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

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

#231

Post by JohnTHaller »

mrsalt wrote: post #148
gripfx wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an unrelated note. Thank you so much for PortableApps.com! It was invaluable at university when studying in the library. To this day, I still use it for utilities that don't need to be installed on my desktop.

I am also grateful for PortableApps.com. Along with Scoop and Homebrew, they make using a system without root or admin privileges a really nice experience, in both Windows and Linux. My sincere thanks to John and all the PortableApps.com contributors.

You're welcome! I'm glad it's helping you be more productive!

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

#233

Post by james412 »

johnklos wrote: post #224

I think people are Cloudflare fans simply because so many other services suck more. I gave Cloudflare a fair shake. But after hearing their lies way too many times, I'm calling them out for being deceptive and unscrupulous. After being told that sites pretending to host Adobe Flash updaters and pretending to be Bank of America can't be taken down by Cloudflare because of their rights to free speech, I knew their atte…

> They WANT us to be dependent on them

I think this is an important point about CloudFlare that can't be made often enough. It's been some years since I first noticed, and it seems as true today as it was then: wedging themselves into core Internet services and data flows seems to be an intentional part of CloudFlare's strategy.

There is no case given the architecture of the Internet where one company need be exposed to so many traffic flows from millions of people. The search engines got there first and we eventually stopped complaining, but this does not make it any more justifiable to copy the model.

What reason would a company have for desiring this outcome? We know Google can detect and predict flu outbreaks. Imagine what is possible when you have every click on every target web site.

There is a fair chance their data is already approaching the comprehensiveness of Google, and I'd be surprised, if not disappointed to learn they were not already working on unannounced (now or eternally) internal intelligence products based on that data. There are simply too many pockets who would be willing to pay for it.

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

#234

Post by jariel »

johnklos wrote: post #224

I think people are Cloudflare fans simply because so many other services suck more. I gave Cloudflare a fair shake. But after hearing their lies way too many times, I'm calling them out for being deceptive and unscrupulous. After being told that sites pretending to host Adobe Flash updaters and pretending to be Bank of America can't be taken down by Cloudflare because of their rights to free speech, I knew their atte…

I thought 'we' were for 'Net Neutrality'?

Remember, carriers and service providers not allowed to decided what to do based on content?

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

#235

Post by jariel »

jonny_eh wrote: post #162
dane-pgp wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Provided by the government.

Nazis also shop at Macy's and drink at Starbucks.

Cloudflare was purely acting out of market based fear, there wasn't a hint of moral impetus. Literally he said: "I don't want people saying they won't work with us" - which is giving into the mob.

Where is the ACLU on this?

We were all screaming for Net Neutrality just a couple years ago.

It's up to communities and governments to make decisions on content, it would actually help if the government made it illegal for CloudFlare to refuse service to someone so long as they were within certain guidelines, thereby absolving businesses of this issue.

Imagine literally the marketing and PR teams of Verizon, Facebook, Cloudflare, AWS, Google, your rando VPN provider, getting to decide if they 'think they might not like you' or not, it's just too much.

For marketplaces like AppStore, it's fine. But for other services, this is not going to work. It's not the job of your Telco or Garbage Pickup do decide if your public statements are cool/uncool enough for their Instagram.

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

#236

Post by yokaze »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #220
yokaze wrote: post #19

I am not sure, if I would trust anyone who misuses the term "Single-Point-of-Failure" on matters of reliability.

Why not? It's a single thing, that if it fails, causes your app/website/whatever to fail.

Because it isn't a single thing, it is a redundant system. Redundant systems can also fail, that doesn't make it a _single_ point of failure.

You can add another system in parallel as the vendor of the product suggests, or you can improve the resilience in the redundant system.

To make a hyperbole: my galera cluster is failing, its a single point of failure, so I setup a cockroach cluster in parallel.

In a way, it is right, as there are failure modes specific to the individual systems, but I think, it is incorrect, to label that a SpoF.

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

#237

Post by zzzcpan »

snowwrestler wrote: post #195
henriquez wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare is a relatively cheap "lite CDN" for developers who want caching without putting in any work. This becomes a gateway drug for Cloudflare's more expensive plans once you outgrow the free plan. It quickly adds up; I worked for a company that wasn't even on an enterprise plan and was spending hundreds of dollars a month on Cloudflare just because they had a lot of domains. My reservation with Cloudflare is th…

Unless you're sending all your traffic back to physical machines that you own locked into a cage in a datacenter, you are probably letting someone MITM your SSL traffic. For example if you are hosting on AWS, Amazon has access to your keys. If you are hosting on a hardware server leased from Hetzner, Hetzner has access to your keys. When a 3rd party has access to your keys, their responsibilities to you are spelled o…

It's more complicated.

For most websites today if someone can intercept traffic somewhere close to the server they don't even need the keys, they can just fake responses to pass CA validation and issue valid certificates with their own keys and MITM like there is no encryption.

And coldboot attacks performed by a hosting provider staff of dumping memory and finding keys isn't that realistic of a threat, just like putting servers into a locked cage on someone else's property isn't much of a protection.

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

#238

Post by Certhas »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #182
jonny_eh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> There's always a line This is where you've gone wrong. There isn't always a line, some businesses are in the business of selling products and services and not in the business of policing content. And if some of their customers are pedophiles or the like then have the police arrest the pedophiles and leave the fry cooks and gas station attendants out of it, even if the pedophiles eat food and drive cars.

Would you have an issue if a printing shop said no to doing business with a Nazi newspaper?

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

#239

Post by DrJosiah »

morrbo wrote: post #78
jgrahamc wrote: post #49

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…

I work at hCaptcha, we run CF's captcha. If you're having problems in the future, popping open a debugger and capturing the results can help us figure out what's going on. But also: browser, OS, site, ...?

Right now: there is an issue with Safari users on the most recent iOS and OS X, where 3rd party cookies have now been disabled by default. We're working on a solution.

If that's your issue, you can fix on your side in the short-term by not using Safari, or by enabling 3rd party cookies.

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

#240

Post by midasz »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #182
jonny_eh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> There's always a line This is where you've gone wrong. There isn't always a line, some businesses are in the business of selling products and services and not in the business of policing content. And if some of their customers are pedophiles or the like then have the police arrest the pedophiles and leave the fry cooks and gas station attendants out of it, even if the pedophiles eat food and drive cars.

> There isn't always a line

Yes there is. The line is Nazis now. There was a war, they lost. They're not welcome anymore.

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