Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#591

Post by llbeansandrice » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

DoctorOW wrote: post #253

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one easy thing they could do, is stop hosting for forums dedicated to doxxing and harassing people, preferably before they inevitably bully their victims into suicide.

The whole point of my comment is that I don't think it is easy. It'd be great, but it certainly isn't easy. If they get rid of Kiwi Farms, ultimately it's not going to fix the problem. They're going to find a new, harder to harass vendor for CDN. Cloudflare's detractors are going to find a new website to talk about. If you're talking about all websites that do this kind of thing, I have my doubts about how this would…

> They're going to find a new, harder to harass vendor for CDN.

This is a good thing. It raises the barrier of entry to do what they want to do. They will likely provide a worse service as well.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#592

Post by krapp » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

Melatonic wrote: post #577

tambourine_man wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare is not a public service, the comparison with firefighters is not apt. I’ve been seeing this confusion more and more recently, probably because of the size and omnipresence of corporations. I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts or simply ignorance, but the distinction has to be emphasized. Corporations and public services are completely different beasts, with different legisla…

I think this brings up an important topic though that we need to grapple with as a society - at what point do we recognize that we NEED public services related to the internet? Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have. If there are majorly amoral actors that use it we should be going after them for their crimes (from a legal…

>Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have.

Until the government decides your content no longer deserves protection because of your politics or religion or whatever.

This is the same problem as government "regulating" social media companies and forcing them to publish certain kinds of speech against their will, which people also seem to want. Inevitably it boils down to an end-run around the First Amendment, as it gives government direct control over speech at a far greater scale than any corporation, backed up by a monopoly on violence.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#593

Post by ladyattis » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

Cyberdog wrote: post #581

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A really key difference that I feel gets missed is the "who swung first" aspect. A great deal of what gets called "cancel culture" is people reacting to someone behaving in a way that harms others, including but not limited to... - Discrimination (gender, orientation, religion, race, whatever) - Harassment - Threats, ranging from the subtle to the overt - Actual violence Quite often, the targets of this behavior have…

You are pretty much saying "but it's okay when we do it." If doxing and criticizing people for their beliefs and practices is not okay for the right to do, then it's not okay for the left to do either.

So you're fine if I post your SSN on this site? And let's assume the mods also co-sign that decision in this hypothetical, so you're okay with your PII being out there for anyone (and I mean anyone) to see and use? You wouldn't even try to subpoena Y Combinator for my information on file such as my IP logs and email address (necessary for registration) to serve me notice? I seriously doubt that. I'm sure you would lawyer up rather quickly and probably contact the mods here to have my comment deleted and my account permanently banned. So don't pretend you're some kind of "information wants to be free" maximalist because when it comes down to it, we all want privacy and no one should be using the Internet as a cudgel to gain compliance from anyone when you can just leave well alone. But it seems you're fine with Kiwi Farms literally posting SSNs, bank balances, passwords to accounts, and much more. The contradictions in your mind must border on some kind of Escher print.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#594

Post by fjordelectro » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #230

fjordelectro wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are exact type of customer who need DDOS protection the most. > > They (KiwiFarms, Daily Stormer) would be better not on the internet. DDOS protection only exists because some people are willing to illegally target websites they believe would be better not on the internet. It's the entire point. Folding to publish pressure for one customer weakens their case for protecting others.

Dropping nazis from your service generally doesn't weaken the case for your service. For example, when Cloudflare did this in the past, it didn't harm their business.

> Dropping nazis from your service generally doesn't weaken the case for your service

From the article:

"In 2017, we terminated the neo-Nazi troll site The Daily Stormer. And in 2019, we terminated the conspiracy theory forum 8chan.

In a deeply troubling response, after both terminations we saw a dramatic increase in authoritarian regimes attempting to have us terminate security services for human rights organizations — often citing the language from our own justification back to us."

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#595

Post by Cyberdog » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

ladyattis wrote: post #575

Cyberdog wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing like the SJWs by any stretch of the imagination. The fact of the matter is that Reddit/ResetERA/Twitter/DailyKos is a cesspit full of people who revel in obsessing over people and then harassing them not only at their jobs but even through their private communications (phone numbers, personal email addresses, etc). How you react if dozens of people just started calling you at all hours because you're Chr…

Show me how SJWs are going around with PII like your social security number, bank account number, passwords to social media accounts, and other sensitive data? Hint, no one that's a supposed SJW has ever done this on a large scale whereas Kiwi Farms users have and do. >Yes, I remember the "Moral Majority" era. I remember the religious right, the fundies, the evangelicals, and the grasp they had on speech. They still…

You seem to think there's no left wing in America when self-avowed leftists if not socialists are the ones who have been doing this whole #DropKiwifarms campaign in the first place. If there's no solid leftist base in America and western society as a whole, where is this opposition to supposedly alt-right fortress coming from?

As for my age, I'm 40, which means I went to college between 2000 and 2004 - and was awash in leftist propaganda there, to the extent that I did not feel comfortable in some classrooms doing anything other than regurgitating what the professors were telling us despite what I actually believed. I've heard the situation has not improved since then. To say that leftists do not have institutional power at least in academia is ridiculous, but of course it goes far beyond that.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#596

Post by sfe22 » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

bakugo wrote: post #572

nightpool wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are denied service by cloudflare, you can't just go to another cloudflare down the street ... Why not? Fastly, AWS, CDN77, Google, etc all still exist.

Which of those provide a similar feature set to cloudflare for the same price? Even ignoring the fact that none of them have a free plan, they all cost significantly more than cloudflare's base paid plan and almost certainly provide less. I can't even see Fastly's prices without signing up.

That means cloudflare is such a good company for offering cheap and good service, yet somehow we find a way to attack them because their competition is not “as good”. What a shame that this company that is not supporting their competitors?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#597

Post by colechristensen » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:18 PM UTC

mojzu wrote: post #580

colechristensen wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is effectively mob rule, or fear-of-mob-rule rule. I don't want dominating corporations to be run by people afraid of offending a vocal minority.

I understand your point and largely agree with the idea that corporations shouldn't become de-facto governments with regard to morality/free-speech/etc. However I think it's important to acknowledge that there's a really difficult problem to solve here with regards to spam, astroturfing and harassment/trolling (if not more areas) where allowing everything that is technically legal would make most online spaces unbear…

It is not Cloudflare's job to moderate a website they provide network services to.

This is a different issue than a social network doing moderation and spam prevention on its own platform.

It is not Cloudflare's job to protect Twitter or wherever else from a forum of assholes.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#598

Post by skrebbel » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:18 PM UTC

creeble wrote: post #283

Borgz wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting, thanks for posting. According to completedns.com, instant-stresser.com has been using Cloudflare on and off for almost 8 years, and continuously for the last 3 years. It's also the 2nd result on Google for searching "free stresser". It seems impossible that this site hasn't been reported to Cloudflare by now, indicating that they have made the decision to continue protecting it. Very bad. I…

Well, maybe this site will help: ddosforhire.net They're a lovely recommendation/review site that lists a few dozen DDoS-for-hire sites. Take a random look at who hosts the individual sites' DNS. Their business is fundamentally a shake-down racket, disguised as a free-speech defender.

Wait, you’re suggesting they had board room discussions where they consciously, actively chose to protect and encourage ddos-for-hire sites because the threat of ddos attacks helps keep cloudflare in business?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#599

Post by abigail95 » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #516

Cyberdog wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing like the SJWs by any stretch of the imagination. The fact of the matter is that Reddit/ResetERA/Twitter/DailyKos is a cesspit full of people who revel in obsessing over people and then harassing them not only at their jobs but even through their private communications (phone numbers, personal email addresses, etc). How you react if dozens of people just started calling you at all hours because you're Chr…

A really key difference that I feel gets missed is the "who swung first" aspect. A great deal of what gets called "cancel culture" is people reacting to someone behaving in a way that harms others, including but not limited to... - Discrimination (gender, orientation, religion, race, whatever) - Harassment - Threats, ranging from the subtle to the overt - Actual violence Quite often, the targets of this behavior have…

anyone caring about who swung first is trying to create an unresolvable problem or a forever war.

this is not a solution for untangling disagreement.

i've not seen any conflict solved by doing this

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#600

Post by sfe22 » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #563

bakugo wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cloudflare is not a public service, Isn't it, though? I see people are still desperately clinging to this "websites aren't public services" narrative but as the years go by it's becoming increasingly clear that it just isn't entirely true. The whole logic behind the "it's a private space/service so they can deny service to whoever they want" argument is that, if a user is denied service, they can seek service from…

> Isn't it, though? Nope. Do we elect the board? Do they charge mandatory taxes in the currency only they can emit and will they have an armed force arest you if you don't pay? > But this isn't really the case in the modern web because you often don't have alternatives. Facebook and Google really are a monopoly in the West and that's a problem with must deal with. Cloudflare, thankfully, is far from being a monopoly…

I have been waiting for someone to mention this board stuff. A question for you: If facebook opened up their board for votes by public, imposed mandatory taxes on Americans and had a police to control the population, would we still be living in a democracy?