4 ms·

And then they'll offer to 'protect' you from AI scrapers for a fee and then bulk negotiate against Google, etc for another fee.

mosura 1y ago
I am certain this is the intended endgame. LinkedIn/X style verification to prove you are not a bot once the hold is in enough places. That such a database has other uses would be a happy coincidence.
nextos 1y ago
If you use an old web browser, lots of sites are already not usable because Cloudfare's CAPTCHA will deny you entry. New but non-standard niche browsers are also problematic.
- pmdr 1y ago
  I usually have the same (residential) IP for weeks on end and there's absolutely no malware or scraping or whatever the heck it is that Cloudflare thinks it's protecting against going on in my house. Yet I still get blocked or captcha'd. Website owners may understandably be appreciative of CF. But as as someone browsing the web, I think it's done a lot of irreversible* damage to the open internet. * I say irreversible because I don't think they'll be looking to improve this anytime soon, but rather add more restrictions.
  - sam_goody 1y ago
    As a website owner who uses Cloudflare after having being DDOS'd, I agree whole heartedly. Cloudflare succeeded to do what Google tried and failed with AMP, and we are all the worse off for it. [Though at least it is not Google, that would be worse.] I cannot afford to be DDOS'ed and there are bad actors that have already proven that they _will_ take me down if they could. So, I feel bad for the internet being walled up, and I feel bad for users that will lose access. And I fret that one day CF may just decide to take all my content and use it somehow to shut me down. Meanwhile though, I hold my nose, cry inwardly, and continue to use Cloudflare.
    - hnav 1y ago
      What was your infrastructure like? Were the DDoSes affecting you at the application or network layer? I wonder if there's the case to be made for something like CF but integrated into your L4 and L7 LB infrastructure.
      - johncolanduoni 1y ago
        CFs single biggest piece of leverage on L7 DDoS is that once a node in a botnet attacks one of their properties, it usually can’t be used to attack any others for a substantial duration. Botnets rely on being retasked frequently so this dramatically reduces their effectiveness. Volumetric DDoS is even worse: you need to have the peering relationships and hardware to handle Tbps of traffic to an IP you announce. Doing either of these in your own infra is not feasible if you’re much smaller than a hyperscaler.
        hnav 1y ago
        right, CF (along with Google and Meta) is already servicing double-digit percentages of the world's traffic so it can absorb whatever packets you can toss at it. On the other hand, I suspect most services are going to fall over at L7 first due to common patterns like pre-forked ruby/python servers that struggle to process more than 1k qps per node, unauthenticated user actions putting load on hard-to-scale resources like RDBMS, next to no load shedding designed into the system, etc.
        GoblinSlayer 1y ago
        That wouldn't be a DDoS, just flaky rate limiting.
- ta1243 1y ago
  And when you use decent protections against the worst bad actors on the internet (dns blackholing, adblocking, cookie dropping/corrupting, vpns) cloudflare again causes problems Just be a good little consumer.
blibble 1y ago
and then capture the data on the sly and sell it to the AI scrapers anyway

mosura 1y ago

I am certain this is the intended endgame. LinkedIn/X style verification to prove you are not a bot once the hold is in enough places. That such a database has other uses would be a happy coincidence.

nextos 1y ago

If you use an old web browser, lots of sites are already not usable because Cloudfare's CAPTCHA will deny you entry. New but non-standard niche browsers are also problematic.

pmdr 1y ago
I usually have the same (residential) IP for weeks on end and there's absolutely no malware or scraping or whatever the heck it is that Cloudflare thinks it's protecting against going on in my house. Yet I still get blocked or captcha'd. Website owners may understandably be appreciative of CF. But as as someone browsing the web, I think it's done a lot of irreversible* damage to the open internet. * I say irreversible because I don't think they'll be looking to improve this anytime soon, but rather add more restrictions.
- sam_goody 1y ago
  As a website owner who uses Cloudflare after having being DDOS'd, I agree whole heartedly. Cloudflare succeeded to do what Google tried and failed with AMP, and we are all the worse off for it. [Though at least it is not Google, that would be worse.] I cannot afford to be DDOS'ed and there are bad actors that have already proven that they _will_ take me down if they could. So, I feel bad for the internet being walled up, and I feel bad for users that will lose access. And I fret that one day CF may just decide to take all my content and use it somehow to shut me down. Meanwhile though, I hold my nose, cry inwardly, and continue to use Cloudflare.
  - hnav 1y ago
    What was your infrastructure like? Were the DDoSes affecting you at the application or network layer? I wonder if there's the case to be made for something like CF but integrated into your L4 and L7 LB infrastructure.
    - johncolanduoni 1y ago
      CFs single biggest piece of leverage on L7 DDoS is that once a node in a botnet attacks one of their properties, it usually can’t be used to attack any others for a substantial duration. Botnets rely on being retasked frequently so this dramatically reduces their effectiveness. Volumetric DDoS is even worse: you need to have the peering relationships and hardware to handle Tbps of traffic to an IP you announce. Doing either of these in your own infra is not feasible if you’re much smaller than a hyperscaler.
      - hnav 1y ago
        right, CF (along with Google and Meta) is already servicing double-digit percentages of the world's traffic so it can absorb whatever packets you can toss at it. On the other hand, I suspect most services are going to fall over at L7 first due to common patterns like pre-forked ruby/python servers that struggle to process more than 1k qps per node, unauthenticated user actions putting load on hard-to-scale resources like RDBMS, next to no load shedding designed into the system, etc.
        GoblinSlayer 1y ago
        That wouldn't be a DDoS, just flaky rate limiting.
ta1243 1y ago
And when you use decent protections against the worst bad actors on the internet (dns blackholing, adblocking, cookie dropping/corrupting, vpns) cloudflare again causes problems Just be a good little consumer.

blibble 1y ago

and then capture the data on the sly and sell it to the AI scrapers anyway