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Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#941

Post by MockObject »

fjordelectro wrote: post #140
phillipcarter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Ironically, Kiwi Farms brigades against lolcows, and the campaign to drop Kiwi Farms, are both examples of human flesh DDOS attacks.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#942

Post by killyourcar »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #878
killyourcar wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wait, they don't get paid, meaning they are happy to provide protection to these sites at their expense? You see how that's worse, right?

I don't. My personal position is that corporations are awful at moral judgments, and I'd vastly prefer infrastructure companies not decide who can and can't be on the Internet. I think it's imperative we solve this legally by pursuing a proper takedown of Kiwifarms, not by trying to encourage DDoSes to deal with it and then getting upset a company which prevents DDoS attacks prevented DDoS attacks.

I'm not trying to encourage ddos, I'm saying only that Cloudflare doesn't need to protect them from ddos. You might argue that those things are a distinction without a difference, but I would disagree.

Imo, kiwi farms will be the target of ddos no matter what, that's table stakes. So to me, the only thing I see is "is Cloudflare stepping in to help kiwi farms (at their own expense) or not".

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#943

Post by MockObject »

killyourcar wrote: post #940
phpisthebest wrote: post #930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is a slippery slope. 8Chan was banned for illegal content, Daily Stormer was banned for Direct Calls for racial violence Kiwi Farms is being called for banning on the nebulous "harassment" charge, based on non-US Legal definition of the term Harassment. if you can not see how this is a continuation of the slippery slope then I am not sure what you would need to be convienced

Kiwi Farms has killed and swatted people and had resulted in many direct threats of violence to individuals. It's not really a slippery slope at all. All three sites are way, way beyond the pale. Calling it harassment is like calling the moon a "space rock" - technically true I guess, but missing the magnitude.

As someone who fears and despises Kiwi Farms, I would be dishonest if I didn't recognize the slippery slope certainty that the bar of acceptability would decrease over the next few years.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#944

Post by Chris2048 »

XorNot wrote: post #875
Chris2048 wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of ST is you aren't targeting a specific individual, so this analogy falls short there - "Chris2048 on HackerNews" is definitely targeted. People rail against HN and its "tech bros" all the time.

The definition is widely accepted now to include targeting either a group, or an individual[1]. The "stochastic" component is that no individual or group is being specifically directed by command to carry out the attack, but the speaker is knowingly or negligently adding rhetoric to incite someone to do so. But you're also conflating terms: criticism is not an incitement to violence. An incitement to violence is spec…

Perhaps, but then "individual or group" seems to be pretty relevant to me, especially if you provide information specific to that individual/group versus a "tribe" of distributed individuals.

Plus, the "terrorism" aspect seems to apply to a wider group, or who else is terrorised? Presumably, individuals or groups with similar principles.

Your example also doesn't incite violence, just heavily implies it.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#945

Post by Banana699 »

phillipcarter wrote: post #936
Banana699 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but your pressuring is not working. We're just trying to save you from wasting your time.

You should look at their stock price.

It took a hit because a bunch of random nobodies are raging about them on HN?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#946

Post by ocdtrekkie »

killyourcar wrote: post #942
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. My personal position is that corporations are awful at moral judgments, and I'd vastly prefer infrastructure companies not decide who can and can't be on the Internet. I think it's imperative we solve this legally by pursuing a proper takedown of Kiwifarms, not by trying to encourage DDoSes to deal with it and then getting upset a company which prevents DDoS attacks prevented DDoS attacks.

I'm not trying to encourage ddos, I'm saying only that Cloudflare doesn't need to protect them from ddos. You might argue that those things are a distinction without a difference, but I would disagree. Imo, kiwi farms will be the target of ddos no matter what, that's table stakes. So to me, the only thing I see is "is Cloudflare stepping in to help kiwi farms (at their own expense) or not".

Cloudflare isn't "stepping in". Anyone can sign up for Cloudflare. So you're asking Cloudflare to explicitly step in and strip protection from a particular website against their policies of basically non-interference, presumably to enable a DDoS attack to succeed.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#947

Post by Dylan16807 »

kodah wrote: post #892
Dylan16807 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would call it vigilantism which is a type of definitional terrorism. Only if it's sufficiently political. Lots of DDoS is not. And that bar gets higher for an attack that's minimally violent.

There is no DDoS that's minimally violent. You are right though, not all DDoS attacks are politically motivated.

Whatever, can we say it's a 3/10 or less on the violence scale instead of having an argument about what "minimal" means?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#948

Post by Dylan16807 »

sascha_sl wrote: post #901
Dylan16807 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that still doesn't make Cloudflare the fire brigade. Why not? That particular service seems a lot like a volunteer fire brigade.

Are the Proud Boys like a volunteer fire brigade because they provide "security services" too?

The fact that you have to use scare quotes makes it clear that the answer is no. So I'm not sure what your point is.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#949

Post by Banana699 »

dehugger wrote: post #900
Banana699 wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They (KiwiFarms, Daily Stormer) would be better not on the internet. That's not for you to decide, you're not the manager of the internet.

Who decides then? Who is the manager of the Internet? Cloudflare?

Nobody is the manager of the Internet, that's the whole fucking point of the Internet.

Your right to censor and regulate traffic ends exactly where your machines do not reach. Cloudflare own the machines in question, so they decide what stays on and what doesn't. They are the managers of the part of the Internet where their machines reach (Duh), but none else.

It's funny that I have to explain this because it's usually the other way around, some tech giant will usually ban someone for something incredibly arbitrary and nakedly unfair, and the folks crying about Cloudflare's decisions here are usually the first to start cheering and explaining to the rest of us how they're a private company and have the right to do anything they want. Well, Cloudflare is a private company too, folks, and they decided that free speech is awesome and worth it, and you gotta respect their decisions and stop raging impotently about things you can't control.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#950

Post by phpisthebest »

killyourcar wrote: post #940
phpisthebest wrote: post #930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is a slippery slope. 8Chan was banned for illegal content, Daily Stormer was banned for Direct Calls for racial violence Kiwi Farms is being called for banning on the nebulous "harassment" charge, based on non-US Legal definition of the term Harassment. if you can not see how this is a continuation of the slippery slope then I am not sure what you would need to be convienced

Kiwi Farms has killed and swatted people and had resulted in many direct threats of violence to individuals. It's not really a slippery slope at all. All three sites are way, way beyond the pale. Calling it harassment is like calling the moon a "space rock" - technically true I guess, but missing the magnitude.

Citation. On the swatting I hope we are not believing MTG now.. that would be doubley ironic

Also there is a big difference between actions of people that also happen to be members of a website and activity taking place on the website. I abhor third party liability

In the case os 8chan and daily stormer they were banned for actions and content on the site. Not for actions of people that may be affiliated with the site as anonymous users

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