Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#131

Post by wbl » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

yanderekko wrote: post #81

pjc50 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't project violence over the internet You absolutely can, and that's how CloudFlare got into this situation: by posting people's location on the internet they can be made vulnerable to SWATting. > we've shifted away from violence as a means of enforcing social order The intent of KF and similar absolutely is to use violence as a means of enforcing social order, by encouraging stochastic and opportunistic ter…

Quoted post unavailable.

Null isn't banning these people. He's encouraging them with a wink or a nod. It's like Nazis and bars. See a Nazi, 86 the Nazi or the friends will show up and make your bar a Nazi bar.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#132

Post by vorpalhex » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #100

throwrqX wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are doing anything illegal (like coordinating terrorist attacks) we luckily have law enforcement agencies with lots of power to address that.

Ironically law enforcement are part of the problem: if you want someone murdered over the internet in the US, by far the easiest way is to make a bogus phone call to the police. Doesn't work all the time but it's pretty risk free for the perpetrator.

Unarmed police shootings are amazingly rare on a yearly basis.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#133

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

yanderekko wrote: post #128

pseudalopex wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other forums don't allow posting some kinds of information because they know allowing it means swatting.

And? That doesn't make those sites pro-swatting unless they had no other legitimate reasons to allow this content, and as much as people hate doxxing it is clearly not only useful for swatting or other illegal activities.

> as much as people hate doxxing it is clearly not only useful for swatting or other illegal activities.

What other use has come from posting home addresses on Kiwi Farms?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#134

Post by elefantastisch » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

Grue3 wrote: post #99

So, Cloudflare is basically saying they would host Daily Stormer, 8chan etc. from this point on. I bet this policy will go over like a lead brick in media coverage.

No they aren't. They are saying they would provide *security services* to these companies. They won't host it, but they also won't let it get taken down through cyber attacks. They are preventing vigilante justice against these companies, that's all.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#135

Post by wbl » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #50

CloudFlare opened Pandora's box. It will never be able to shut it. When private companies become enforcers of public morality, you will quickly find morality is shaped by what is profitable. This is a horrible idea.

Every isp in the world has an AUP and enforces it.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#136

Post by elefantastisch » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

Borgz wrote: post #79

It's rather disappointing that Cloudflare's policy is to not host content that is "illegal, harmful, or violates the rights of others, including content that discloses sensitive personal information, incites or exploits violence against people or animals, or seeks to defraud the public", but they do not apply that same policy to content that they provide DDoS mitigation services for. I don't see why their policies sh…

They address this:

> Giving everyone the ability to sign up for our services online also reflects our view that cyberattacks not only should not be used for silencing vulnerable groups, but are not the appropriate mechanism for addressing problematic content online. We believe cyberattacks, in any form, should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#137

Post by yanderekko » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

zanecodes wrote: post #93

yanderekko wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I remember when "net neutrality" was something that the left was demanding. Once they realized that they had a systematic advantage in petitioning hosting companies to deplatform disfavored content without due process, however, all of the underlying arguments for net neutrality were quietly discarded.

Net neutrality was never about deplatforming, due process, or censorship. It was about ISPs prioritizing traffic or providing free bandwidth for their own services and throttling or charging extra fees for third party services (e.g. Time Warner providing access to their own streaming service without counting towards your bandwidth cap, but not doing the same for Netflix). It was an economic issue, not a political one…

>It was an economic issue, not a political one.

The two can't be disentangled. Woke censorship is often justified through economic self-interest nowadays. Do you really believe activists 20 years ago would be placated if ISPs had simply promised to throttle only based on politics rather than economics?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#138

Post by hnbad » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

That's a lot of words to say that they don't want to drop Kiwifarms.

It's interesting how companies like Cloudflare will stylize themselves as public infrastructure when it comes to who they should take money from but would fight tooth and claw if you argued they should also be regulated as such.

This is simply free speech fundamentalism posing as being "unpolitical". Free speech taken to the extreme results in the suppression of speech (not to mention all the other reasons most countries have laws tackling demagoguery, hate speech and incitement). The "Paradox of Tolerance" still applies.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#139

Post by yanderekko » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

wahnfrieden wrote: post #98

yanderekko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What’s your source, KF’s owner’s public statements and posturing? lmao

Mostly a general skepticism towards clearly-opportunistic attempts to engage in composition fallacies.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#140

Post by fjordelectro » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #130

marginalia_nu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really tricky situation. On the one hand, websites like KF and the like are utterly reprehensible. On the other hand, Cloudflare taking it upon themselves to police the Internet is a nightmare in its own, given their bot-prevention services are effectively mandatory in order to even keep any sort of larger interactive website running. What is permitted to say is something for the courts, not for the whims of p…

> What is permitted to say is something for the courts, not for the whims of private businesses, to decide. To the contrary, in this case it's exactly for Cloudflare to decide. They're not a utility.

They've decided they want to be seen as a utility. You undermine your DDOS protection business if you drop controversial customers. They are exact type of customer who need DDOS protection the most.