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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

#121

Post by miohtama »

hypeatei wrote: post #5
giorgioz wrote: post #2

I hosted a website on Cloudflare and I sent a link to it to a friend on a Sunday. The friend told me the website was down. Turns out Spain blocks IP addresses belonging to Cloudflare during big football matches because some pirate streaming websites are hosted on Cloudflare. https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1nm80wz/trying_to_u... I decided to go back to AWS. Frankly Cloudflare is choosing the wrong battle on…

That's Spains issue. Spaniards should encourage their government to eliminate whatever nonsensical provision in the law that allows ranges of IPs to be blocked at the service provider level for soccer matches.

Also people in Spain are learning to use VPNs.

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

#122

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

hereme888 wrote: post #115
mike-cardwell wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Other than labeling, aren't these just different ways to block foreign sites? Some of them are mentioned in the article.

> This blocking regulation requires network providers, including CDNs, to comply with blocking notices within 30 minutes.

> orders that go beyond regular Internet providers, requiring DNS resolvers and VPN services to take action as well.

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

#124

Post by epolanski »

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…

Okay, maybe arrogant, but still, it's the only country in the continent to contain the word America, no?

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

#125

Post by epolanski »

quentindanjou wrote: post #44
ivl wrote: post #12

Cloudflare is right. But, it's a pretty typical EU play. Protecting more established interests but kneecapping progress. In this case, hitting a massive number of small sites, which aren't engaged in piracy, to protect a few large entities from some other small piracy sites. It's what's happening in both Italy and Spain.

> Protecting more established interests but kneecapping progress. I assume you must be American. I always find it funny that there is that US belief that Europe is "old-fashioned" with "old tech" and "old progress". I never encountered anyone yet to tell me what progress wasn't in Europe that was in the US. I actually think this is a bit backward, with US lack of transportation funding, more people struggling with po…

I'm European too, while I second what you say, I also think that Europe is old: demographically, politically and we're very risk adverse.

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

#126

Post by iamnothere »

pjc50 wrote: post #85
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.

> 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…

> 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 because it's hosted in a different country.

This has more or less been the default position of most internet users and developers since the beginning, until fairly recently. I’d even contend that it’s what drew many of us to the internet in the first place. If the internet ever becomes cable TV, fully regulated, controlled, and managed, it will have lost its purpose as a place for free and open exchange of information.

(Zero control is an exaggeration—the worst lawbreakers still face justice under the current system, and that seems ok. I just don’t think we should be tightening the screws any further.)

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

#127

Post by duxup »

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.

Companies should have that option if they choose, to apply to themselves at will.

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

#128

Post by stego-tech »

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?

Folks keep confusing where I used the term “literal” in that sentence. I said “literal Nazis and pirates”, not Nazis and literal pirates.

It’s why I staunchly refuse to touch Cloudflare for fucking anything. When your company defends a group whose ethos is genocide, you’ve lost me forever, free speech be damned.

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

#129

Post by stego-tech »

sammy2255 wrote: post #116
immibis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I had missed this and find it deeply hilarious that actual meatspace pirates raided a company’s datacenter that protects digital pirates.

Also, just for folks seemingly confused by my words in the original post: I got no beef with digital piracy myself, just more pointing out that if your company is willfully protecting hate speech (like Nazis) and piracy sites, well, you’re courting a very specific kind of response, and whining about receiving that response after the fact is not exactly sympathetic.

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

#130

Post by prmoustache »

yachad wrote: post #120
ACCount37 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

you don't need cloudflare for that.
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