
CloudFlare Watch - tard
http://www.crimeflare.com/
======
r3bl
So... judging by the titles, what this website is suggesting is basically that
free speech only applies if you agree with it, and since they don't agree with
CloudFlare's decision to host everything, CloudFlare is bad?

Honestly, the only thing I don't like about CloudFlare is their treatment of
Tor users, which I don't see being mentioned anywhere in here.

~~~
jgrahamc
We're making a lot of changes to how we handle Tor:
[https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/203306930](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/203306930)

~~~
apecat
I missed this! This is great news and frankly deserves a mention on CF's
really nice company blog so that as many site owners as possible learn about
the new granularity for Tor.

As a Tor relay operator and CF customer, I've been really split on the effects
of CF's power. After all, blocking heuristics is just what I need.

Part of my job is maintaining a bunch of viral WordPress sites on a small
budget. In addition to the crazy bandwidth and responsiveness a CF pro
subscription buys you, the service really is a small biz secops dream machine.
I can actually focus on writing when I just put sites behind CF.

Maybe it's Appelbaum's fate to be the Stallman of any tech with mass
surveillance potential. That's not an insult and it's good to have immutable
critics of centralized infrastructure. But it's certainly a bit tiresome
sometimes.

The options presented by CF seem to hit a nice balance. Making blanket Tor
blocking an enterprise-only feature is a nice touch. In the spirit of that,
it'd maybe make sense to also make JS challenge the default for new Cloudflare
domains?

Now, if there only was some magic beyond keyless ssl to get rid of the MiTM
aspect...

~~~
jgrahamc
We are going to blog about Tor soon.

------
simonw
As far as I can tell, this is by Daniel Brandt - previously of (now defunct)
Google Watch and a bunch of other similar projects over the past 27+ years:
[http://www.leavegooglebehind.com/news/2012/02/google-
critic-...](http://www.leavegooglebehind.com/news/2012/02/google-critic-
daniel-brandt-takes-all-of-his-sites-offline/)

(Based on the IRS letter posted on the site at
[http://www.crimeflare.com/gifs/irslet.gif](http://www.crimeflare.com/gifs/irslet.gif)
which mentions "Public Information Research Inc", Brandt's organization)

Update: confirmed, here's a page on the site which Daniel signs his name to:
[http://www.crimeflare.com/cfs.html](http://www.crimeflare.com/cfs.html)

~~~
chrisdotcode
I'm ignorant of who this man is; is there a particular reason his character
should be known in the context of this website?

------
LeifCarrotson
Some people do some pretty nasty things using the Internet and may be
protected by CloudFlare. But there's also some pretty amazing things that
happen because of it.

Some people say mean, false, and hurtful things. But others can say kind,
insightful, and truthful things.

Some religious traditions are honestly rather disturbing to me. But others are
a part of who I am.

I would much prefer to live in a world where everyone is free to use the
Internet, speak, and believe as they desire, even if that has some negative
consequences, than to live in a world where someone else dictates what I or
anyone else can publish, say, and believe.

~~~
mikeash
I don't understand your last paragraph. CloudFlare isn't a necessary service
for publishing stuff online. If they tightened up their rules, that wouldn't
be a world where someone else dictates what you can say or believe.

Free speech doesn't require private entities to host or publish regardless of
content, and it's totally consistent to both advocate for free speech _and_
advocate that entities not make certain kinds of speech. For example, I think
the KKK should be allowed to say all the hateful things they say, _and_ I also
think the KKK should close up shop and stop bothering everybody.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I was drawing parallels; Cloudflare's open support for all websites is
meritorious in the same way that freedom of speech and religion are
meritorious. The temptation to regulate it has consequences which are
analogous to limiting speech or religion.

And no, it wouldn't dictate what you could say or believe, but it can help you
say it. And if you need to say something that a powerful entity doesn't want
said, they can protect you from DDoS and other attacks.

It's one thing to advocate that entities not make certain kinds of speech - by
all means, please advocate away! But CloudFlare is an assistant to speech, not
just an advocate. The moment you start making rules and decisions about what
you enable, you open yourself up to the human possibility of making wrong
rules and decisions. And that means it's better to not make the rules in the
first place. "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent
suffer" and all that.

~~~
mikeash
I don't get this at all. Why shouldn't CloudFlare make rules? So what if they
get it wrong sometimes? There are plenty of alternatives. _Not_ having any
rules about what you'll host seems crazy.

Free speech means that you can say whatever you want, but it does _not_ mean
that you can get others to help you say it. If they _want_ to help then fine,
but if they don't want to help you that's not a free speech issue.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
They should consider what it would be like to live in an alternate universe
where they were a consumer of their service. Not just being a customer
themselves (that would be "give the customer everything, and pay him for the
privilege"), but what would the rest of the world look like - would the
company be in business, would there be negative externalities, etc.

For the reasons described, the thought experiment would (in my mind) suggest
that there should be no speech restrictions, so that's the action they should
take. Or you could describe it as "do unto others as you would have them do
unto you".

------
simondelacourt
It seems weird to target them because their services can be abused for illegal
purposes like terrorism. One can use Bic pens also for terrorist purposes, but
I don't recall people setting up bic watch websites.

And on
[http://www.crimeflare.com/cfs.html](http://www.crimeflare.com/cfs.html) you
can see he accepts payments through Paypal, why rally against CloudFlare but
don't mind getting money through Paypal?

The Silicon Valley is the opium of the people quote just makes it feel all in
all very goofy, combined with the nineties website, comic sans and under
construction gifs just seem to lack.

------
cmdrfred
If the web development skills on display here are any indication, I think this
personal lacks a fundamental understanding about how all this tech works.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your
right to say it.

------
the-dude
karma be damned: the 90s called and they want their website back!

~~~
jlgaddis
Heh, I recently discovered that one of the first "websites" (and I use that
term loosely) I ever made is still online, unmodified since 1997. I'm leaving
it up and not touching it, just so I can celebrate its 20th birthday next
year.

------
heavymark
I'm curious if the person created the website to look dated and unattractive
to add more of a grungy.. aka underground info feel? I love CloudFlare all,
but haters gone hate, and everyone is free to express their views.

------
sailistices
I halfway expected to find a CF-Cache-Status:HIT Response Header. He doesn't
use caching at all.

1 point for consistency. -100000 points for advocating censorship.

------
Kovah
"It costs $22 USD a day to keep CloudFlare Watch online"

What the hell?!? He pays 600 bucks a month for some shitty HTML? What kind of
hosting is this?

~~~
shreve
That also includes all the web scraping it's doing. As it says, there's a lot
of churn in the data, and it tries to keep it all updated.

Of course, that's still way too much. I don't believe that's an honest figure,
or the owner is being ripped off.

------
ryan-c
Seems to be the same guy who made cloudflare-watch.com which was actually
using cloudflare for a while.

------
mark_lee
G, they make me like cloudflare by creating a site to complain. How did they
do it?

------
MacsHeadroom
This is like the argument that Doctors Without Borders facilitates violence.
Utterly ridiculous.

Good on CloudFlare.

------
nathancahill
smh

------
nubela
Shameless plug / full disclosure: I work at Kloudsec

In case you're looking for alternatives, Kloudsec [1] is a minimal CDN
platform made for programmers. And I think we make a good alternative because:

a) You get to keep your nameservers, just point the relevant domain to our
CDN's IP

b) Auto LetsEncrypt SSL cert provisioning (and renewing too)

c) Every plugin is optional (WAF, Pagespeed, Analytics). Just toggle them on
and off. You can also build/bring your own (nginx) plugin onto our CDN
network.

[1] [https://kloudsec.com](https://kloudsec.com)

~~~
geofft
Shameless plugs are great, but are you saying you take active effort to keep
undesirable people from using your service? Because I'm not sure (at least on
this forum) why you'd want to say that you do, and you're not differentiating
yourself for the purposes of this article if you're not. :)

