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Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

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Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#111

Post by skeledrew »

immibis wrote: post #100
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. I think people have forgotten how extreme a position this is: the idea that once something is on the internet, national law simply ceases to apply and governments should have absolutely zero control over obscene material, IP infringment, harassment, libel, foreign propaganda, money laundering, fraudulent financial services, gambling, and so on - simply be…

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.

And 3rd parrot parties with enough power, the ones doing the abuse, typically also have the ear of the government, so it becomes circular.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#112

Post by loeg »

immibis wrote: post #100
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. I think people have forgotten how extreme a position this is: the idea that once something is on the internet, national law simply ceases to apply and governments should have absolutely zero control over obscene material, IP infringment, harassment, libel, foreign propaganda, money laundering, fraudulent financial services, gambling, and so on - simply be…

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.

The US already deputizes third parties to enforce its laws. Banks are responsible for KYC / AML. Grocery stores must check ID when selling alcohol. This is nothing special.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#113

Post by malfist »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #104
immibis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.

How does the US government, force a Russian website, hosted in Russia, for Russian people, following Russian laws, to shut down?

It doesn't.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#114

Post by nicole_express »

rob74 wrote: post #71
nicole_express wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States, "North America" and "South America" are generally treated as separate continents, so therefore as a whole are called "the Americas". This frees up the singular "America" to refer to the US without too much risk of ambiguity. My understanding is that in some places, especially non-English speaking, is that North and South America are treated as a single continent called "America", which adds ambi…

Be that as it may, the thing that sounds odd (and a bit arrogant) to most "outsiders" is using the name of a whole continent for a single country and its citizens. I (from Europe) would definitely consider a Canadian, Mexican or Columbian citizen as an "American" too, not only a citizen of the United States. BTW, I'm really curious what Trump thinks the "America" in his "Gulf of America" stands for - the whole contin…

Trump's definitely referring to the United States with his pointless renaming attempt because it's singular and not plural, but I'd be careful accusing him of thinking about anything. I doubt he does that very often.

I guess the Organization of American States exists. But usually it's pretty unambiguous which sense is being used; like, I guess you could call Mark Carney an American head of government but it's basically just being obtuse, unless it was in the context of, say, a meeting of Carney with other heads of government in the hemisphere, and then it'd be unambiguous what was meant.

Even "United States of America" is not unambiguous in the most pathological case; Mexico is also a country consisting of united states existing in the Americas.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#115

Post by hereme888 »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #104
immibis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.

How does the US government, force a Russian website, hosted in Russia, for Russian people, following Russian laws, to shut down?

Dove a bit into this topic superficially out of curiosity. Maybe not shut it down but greatly limit reach:

- Domain Name Seizures via ICANN and registrars

- Political/legal pressure on CDNs, SSL certificate providers, bandwidth providers.

- Propaganda and legal labeling ("malicious actor", "foreign agent", "terrorist")

- There are technical workarounds to keep the page up within Russia's sovereign internet (Runet).

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#116

Post by sammy2255 »

immibis wrote: post #109
stego-tech wrote: post #11

On the one hand, Cloudflare crying crocodile tears for their policy decisions isn’t remotely moving. If anything, their plea for US intervention feels incredibly insincere given that their business has been to defend literal Nazis and Pirates alike for decades, and if you’re going to build a business out of defending bad actors, well, you best be prepared for the consequences. That being said , they’re absolutely rig…

I knew about the Nazis, but I wasn't aware Cloudflare defended literal sea pirates? When did that happen? I guess the US Navy?

They don't. And actually, quite hilariously, Somalian pirates raided the Kenyan data center that Cloudflare have their Kenyan PoP in (7 years ago). https://old.reddit.com/r/CloudFlare/comments/837c4c/somalian...

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#117

Post by tastyfreeze »

loeg wrote: post #112
immibis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.

The US already deputizes third parties to enforce its laws. Banks are responsible for KYC / AML. Grocery stores must check ID when selling alcohol. This is nothing special.

I wouldn't call legal force to be deputizing anybody. If those entities don't do as the law says they will be in trouble themselves. Deputies have authority. Banks and stores are just following the rules and report to authority when required.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#118

Post by warkdarrior »

ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

And on the plus side, all those efforts to block AI-scraping bots will be deemed illegal trade barriers.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#119

Post by jalk »

exasperaited wrote: post #87
ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it. So by implication you're actually completely fine with other countries pursuing their own objectives for businesses that choose to trade in their country. Because you cannot, possibly, in 2025, be making an argument that the USA's interpretation of the way of things is unimpeachable. That would be absurd an…

You are missing the point. Blocking a CDN providers IP range, means blocking all the websites using the CDN - not just the nazi-poster.com.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#120

Post by yachad »

ACCount37 wrote: post #102
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Isn't that exactly what Cloudflare is, in part? They happily block "malicious" traffic

Part of the reason I don't like Cloudflare. Their "black hole the entire country" function is a function no company should provide.

On the contrary, if you don’t have business in a country and they just spam you or try to hack you why not block the whole IP range. China, India, Russia, Subsaharan Africa, SEA
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