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Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#811

Post by phillipcarter »

DoctorOW wrote: post #634
phillipcarter wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're losing the plot here. Nothing has any moral obligation to do anything in this universe. Morality doesn't exist. And we're all just making it up as we go. Now that we've established that nothing matters, the reason is because a lot of us feel that Cloudflare should do something about it.

Bloody hell, I am definitely losing the plot. The reason you feel that way is because a lot of other people do? You have absolutely no rationale or thought process for the disparities between organizations x and y except that people are mad at organization y and not organization x?

Yep, you've lost the plot.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#812

Post by gadgetoid »

Covzire wrote: post #777
gadgetoid wrote: post #769

I may be missing a trick here, but what - exactly - gives Cloudflare - a company that provides web services - the moral authority to flatly claim: "that is a dangerous precedent, and one that is over the long term most likely to disproportionately harm vulnerable and marginalized communities." ... and use that as a defense for inaction? It's like saying "Oh, well I can't give the poor money, they might spend it on dr…

What gives you or anyone else the moral authority to censor legal speech? I know doing so is a common fad in California/SV but it's doing tremendous harm to society already.

I fear the definition of legal speech on our respective countries differs too vastly for me to venture any reasonable answer to this.

I suspect our personal interpretations for what constitutes censorship might also. To lay out my position- I don't believe that a DDoS attack is a foregone conclusion if protections are removed, and I don't believe that a DDoS attack resembles censorship any more than a traffic jam resembles imprisonment. Which - I suppose - means I concede that it does, somewhat.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#813

Post by phillipcarter »

taxyz wrote: post #646
phillipcarter wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fast approaching the whole, "why is anyone morally required to do anything?" sort of existential discussion. The US Government has laws in place like this because those were written as founding principles and interpreted in certain ways by our legal system over time. That's only it. But it's all calvinball in the end. Congress could strike the 1A from the constitution, or all our courts could start ruling aga…

You seem to be pretty active in comments for this post and you have made several arguments around the ideas that: * CF is not a utility and is not bound by the First Amendment (although you keep saying free speech) * CF is somehow immoral because they are otherwise compelled to remove content/service protections for stuff you disagree with (however correct you may be that the content is morally reprehensible). The fi…

It's precisely that their leadership (rank-and-file employees I know have different feelings) are taking an absolutist approach. That's pretty evident when their stance is that banning nazi sites was a mistake.

My position is this. That is not a good stance to take. And people should now use their wallet to influence Cloudflare's leadership to reconsider their extreme position. The small part I can play in that today is already underway, so it's not just words on hacker news, no.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#814

Post by dang »

dotnet00 wrote: post #726
dang wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. Your comment here is a noticeable step in that direction, relative to the GP. We want comments to step in exactly the opposite direction. This is not a site for ideological battle, which destroys the curious conversation HN is supposed to be for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spiri…

This thread is going to be a nightmare to moderate with how riled up everyone is. Good luck!

I'm afraid I haven't been keeping up on it, so it may have deteriorated. If there are comments breaking the site guidelines egregiously, please flag them and/or email us at hn@ycombinator.com. (I don't mean this just to you personally, but everyone who cares!)

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#815

Post by freeone3000 »

endtime wrote: post #789
M2Ys4U wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, if someone is standing trial for murder and it turns out the evidence against them was collected illegally, they will end up getting away with it even if everyone knows they did it. That very much depends on jurisdiction; don't assume that American laws and norms are universal, nor that they are the best way of doing things.

Rule of law and due process are the best way of doing things, and are not exclusively American concepts.

Absolutely, but, Canadian law would absolutely allow illegally-collected evidence. The trial against the officer invading the defendant's privacy is a separate matter; the goal of a trial is to determine the truth of matters, after all, and if the defendant did kill someone, all evidence to support (or refute) that is generally admissible.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#816

Post by tbrownaw »

sealeck wrote: post #226

I would be very interested to meet the lawyer who cleared the phrase "While we will generally follow legal orders to restrict security and conduit services," for publication

I'd assume that's hinting at appeals and such like they later mention for the really fundamental services.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#817

Post by 015a »

creeble wrote: post #791
015a wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hosting a DNS zone file is not tantamount to enabling attacks. Its like saying Google enabled murder because Maps provided the directions for a murderer to get to the victim's house.

It's also not tantamount to saying "relegating cyberattacks to the dustbin of history" either. Maps isn't a service used for suppressing free speech. It's the hypocrisy that is galling. If you stand up for free speech, it is inconsistent to support those whose business plan is the suppression of free speech.

> It's also not tantamount to saying "relegating cyberattacks to the dustbin of history" either.

Are you certain of that? Could it be that CF's demonstrated history of cooperating with law enforcement actually makes identifying and shutting down these sites easier if they have fingerprints all over CF's network? They'll exist with or without whatever services CF offers; its better that they exist within an entity with the mission to action on their misbehavior.

Sure; smarter site operators just don't use CF. Many aren't smart. But some are: and bingo! We've hit the same outcome you want, but we gained something tangible toward our goal along the way.

This isn't hypothetical. This is literally how CF operates.

> Maps isn't a service used for suppressing free speech.

It sure is! But, to be fair to the analogy; Google Maps isn't a service that claims any element of free speech in defense of its policy enforcement.

Anyone can use Maps to navigate anywhere, then assert their own morals and values on others at their destination. Leftist protestors use it to attend abortion rallies. Rightist protestors used it to find the Capital during the riots. Police use it to find innocent black people to kill (ok, forgive me for dramatizing the illustration here).

The Tool wasn't necessary for their actions; just like CF isn't necessary for these DoS sites. But it did enable them to do it nonetheless, and they did use it. That is the dual-edged sword of Tools; their creators rarely get a say in how they're used.

Internet Services are, maybe, among the first tools like this where we have this voice dictating control over their usage, and the creator has the Power to listen. Its a New Capability. Dewalt power tools and Git are both probably used in the development of weapons by enemies of the state; there's little to be done about it. Do you believe the CEO of Toyota felt pride seeing so many Toyota pickups powering ISIS' war machine (well, its a pretty harsh environment, kudos to their engineering no doubt)? Sure, export controls, laws, policies against who you sell to, all crude tools from the stone age compared to DELETE FROM users WHERE.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#818

Post by Dylan16807 »

snotrockets wrote: post #704
fjordelectro wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Utilities are heavily regulated and mandated. If they're asking for the cake, they should have it whole.

What cake?? They're taking on the responsibilities voluntarily, with no benefits.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#819

Post by gadgetoid »

fleddr wrote: post #788
gadgetoid wrote: post #769

I may be missing a trick here, but what - exactly - gives Cloudflare - a company that provides web services - the moral authority to flatly claim: "that is a dangerous precedent, and one that is over the long term most likely to disproportionately harm vulnerable and marginalized communities." ... and use that as a defense for inaction? It's like saying "Oh, well I can't give the poor money, they might spend it on dr…

Inaction of what? They're saying they're not the opinion police. Look at the list in the beginning of the article that has clear criminal violations, human rights violations, the like. They comply with take-downs in that domain, as they should and are legally required. Yet they go on to mention that the vast majority of the complaints they get has nothing to do with those, rather they are take-down requests for thing…

I don't know. If I claimed to uphold the sacred tenets of free speech and expression I probably wouldn't want to be associated with a website that has a profound chilling effect on free speech and expression.

Is hate and ridicule expressed publically and unchallenged not just a DDoS against a group of people's right to expression?

When it's evident that some speech can quell other speech, which speech do we choose?

Cloudflare say "both" by taking money from the oppressor and giving it to the oppressed. I'd suggest this is- while something of a poetic justice- wholly insufficient and that Cloudflare should exercise the morals they claim to possess.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#820

Post by Khaine »

Borgz wrote: post #224
JYellensFuckboy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this in fact the case? Of course it is being claimed, but I always perceived that KF's nastiness was relatively self-contained, e.g. when someone encourages suicide, it's performative to other Farmers, rather than reaching out to a potential victim or their loved ones. All bark, no bite, and caged.

Wikipedia has information on 3 suicides related to KiwiFarms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms#Suicides_of_harassm...

Joshua Moon, the owner of Kiwifarms was on Rekieta Law[1] and provided his view that kiwi farms did not cause these suicides

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP92u3ld1-w

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