Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

news.ycombinator.com

51–60 of 199 posts

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#51
post #40
post #38

Update: Just received an email from CF. -------------- Hello, With regard to your inquiry, we have restored the domain names in your account to active status. Please allow for normal propagation. You will need to re-add mnf90.com to your account in order to manage it. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety ------------ Not much info lol, but guess its fixed n…

Update 2: ----------------------------- Helo, To clarify the issue, this account was identified in a recent fraud review, however it appears to have been a false positive. We have left a note in this account for future reference. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#52
post #8

Hello, I'm the Head of Trust & Safety. Please forward me the email? This is very likely legitimate and from our team, but I'd like to confirm. justin@ cloudflare.com

I recently transferred my domains from Google to Cloudflare precisely to avoid being terminated by Google's false-positive AI. Now Cloudflare is pulling the same stunt? Is there anything you can say to reassure your customers? Or do we need to find another registrar?

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#53
I can’t believe how lightheartedly you are taking this. (edit: I guess your initial reaction when the domain was reinstated was probably a bit of euphoria).

This faceless corporation simply took away your property without explanation or warning, and didn’t even feel any obligation to explain why.

For many people the consequences might have been losing their own or even their family’s source of income.

Their behavior was despicable and callous.

When did these tech companies start thinking they were all-powerful and above the law like this?

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#54

Did you have any other domains on the account, or shared access with other accounts? I hate how legal has forced every trust & safety team to just blanket reply "You were banned. We won't tell you why. We won't overturn. Go away." It's absolutely impossible to contest without public attention or legal action, and is often just a simple mistake.

> often just a simple mistake More often than not it's not a mistake. Very simply put, fighting abuse is very asymmetrical and a lot of the approaches just even the playfield. They will make you put in more effort for them to put in effort. Unfortunate, but the only way it's sustainable.

> More often than not it's not a mistake.

So? A false positive rate of 50% is wholey unacceptable when banning people from critical online infrastructure.

> Unfortunate, but the only way it's sustainable.

This common talking point is just BS apologetics.

There is a long history of ways to manage disputes without sending such useless explanations. These companies are just to cheap or lazy to bother.

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#55
post #8

Hello, I'm the Head of Trust & Safety. Please forward me the email? This is very likely legitimate and from our team, but I'd like to confirm. justin@ cloudflare.com

Hey, Justin... Perhaps you can explain why this happened in the first place while also explaining why you ignore complaints about tons of spammers and scammers that are hosted(note) on your platform?

(note) hosting is providing services on the Internet without which a site / domain won't work, so please don't try to pretend you don't host because you've decided to redefine "hosting".

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#56
> The suspension is permanent and we will not be making changes on our end.

Someone else in this thread explained this as "they're flat up holding it hostage until it's publicly available for anyone to register."

I will not do business with companies whose word is final, with no explanation and no recourse whatsoever, unless you shout loud enough that someone higher up the org tree decides to figure out what has happened. Especially when the decision actually comes from a fallible, subpar automated system. Fuck that dystopia. Shameful behaviour, Cloudflare.

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#57
post #38

Update: Just received an email from CF. -------------- Hello, With regard to your inquiry, we have restored the domain names in your account to active status. Please allow for normal propagation. You will need to re-add mnf90.com to your account in order to manage it. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety ------------ Not much info lol, but guess its fixed n…

You keep framing this as "how do I make sure I don't get into this situation again," but with the attention this is getting (#6 on HN) and just how bad the issue is (both functionally and PR-wise)... Cloudflare should really do a public post-mortem here. It sounds like it's their fault.

I also want to see a Cloudflare post-mortem here. All of my domains are with them. The worse part of OP's story is that they even prevented him from moving the domains to another registar. So if this happens to any of us we're completely locked out of our email.

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#58
post #40
post #38

Update: Just received an email from CF. -------------- Hello, With regard to your inquiry, we have restored the domain names in your account to active status. Please allow for normal propagation. You will need to re-add mnf90.com to your account in order to manage it. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety ------------ Not much info lol, but guess its fixed n…

Update 2: ----------------------------- Helo, To clarify the issue, this account was identified in a recent fraud review, however it appears to have been a false positive. We have left a note in this account for future reference. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety

When I reported fraudulent activity (attacks on enterprise accounts) from CF IPs they told me to f*ck off, their customers know what they're doing. Wondering what it takes to ban someone on CF.

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#59
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really quite worrying. You'd have been screwed without HN, but not everyone has that recourse. How many other domains have been affected by "false positives" announced with a "we've banned you and we aren't telling you why; now fuck off" type email.

I agree 100%. And yes, without HN I will be really screwed.

I am really curious about this. How screwed is this? Can you move your domain out, if you want to?

Re: Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?

#60
post #38

Update: Just received an email from CF. -------------- Hello, With regard to your inquiry, we have restored the domain names in your account to active status. Please allow for normal propagation. You will need to re-add mnf90.com to your account in order to manage it. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Kind Regards, Cloudflare Trust & Safety ------------ Not much info lol, but guess its fixed n…

If you live in the EU the article 15 of the GDPR grants you the right to ask about the details. Often companies reply that they don't need to answer because of ¨security¨ but this is not true. You can in detail ask about ALL personal data that was used as an input for this decision, information about the ¨automated decision-making¨ (algorithm), and all personal data that resulted out of this process. https://gdpr.eu/article-15-right-of-access/

If any of this data is false you have the right to rectification. https://gdpr.eu/article-16-right-to-rectification/

Post reply on HN