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I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
161–170 of 244 posts
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like that's assuming a lot about Cloudflare - what evidence is there of such Machiavellian maneuovres on their behalf? Would it be impossible to run DDoS as a service for profit without Cloudflare? People were doing fine at just that before Cloudflare ever existed.
> Would it be impossible to run DDoS as a service for profit without Cloudflare? Quite frankly, yes. Before CloudFlare won the race to the bottom, you'd have to front thousands of dollars per month for bulletproof DDoS shielded hosting to get started. There is a finite amount of DDoS-for-hire business that used to keep itself in check because they were constantly throwing attacks at each other raising everyone's "cos…
> Before CloudFlare won the race to the bottom, you'd have to front thousands of dollars per month for bulletproof DDoS shielded hosting to get started.
Before Cloudflare there was decent DDoS protected hosting available for low hundreds of dollars per month, you didn’t have to pay prolexic.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one is asking for Cloudflare to take down 100% of every single site that may or may not be classified as "bad" - they're asking for this one site to be taken down Who are they? Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correct…
> Who are they? People. Me. Others. I don't have a list. > Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? They're presumably listening to both? I don't understand the question. > There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correctly identified Kiwikarms as a problematic site? Bec…
>> Who are they?
> People. Me. Others. I don't have a list.
>> I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis > Irrelevant.
I mean, the vibe I'm picking up here is they are the ones who decide, but not them?
Who are these they?
> I don't understand why that would be relevant. Again, long documented history.
There is a long documented history of the US being the Great Satan, or technically Shaytân-e Bozorg, based on a long history of documented problems. I'm not sure how to communicate with "them", but how do we make the call on whether "they" agree or disagree with that epithet? Pretty open and shut case I suppose, the US has done some pretty evil things as a group. Do "they" have a preference for booting the US or Iran off the internet, or are they sanguine about this and only worried about micro-scale harassment rather than macro-scale problems?
Things are done that are substantially worse than what Cloudflare has just acted on. And I suspect "they" will agree on a lot of it. And be wrong on a lot of it, because "they" are famously unreliable sources of information. Why aren't they going to act on all that stuff? It would be irresponsible to ignore it.
I don't think your stance is fundamentally workable, and suspect it hasn't made a serious attempt at engaging with the sheer diversity of human experience and perspective out there. Particularly when it comes to in-groups redefining words to shut people in other in-groups.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're focusing so hard on the rights of kiwifarms that you completely forget that cloudflare also has rights. Cloudflare has the liberty of association, and that includes the right to terminate contracts with others who actively harm Cloudflare and its costumers. And if Kiwifarms sending out bytes to the internet is free speech, then compelling cloudflare to send those same bytes is impernissible forced speech.
I just don't think its ever going to be realistic for a company to be held responsible for everything every customer puts up on the web, because there are millions/billions of them. The problem is any organized body of people can start a similar pressure campaign against Cloudflare or Facebook or Reddit. It is now their job to be a complete legal system - listen to each complaint, adjudicate who is right and who is w…
The problem with your argument is that CloudFlare didn’t act to benefit ordinary citizens, it acted to protect its shareholders from a material risk to the company. It’s always been the case that businesses have to choose who they do business with and that clients can take their business elsewhere if they don’t like how a company behaves, very much including demanding that other clients are dropped.
Companies started acting like they shouldn’t need to know what their clients are doing only 20 years ago and it’s given us widespread counterfeiting, scam robocalls and DDoS attacks. Of course they want to continue doing it, because they’re making money hand over fist. Doesn’t mean we should let them.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#165The deplatforming logic is practical but pretty shaky as a long term strategy. Kiwifarms absolutely may have been a despicable place causing real harm to people. In that case, the police should initiate a request to take them down that Cloudflare or ISPs etc. are obligated to follow. The problem is the government is completely ineffective and regularly offloads their responsibility to platforms like Facebook, Cloudfl…
You're focusing so hard on the rights of kiwifarms that you completely forget that cloudflare also has rights. Cloudflare has the liberty of association, and that includes the right to terminate contracts with others who actively harm Cloudflare and its costumers. And if Kiwifarms sending out bytes to the internet is free speech, then compelling cloudflare to send those same bytes is impernissible forced speech.
Cloudflare also allows other to remove any websites free speech by allowing illegal booters to use their protection.
Supporting the economy of illegal DDOS-for-Hire by protecting them from attacks from rivals lowers the cost to launch the attacks. That forces many webmasters to use large DDOS migration providers for which Cloudflare is the only one affordable to them.
Cloudflare is stopping many from avoiding using them by allowing booter websites and if it wants to play gatekeeper, the website should face legal action as it non-neutral platforms (rather than carriers) are subject to S.230 and allowing illegal website under that would mean losing safe harbor and Cloudflare being sized and its top people thrown in prison.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech. This comes up a lot and makes me think I’ve misunderstood US free speech dynamics. I thought the USA traditionally limited the government’s ability to regulate free speech, leaving it to private / social regulation. In other words, it was up to individuals, communities, companies and so on to decide what was acceptable. But perhaps t…
I'm also not very familiar, but I understood it differently: The government did not let it for private sector to regulate when it explicitly guaranteed the right in the constitution...
The text better supports GP's understanding:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This is explicitly about what sorts of laws Congress may not pass, and not about the conduct of private citizens or institutions.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#167> they are actively lighting these fires and making money by putting them out! A bit of an odd take - it's like the fire department putting out the fire at the known arsonist-for-hire's house, and the police chief happens to run the fire department while doing nothing about the suspiciously wealthy arsonist. The difference is that Cloudflare isn't an actual public service and has no obligation to DDOS protect anyone.
The issue (I believe according to the author) is that Cloudflare is now choosing to withhold protection for Kiwi Farms, taking a moral stance and should be more responsible for other moral obligations or none at all. IE. Should they stop providing protection for more sites? When is the next Kiwi Farms? I don't agree with the author because it is still early (and the author might be putting Cloudflare under pressure f…
The problem is that demand for Cloudflare services is furthered by allowing illegal booters. If thoes sites were not protected by Cloudflare, they would attack each other offline. That would be the death-nail for most DDOS-for-Hire operations and the few remaining would raise prices, making it nearly impossible for a single person to boot other offline.
By allowing the attackers to use their services, while deciding other websites are not allowed to. Cloudflare is removing others freedom of speech.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm also not very familiar, but I understood it differently: The government did not let it for private sector to regulate when it explicitly guaranteed the right in the constitution...
The text better supports GP's understanding: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This is explicitly about what sorts of laws Congress may not pass, and not about the conduct of priv…
Further, the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#169> As the infrastructure provider for over 20% of all www traffic traversing the internet today, CloudFlare is in a position to enforce it's beliefs on a global scale.
> Who interprets what qualifies as hate speech?
Exactly the issue. We should not give “activists” a free pass on this one. I wonder now which one(s) of them will commit the crime of actually DDoSing KiwiFarms. We probably will never know.
Vigilante “justice” is problematic because it leaves room for people to harm others without proper evidences of wrong doing. Mind you, I’m no way denying that Kiwifarms are reprehensible, but there are people out there claiming that KF is literally causing people to die, which I’m wondering where is the evidence of that? If someone is suicidal, one of the better ways to help them is to (among other things of course) make them understand that they have power over their circumstances by telling them that they are responsible for their actions. Claiming that some internet bullies can cause you to kill yourself is not helpful, nor is it true.
Re: I ran the worlds largest DDoS-for-Hire empire and Cloudflare helped
#170As far as I understand, protecting from DDoS attacks is a big enough part of Cloudflare business. Doesn't it create the conflict of interest here? I can imagine how it makes sense for Cloudflare to facilitate DDoS attacks by sheer ignorance with plausible deniability, to sell more DDoS protection to the targets.
Using their own analogy, the real fire departments actively prevent fires by enforcing safety policies, not merely fighting existing ones. If fire department is paid only for the fires extinguished, they are strongly disincentivised to enforce safety policies.