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

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

#71

Post by Ayesh »

bxparks wrote: post #52
xxdesmus wrote: 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?

I don't know they recently started allowing to use any nameserver apart from cloudflare nameservers after transferring the domain. This vendor lock is what prevented me from using Cloudflare, but it turns out there is another reason, reading OP's text.

For domain name registration, I tend to trust smaller players. They tend to not run bullshit AI to suspend customers, and are small enough to be able to spend at least a minute reviewing any flagged user accounts.

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

#72

Post by withinboredom »

5ESS wrote: post #22
RainaRelanah wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pendingdelete, so they're flat up holding it hostage until it's publicly available for anyone to register.

That’s terrifying. By far the worst part of this. If they ban somebody for TOS violations that is fair, but preventing people from transferring out their domain and setting it to pendingdelete is really insidious. What they are doing is akin to stealing anyone domain name permanently with no recourse. This may be grounds for a lawsuit.

It's abuse and theft, plain and simple. Replace "domain" with literally any physical object. You can't just take someone else's shit, no matter how high-and-mighty you think you are (excepting governments, of course).

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

#73

Post by izzydata »

viraptor wrote: post #50
pessimizer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, but fraud and theft are different than being unpleasant or cruel.

I'd imagine both fall under "trust and safety". And let's not water it down - targeted harassment is not "being unpleasant".

Both might be considered morally wrong, but only one seems illegal.

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

#74

Post by blenderdt »

malikNF wrote: post #63
null_object wrote: post #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…

> I can’t believe how lightheartedly you are taking this. What is the alternative though? The web has turned in to this massive mess where most of us don't have the ability to do anything without having to rely on some ban happy mega corp. Even something that was built to be decentralized like email has turned in to a (sort of) centralized architecture, try hosting your own email, everything goes in to spam. Host a w…

I have a cheap VPS, host my own email, host my own websites, never had any of the problems you are describing.

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

#75

Post by usr1106 »

srrr wrote: post #60
malikNF wrote: 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/…

Good point. But even if they (any of those corps running algorithms but no customer support worth the name) comply (which I won't take for granted), you will get some code or keyword that fraudulent activity was detected. Very unlikely that they have technical details of the root cause in their customer DB.

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

#76

Post by ryandrake »

Veen wrote: post #42
malikNF wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Very worrying. One of the reasons I'd choose a non-huge company like Cloudflare would be I'm less likely to encounter one of these "our automation banned you, we won't tell you why, fuck off" episodes. Looks like more and more companies are cargo-culting this horrible practice.

Waiting for my utility company to turn off my heat: "Your house is fraud. We won't tell you how we know. Fuck off and freeze."

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

#77

Post by withinboredom »

withinboredom wrote: post #72
5ESS wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s terrifying. By far the worst part of this. If they ban somebody for TOS violations that is fair, but preventing people from transferring out their domain and setting it to pendingdelete is really insidious. What they are doing is akin to stealing anyone domain name permanently with no recourse. This may be grounds for a lawsuit.

It's abuse and theft, plain and simple. Replace "domain" with literally any physical object. You can't just take someone else's shit, no matter how high-and-mighty you think you are (excepting governments, of course).

Oh, if anyone wants to argue that it’s “in the TOS” that sounds like a contract no normal person would sign and likely not enforceable (IANAL) if pushed. No “sane” person would say, “yeah, if you think I’m doing something wrong, just sell all my shit!”

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

#78

Post by haswell »

blenderdt wrote: post #74
malikNF wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t believe how lightheartedly you are taking this. What is the alternative though? The web has turned in to this massive mess where most of us don't have the ability to do anything without having to rely on some ban happy mega corp. Even something that was built to be decentralized like email has turned in to a (sort of) centralized architecture, try hosting your own email, everything goes in to spam. Host a w…

I have a cheap VPS, host my own email, host my own websites, never had any of the problems you are describing.

I’m trying to understand the point of this anecdote. Plenty of people who use Cloudflare could post the same comment. And there are plenty of self hosting horror stories involving smaller solutions.

On the topic of hosting email specifically, I thought it was pretty universally accepted as a tricky prospect. It’s possible to get right, yes, but tricky nonetheless.

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

#79

Post by jwineinger »

TrueGeek wrote: post #57
akersten wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> prevented him from moving the domains to another registar

That sounds like theft to me

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

#80

Post by delroth »

srrr wrote: post #60
malikNF wrote: 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/…

> 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/

That is only true in specific cases of processing, as detailed by article 22: "a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her".

In the case of a domain name used for email I think you could legitimately argue that the decision "significantly affected" you, but it's kind of undefined so far what the bar is for this criterion.

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