Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#151

Post by KingMachiavelli » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

FYI, the new/current version Qutebrowser just added a built in list of websites that require a "Chrome/chromium" UA - it also added logic so that parts of the UA can be auto updated.

Shameless shill: Qutebrowser is by far the best browser I've every used. The half measure of using addons (even powerful ones like Pentadactyl) cannot be compared to having a browser that is power user friendly in every aspect, from config to UI. If a site doesn't work well with it then I'm probably not going to use that site. If I can move away from Google then I can find your article/post somewhere else.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#152

Post by erichocean » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #102

Valmar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is a ridiculous claim, I honestly can't imagine how anyone could make that in good faith. The website is named after a Nazi tabloid that was so virulent its publisher was executed at Nuremberg. The website's style guide for guest writers talks about the importance of "gassing kikes". If a website that glorifies Adolf Hitler, fascism, and genocide isn't enough to be considered neo-Nazi, then what is?

Neo-Nazi sites, for better or worse (obviously: worse) should still be on the Internet. If only for the rest of us to point at as an example of what not to do.

Censorship is a bit like antibiotics: short-term positive impact but long-term negative impact. Neo-Nazis are not a threat to anyone, anywhere, in any way. We can survive their stupid web page, and have no need to censor it. The cure is MUCH worse than the disease.

UPDATE: I love how I get downvotes and literally NO ONE has engaged with my core argument, that censorship is a bit like antibiotics: short-term positive impact but long-term negative impact. Making the future worse over a tiny group of "neo-Nazis"—who are probably 90% Feds anyway—is a bad idea. People used to know this stuff, but I guess we'll have to re-learn it all over again the hard way. sigh

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#153

Post by erichocean » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

ppseafield wrote: post #53

mrtksn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They blocked Nazis after some attack or something like that. The founder wrote an emotional letter back then, acknowledging how bad is this and how he hates becoming the internet police.

It wasn't some attack. The guy behind the Daily Stormer stated publicly that Cloudflare not shutting off his service means they agree with and support the Daily Stormer's content. > The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology. [0] That's in a blog post which is a follow up to a leaked memo. [1] [0] https://blog.…

> The guy behind the Daily Stormer stated publicly that Cloudflare not shutting off his service means they agree with and support the Daily Stormer's content.

And the proper response from CloudFlare should have been: No we don't, but since we're ethical (unlike these assholes), we'll still provide them service.

Literally no one believed then, or believes now, that CF are crypto-Nazis. But we all know they don't actually have any kind of moral or ethical virtue, and will fold for a common troll. Oops.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#154

Post by dijit » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #151

FYI, the new/current version Qutebrowser just added a built in list of websites that require a "Chrome/chromium" UA - it also added logic so that parts of the UA can be auto updated. Shameless shill: Qutebrowser is by far the best browser I've every used. The half measure of using addons (even powerful ones like Pentadactyl) cannot be compared to having a browser that is power user friendly in every aspect, from conf…

This mirrors my experience and opinions. However I miss certain powerful adblock features and I would prefer more/easy control over javascript that gets rendered since JS use is by far the largest consumer of energy on my laptop.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#155

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #145

sp332 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to send an incorrect user agent? There's no point having one if it's just going to lie anyway.

I agree. I wish browsers would just stop sending a user agent string entirely. I don't think that I've sent an honest one in over a decade.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22044057

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#156

Post by mhasbini » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

Liquix wrote: post #17

The problem presented by services like ReCaptcha and Cloudflare is a tough nut to crack. They're silently embedded in a huge portion of modern websites, and the average user will never even know about them. But it seems to be way too easy for them to blanket-ban or serve an absurd amount of captchas to powerusers, linux gurus, privacy geeks, or anyone with the wrong combination of browser+addons. And the failures (as…

> Launch a competing product that accomplishes the same thing.

Disclaimer: I was part of hCaptcha team.

https://hcaptcha.com/ is competing with ReCaptcha. It's a drop-in replacement for ReCaptcha.

It's privacy focused (supports privacy pass), and is fair: webmasters get a cut for each captcha that is solved correctly (they can choose to directly donate it to a charity of their choice), hCaptcha get a cut for running the service and a customer will get their images/data labeled.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#157

Post by rstupek » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

sturgill wrote: post #142

Liquix wrote: post #17

The problem presented by services like ReCaptcha and Cloudflare is a tough nut to crack. They're silently embedded in a huge portion of modern websites, and the average user will never even know about them. But it seems to be way too easy for them to blanket-ban or serve an absurd amount of captchas to powerusers, linux gurus, privacy geeks, or anyone with the wrong combination of browser+addons. And the failures (as…

I’m a fan of Recaptcha v3. There are many actions where you can ask for some additional input in a non-puzzle way. Simple example is sending a confirmation email before signup when the score is below a certain threshold. Because I freaking hate those captcha puzzles...

Except v3 has to be on every page of the site and that gives Google a full view of all traffic on the site

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#158

Post by detaro » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #152

Rebelgecko wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a ridiculous claim, I honestly can't imagine how anyone could make that in good faith. The website is named after a Nazi tabloid that was so virulent its publisher was executed at Nuremberg. The website's style guide for guest writers talks about the importance of "gassing kikes". If a website that glorifies Adolf Hitler, fascism, and genocide isn't enough to be considered neo-Nazi, then what is?

Neo-Nazi sites, for better or worse (obviously: worse) should still be on the Internet. If only for the rest of us to point at as an example of what not to do. Censorship is a bit like antibiotics: short-term positive impact but long-term negative impact. Neo-Nazis are not a threat to anyone, anywhere, in any way. We can survive their stupid web page, and have no need to censor it. The cure is MUCH worse than the dis…

> Neo-Nazis are not a threat to anyone, anywhere, in any way.

Except to the people they attack or murder of course.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#159

Post by therealmarv » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

We need a website which tracks Cloudflare's captcha and blocking behaviour! I live in Cyprus (EU part!) and I witnessed more and more sites need now this stupid Captchas and I installed actually "Privacy Pass" which is also not working 100%. Why is this (EVIL!) company destroying my internet experience? This is a relatively new and recent experience for me... something has changed on Cloudflare's captcha requirements. Before that I've only witnessed this behaviour in countries like e.g. Philippines.

Re: Cloudflare is turning off the internet for me

#160

Post by Ajedi32 » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #123

I don't see anyone here mentioning this, so I will. CloudFlare supports PrivacyPass, a third-party, privacy-preserving way to do proof-of-work for websites. Basically, you do some small amount of CPU work and get 30 tickets your browser can transparently redeem for access to a site. That's a pretty clever way to both deter bad actors and ensure legitimate users get uninterrupted access to websites.

AFAIK the Privacy Pass protocol has nothing to do with proof-of-work. It's just a way to allow users to solve a CAPTCHA once and re-use that single solution across multiple sites without jeopardizing privacy. Reduces the number of CAPTCHAs you see, but doesn't eliminate them entirely.

What you're talking about is more like what Hashcash does, where it essentially replaces CAPTCHAs with a cryptocurrency miner, such that bots become more expensive to run due to the amount of energy they consume. The downside is it's not great for battery life for regular users either.