interested in the notion that a well-meaning third party established some kind of looking glass that surveyed cloudflare behavior and that third party was sued ? I'd like to learn more about that situation ...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mariusor 1y ago
I remember that when the first influxes of LLM crawlers have hit Sourcehut, they had some talks with Cloudflare which ended when CF demanded an outrageous amount of money from a company the size of Sourcehut. If I find the source for this, I'll update. [edit] Here's the source: https://sourcehut.org/blog/2024-01-19-outage-post-mortem/#:~:text=We%20initially%20researched%20a%20number%20of%20solutions https://sourcehut.org/blog/2024-01-19-outage-post-mortem/#:~...
candiddevmike 1y ago
Cloudflare has been accused of playing both sides--they host services for known/associated DDoS providers while conveniently offering services to protect DDoS.

> a racketeer like CloudFlare Could anyone teach me what makes this a fair characterization of Cloudflare?

by sltr 1y ago

> a racketeer like CloudFlare Could anyone teach me what makes this a fair characterization of Cloudflare?

Not sure exactly what it is referring to, but I could make a guess that it's because Cloudflare sells LLM inference as a service, but also a service that blocks LLMs. A bit like a Anti-DDOS company also selling DDOS services. For example, https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/guides/demos-architectures/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/guides/demos-ar... has examples visit websites, then for the people on the other side (who want to protect themselves against those visits) there is https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/detections/firewall-for-ai/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/waf/detections/firewall-fo... Just a guess though, I don't know for sure the authors intentions/meanings.

jsheard 1y ago
> A bit like a Anti-DDOS company also selling DDOS services. That's not far off from what Cloudflare does either, the majority of DDoS-for-hire outfits are hidden behind and protected by Cloudflare. Whenever this comes up I do a quick survey of the top DDG results for "stresser" to see if anything's changed, and sure enough: mrstresser.com. 21600 IN NS sterling.ns.cloudflare.com. silentstress.cc. 21472 IN NS ernest.ns.cloudflare.com. maxstresser.com. 21600 IN NS edna.ns.cloudflare.com. darkvr.su. 21600 IN NS paige.ns.cloudflare.com. stresser.sh. 21600 IN NS luke.ns.cloudflare.com. stresserhub.org. 21600 IN NS fay.ns.cloudflare.com.
rsync 1y ago
"Just a guess though, I don't know for sure the authors intentions/meanings." I am reminded of this posting from years past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496499 "A lot of hacking groups, terror organizations and other malicious actors have been using cloud flare for a while without them doing shit about it. ... It's their business model. More DDoS means more cloudflare customers, yaaay." I've not spent much time on this topic but I am very interested in the notion that a well-meaning third party established some kind of looking glass that surveyed cloudflare behavior and that third party was sued ? I'd like to learn more about that situation ...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mariusor 1y ago

I remember that when the first influxes of LLM crawlers have hit Sourcehut, they had some talks with Cloudflare which ended when CF demanded an outrageous amount of money from a company the size of Sourcehut. If I find the source for this, I'll update. [edit] Here's the source: https://sourcehut.org/blog/2024-01-19-outage-post-mortem/#:~:text=We%20initially%20researched%20a%20number%20of%20solutions https://sourcehut.org/blog/2024-01-19-outage-post-mortem/#:~...

candiddevmike 1y ago

Cloudflare has been accused of playing both sides--they host services for known/associated DDoS providers while conveniently offering services to protect DDoS.