Live data from Hacker News

Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

easydns.com

151–160 of 414 posts

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#152

The solution is the Decentralized Web (DWeb), such as IPFS ( https://ipfs.io ), Freenet ( https://freenetproject.org ), GNUnet ( https://gnunet.org ) or Hypercore ( https://hypercore-protocol.org ). We should start using them to avoid centralization and embrace freedom.

Can you explain a bit more how this is a solution? Cloudflare isn't facebook. They have plenty of competitors, they don't have a massive moat, and they are almost exclusively used by businesses. Despite all of this, we should ask ourselves how we even got here. Why would companies move to DWeb, when they are already choosing to use Cloudflare instead of Fastly/Cloudfront/Akamai.

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#153
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince spoke to CNBC upon banning Daily Stormer: “We were worried that people would say, ‘We won’t work with you anymore,’” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told CNBC. “We had to have the conversation now because at some point we’ll be a public company. We had to prompt that discussion,” said Prince, who added “we want to be ready internally by July 2018,” for a possible stock offering. CNBC Link:…

Yes, and then they banned 8Chan just the same (I think? One of those sites where a shooter talked to his friends) as soon as they were under pressure.

If I'm not mistaken, 8Chan also hosted a lot of illegal content in addition to that "legal speech".

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#154

The solution is the Decentralized Web (DWeb), such as IPFS ( https://ipfs.io ), Freenet ( https://freenetproject.org ), GNUnet ( https://gnunet.org ) or Hypercore ( https://hypercore-protocol.org ). We should start using them to avoid centralization and embrace freedom.

How do I publish a website on one of these?

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#155
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read our S-1, it's all in there. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477333/000119312519...

II love cloudflare. It has really helped out with several sites/projects that I have worked on and the service is top notch. I am also an investor. I tend to invest in stuff which I use a lot or trust/respect the employees. Weirdly what made me really invest is the level of geekiness on the company. I remember seeing you guys using a lava lamp wall to generate entropy and just thought "that's awesome". I just wanted…

It's a bit of a sad story, but maybe you'll like this read about one of the guys who laid the foundation for their tech and his sad decline: https://www.wired.com/story/lee-holloway-devastating-decline...

I really liked the stories of his skill when he was in his prime. Very inspiring.

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#156

That is the problem with massive centralization even if it is market level and internally Cloudflare (or any other big fish) does decentralization/fail-over of their own. Many of these companies should have had fail-over to competitors at least for reliability. The problem with near market monopolization, oligopoly, even the singularity, the fail-case is catastrophic and may even wipe out decentralized, diffused, dis…

There is no CDN monopoly. There are several to choose from. Cloudflare is one of the new kids on the block. There is no cloud monopoly either. Customers can choose from AWS, GCP, Azure, and several others. The problem is not market concentration. There are plenty of options. The problem is customers choosing to put all their eggs in one basket.

How do you do a fallback from cloudflare failing when they’re your dns provider too? Any redirection around would take too long to change wouldn’t it? They’d be back up and running before it was implemented. What’s the right approach?

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#157
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince spoke to CNBC upon banning Daily Stormer: “We were worried that people would say, ‘We won’t work with you anymore,’” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told CNBC. “We had to have the conversation now because at some point we’ll be a public company. We had to prompt that discussion,” said Prince, who added “we want to be ready internally by July 2018,” for a possible stock offering. CNBC Link:…

[flagged]

You'll be shocked to hear who use the postal system and roads, then.

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always a line, and therefore, I'm ok with drawing the line at Nazis.

slow clap for HNers downvoting this and the parent answer...

Nazism is pretty popular on HN, comes with the territory when most of the board's users are well off westerners. Doesn't hurt that the mods are way more concerned with anti-capitalist rhetoric. Not surprising considering who owns the site though.

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#159
Well, I usually block it anyway, because it is not only a single point of failure, but also a single point of concentration of data, that can be used to track, spy on and profile users. As such, I do not blindly trust Cloudflare. I remain sceptical, no matter how positive their public image is. Especially I would not set my DNS to cloudflare.

Re: Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no CDN monopoly. There are several to choose from. Cloudflare is one of the new kids on the block. There is no cloud monopoly either. Customers can choose from AWS, GCP, Azure, and several others. The problem is not market concentration. There are plenty of options. The problem is customers choosing to put all their eggs in one basket.

How do you do a fallback from cloudflare failing when they’re your dns provider too? Any redirection around would take too long to change wouldn’t it? They’d be back up and running before it was implemented. What’s the right approach?

Don't use them for DNS, just point 60 second TTL A records at them.
Post reply on HN