We don’t block archive.is or any other domain via 1.1.1.1. Doing so, we believe, would violate the integrity of DNS and the privacy and security promises we made to our users when we launched the service.
Archive.is’s authoritative DNS servers return bad results to 1.1.1.1 when we query them. I’ve proposed we just fix it on our end but our team, quite rightly, said that too would violate the integrity of DNS and the privacy and security promises we made to our users when we launched the service.
The archive.is owner has explained that he returns bad results to us because we don’t pass along the EDNS subnet information. This information leaks information about a requester’s IP and, in turn, sacrifices the privacy of users. This is especially problematic as we work to encrypt more DNS traffic since the request from Resolver to Authoritative DNS is typically unencrypted. We’re aware of real world examples where nationstate actors have monitored EDNS subnet information to track individuals, which was part of the motivation for the privacy and security policies of 1.1.1.1.
EDNS IP subsets can be used to better geolocate responses for services that use DNS-based load balancing. However, 1.1.1.1 is delivered across Cloudflare’s entire network that today spans 180 cities. We publish the geolocation information of the IPs that we query from. That allows any network with less density than we have to properly return DNS-targeted results. For a relatively small operator like archive.is, there would be no loss in geo load balancing fidelity relying on the location of the Cloudflare PoP in lieu of EDNS IP subnets.
We are working with the small number of networks with a higher network/ISP density than Cloudflare (e.g., Netflix, Facebook, Google/YouTube) to come up with an EDNS IP Subnet alternative that gets them the information they need for geolocation targeting without risking user privacy and security. Those conversations have been productive and are ongoing. If archive.is has suggestions along these lines, we’d be happy to consider them.
Honestly, Cloudflare choosing not to hastily slap a band-aid on a problem like this just makes me feel more compelled to continue using 1.1.1.1.
I hesitate to compare this to Apple calling themselves “courageous” when removing the headphone jack, but in this case, I think the word is appropriate. I’ll happily stand behind you guys if you take some PR hits while forcing the rest of the industry to make DNS safer – since it is understandable, admittedly, for users to conclude that “Cloudflare is blocking websites, sound the alarms!” at first glance.
For the moment, I also do trust CloudFlare's intentions, but it's wrong to classify this as some kind of stoic resolve in not "slapping a band-aid on a problem" since that's exactly what they did after their business decision about not responding to "any" queries.
Just for another voice in this sub-discussion: I'm an authdns software implementer ( https://github.com/gdnsd/gdnsd ) with no connection to Cloudflare, and I like Refuse ANY. It's maybe hard to see all the issues with traditional ANY clearly unless you're implementing this stuff, but IMHO RFC 8482 is a really good path forward that I'm supportive of and have also implemented.
Well, I can't say I didn't anticipate it happening exactly like this, with someone from Cloudflare trying to retcon "the ANY query episode" by linking to the proposal drafted after the fact. As though a formal "here is our proposed change" document somehow magically excuses the fact that Cloudflare did "violate the integrity of DNS" in its unilateral decision to abandon parts of the DNS specification in favor of its own modifications in order to cut operating costs by reducing the workload on its servers. [0]
Your boss is talking about not "violating the integrity of DNS" and presents this case where upstream archive.is name servers return unexpected data. He proposes that CloudFlare cannot "just fix it" because doing so "would violate the integrity of DNS and the privacy and security promises we made to our users when we launched the service". However, Cloudflare chose to "just fix it" back then by "slapping a bandaid" on something your team saw as a problem instead of abiding by the proper change process. And Cloudflare did so not because of some critical security flaw, but as a cost-cutting measure.
Even if we limit what it means to "violate the integrity of DNS" to the first definition mentioned above (and completely ignore this second definition), Cloudflare "slapped a bandaid" on a PR problem it had a couple of years ago and decided to "just fix it" and "block a domain" by removing the domain and its assets from Cloudflare's infrastructure. [1]
Cloudflare has "violated the integrity of DNS" on more than one occasion using more than one of its own definitions.
Cloudflare "MUST" either adhere to the specification and its change process, or not adhere to the specification and its change process. Cloudflare "CANNOT" choose for both of these statements to be true, and one of them constitutes "violating the integrity of DNS".
Say you remove/don't proxy the ECS information, and I get some generic, non-geo-location aware response back. In the majority of cases, wouldn't my next step be to open a TCP connection to the IP in the response, and immediately leak my full IP address to the other end? While I get (and appreciate!) the concern for the user's privacy, I'm having a hard time seeing what practical effect not proxying the subnet the user is on has?
(This is not meant to suggest that archive.is's DNS response is appropriate, or that CF's setup is inappropriate.)
(Just to check my understanding of ECS: it's an extension to DNS that sends the user's subnet in the request, and gets relayed with the request, s.t. an authoritative server can respond with a geo-location appropriate response/IP.)
> Say you remove/don't proxy the ECS information, and I get some generic, non-geo-location aware response back. In the majority of cases, wouldn't my next step be to open a TCP connection to the IP in the response, and immediately leak my full IP address to the other end?
That assumes that the nameserver and the actual server are run by the same party which quite often is not the case.
> That assumes that the nameserver and the actual server are run by the same party which quite often is not the case.
Cloudflare can check if nameserver and the actual server are run by different parties, and if so omit subnet information from EDNS response. It is not hard to implement — Google and OpenDNS used to require manual whitelisting to receive EDNS subnet responses (not sure if they still do).
Cloudflare's CDN leaks user's full online identity to Google via reCaptcha, especially when you use Tor. Maybe they should ask Google to be satisfied with client's subnet too?
When cloud flare detects suspicious traffic from an ip, it will get served with a reCaptcha every time. Tor exit nodes always get captchas, not sure how much data that would leak though
Since HTTPS traffic already reveals communicating IPs to nation-state actors, could you clarify what attack vector removing user IP info from authoritative DNS queries protects against?
In what way does Cloudflare publish its PoP geolocation? Is it a Cloudflare-specific API? Why not fake EDNS subnet info by providing the PoP’s?
I notice of course that Google, Facebook, and Netflix still work on 1.1.1.1. Does this mean they’re currently using Cloudflare PoP geolocation in lieu of EDNS subnet information?
Its preventing the DNS authority to know the IP of who is making the request.
CloudFlare decided its DNS should be the authority to the end user and Archive.is's DNS should be the authority only to CloudFlare. CloudFlare is breaking the bond between the end user and the Service provider.
What CloudFlare is doing is centralizing authority to itself rather allowing authority to be distributed to all owners of the domains as intended. An argument can be made that by using 1.1.1.1 you are granting CF permission to act in this role - some users may even prefer it.
This is no different than any 3rd party DNS service. If the resolving DNS server you hit doesn't have a cached response, it reaches out to the upstream resolver. It doesn't pass your IP along to the upstream resolver
Perhaps not untruthful, but bending words to make it look malicious when it wasn’t? In general, your statement was just malicious to the point of “untrustworthy”.
Cloudflare simply is making a subversive play against their competitor CDNs. Client subnet of a DNS request is used for initial rough mapping by Cloudflare competitors such as Akamai (definitely) and I believe Fastly ( and probably others) . Stripping it easily adds at least a few milliseconds to the time to first byte and most likely results a request re-routing on the second or third request.
After all, no other CDN is operating a well used public resolver.
> If you care that much about privacy, you should be using a VPN.
Another point; if you care about privacy, why use a 3rd party resolver that you have to "trust"?
Use the ISP resolver; they can see all your traffic anyway if they want to.
Alternatively, cut out all the middle men and run your own recursive resolver. It's not complicated to do so, there's other software than Bind for doing so.
Isn't Google CDN a public beta or did it just exit a public beta into a GA? If so, it is a non-entity for at least a year long contracts that the other CDNs have with its customers. Probably a non-entity for years to come.
> We publish the geolocation information of the IPs that we query from. That allows any network with less density than we have to properly return DNS-targeted results.
The operator of archive.is claims that they suffer from a "massive mismatch" between those query IPs and actual traffic. Any idea why? [Is that claim wrong? Is archive.is to blame? Is cloudflare to blame? Are ISPs badly routing the DNS queries?]
Do you have stats on how well the geolocation works in practice?
Well no, CloudFlare doesn't get to talk about not "violating the integrity of DNS" after you stopped responding to "any" queries in violation of the standard. You started by doing your own thing and then proposed a change to the standard to fit your business decision. [0]
There's a difference between changing results (or adding) and not supporting a feature that is dangerous and rarely used. Kind-of like banning handguns vs. providing unknownly modified guns.
It's a fine analogy: the former is something some people think is a good idea, and others think isn't, whereas about the latter most people agree it should not be done. Which is what OP wanted to express.
They also stopped responding to all DNS queries for some neonazi asshats because of public pressure and politics. They're definitely jerks but they still should be treated like any other customer unless they're actively breaking the law.
@eastdakota what about just failing without response on archive.is calls so the second resolver address configured in the client will be used? I understand this is also a DNS integrity violation, however the result for the end user would be either the same if they don’t have a second resolver configured or enhanced if they do.
The current effect is I stop using 1.1.1.1 when I need archive.is (often) and set it back the next time I’m messing with my network settings.
DNS either has integrity or it doesn’t. We get a response from an Authoritative server and, as a Resolver, we believe our responsibility is to return it. If we start making exceptions because of bad PR, how can you trust us to do the right thing when the stakes are even higher (e.g., nationstate pressure)?
As an aside, I used to think that when Emerson said that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” he meant that we were foolish to try and be consistent. Increasingly I wonder if instead he meant that when you’re trying to reason with people who may not have the same detailed knowledge of a problem as you, there’s an enhanced importance to being consistent. Unfortunately, most policy makers globally don’t have a detailed understanding of how technical systems like DNS work, so we think it’s especially important we be consistent.
My take on the Emerson quote you mention is to be mindful instead of mindless when it comes to consistency. I respect the commitment to consistency you convey (and I do think it is mindful).
I would recommend you leave exegesis of Emerson to the experts. What he meant is much closer to "pave the cowpaths" than "break things that currently work by enforcing arbitrary standards".
If you're going to that much trouble I suggest you just hardcode an IP address for archive.is into /etc/hosts. I've only had to change it once in the whole time I've used Cloudflare DNS (i.e. since the first day it was public).
Also: it'd be nice if CloudFlare made a secondary DNS resolver (1.1.2.2?) that didn't pass along EDNS information, as a backup for websites like archive.is (and for anyone who cares about privacy).
1.1.1.1 does not send EDNS ECS data, specifically because of the privacy concern. So the hypothetical secondary resolver would need to send that data, for people who aren’t concerned about the privacy implications / want to get to archive.is.
Given CloudFlare’s stated message of prioritizing privacy, it seems unlikely they’d stand up infrastructure that behaved like 1.1.1.1 except that it leaked more private information.
My apologies! I misread the OP and thought that CloudFlare was being accused of violating privacy. Instead, it seems that CloudFlare is definitely making the right choice, and I can't see why archive.is has any objection.
Without jailbreaking, I don't think you do. You can do it at the router level with dnsmasq, but then you'd always have to be VPN-ed into that network when you are out and about.
Although, I believe Cloudflare DNS app on iphone uses a VPN iOS API to do it's thing, so it should be possible to put dnsmasq-like functionality into an iOS app. I don't know if this exists already.
The full IP of the Cloudflare resolver doing the recursive resolution is already provided to the authoritative server, as the source IP for the DNS query traffic.
True. Copying the information would be possible, but given they’re working on other efforts to replace the functionality of EDNS ECS in a standard way, it seems like a hacky bandaid.
Ongoing work with big companies to replace existing technologies don't convince me. Though, neither does whining when the authoritative nameserver itself is returning bogus responses.
The experience for the user is that the page just keeps loading indefinitely, while showing a blank page. Is there nothing Cloudflare could do to inform the browser about the situation, so that the browser can show some kind of a message to the user? As it stands, to the user it just looks like their connection died.
Shouldn’t there be some kind of standard DNS response for this? There are dozens of different HTTP status codes for all kinds of scenarios. Doesn’t DNS have something like that? I know almost nothing about DNS, I’m just curious.
The thing is, the server sends a real response, it's just not the same response as it sends to other recursive resolvers.
Imagine it's HTTP, and the site sent a 404 to your proxy, but you knew it generally sent a 200 to other proxies, what should you do? Send the 404, or override it with your own status code? Cloudflare is saying they are not OK with overriding codes.
"Earlier today, Cloudflare terminated the account of the Daily Stormer. We've stopped proxying their traffic and stopped answering DNS requests for their sites. We've taken measures to ensure that they cannot sign up for Cloudflare's services ever again."
I'll keep using non-logging, encrypted OpenNIC servers, since you seem to selectively censor instead of only blocking terrorists and cp.
I don't think this argument is well stated, so I'll give it a shot.
CloudFlare is very basic infrastructure and there are a handful of companies providing such infrastructure, thus a group can be effectively deleted from the Internet if these companies decide or are pressured to do so. (Example of pressuring: Patreon dropped some accounts at the behest of Mastercard.)
So maybe the real question is, "does this notion of the integrity of DNS extend to other basic infrastructure services?"
The Daily Stormer is free to get their business elsewhere and it's still up on the internet. Cloudflare didn't want to be associated to this kind of content, and thus terminated their business relation.
We don't NEED Cloudflare to keep the internet integrity (if we did, it will go pretty badly...) but we do need DNS to keep the internet integrity.
> I'll keep using non-logging, encrypted OpenNIC servers, since you seem to selectively censor instead of only blocking terrorists and cp.
If the govt of your jurisdiction (American I assume?) commanded you to censor a certain domain or block of IPs with a court order, what exactly happens? I'm not sure if this has been done on the DNS level before but do you guys have a plan in case it ever does happen?
Jurisdiction would include every place where they have a business presence. Their page https://www.cloudflare.com/en-au/about-overview/ lists quite a few international phone numbers, which may or may not correspond with offices and subsidiary companies in those locations.
I assume they'd just have to go along with such legal demands, or withdraw from the relevant country, unless the penalty for not complying was very small.
It will probably become an issue some day. In Australia, for example, courts can issue DNS bans of particular sites to individual ISPs. You can avoid these bans entirely by using a service like Cloudfare DNS.
No, it's not. However it breaks the trust in the Cloud Flares integrity they so proudly mention in this thread. Once they banned something, how can you trust them to not ban something else, perhaps a bit more silently next time?
Typically, if you experience that, it’s because DNSSEC fails. 1.1.1.1 enforces DNSSEC. As does 8.8.8.8 in most, but not all, cases. Many other DNS resolvers do not enforce DNSSEC. Archive.is (and its directly affiliated sites) are the only exception like this I am aware of. And, to be clear, as a policy the 1.1.1.1 DNS does not block any sites from resolution.
tl;dr: Don't use 1.1.1.1 if you use any services that use DNS geolocation to bring you resources from the closest datacentre. These include: Office 365, Netflix, Facebook, Google services, ...
archive.is is a very important tool in online extremism research and you've taken money from far-right extremists, your explanation for why it's inaccessible seems incomplete.
This is probably where I get banned from Hn but it has to be said - to posture as if you care about end users while in the same breath taking money from extremists and turning over personal identifiable information to far-right outlets like DailyStormer, is disingenuous at best and I can think of other ways to describe it which are less charitable.
This is amusing, They Banned the DailyStormer which I why I will never support them. While I disagree 100% with the DailyStormer it is not up to cloudflare to decide who can and can not speak, who can and can not access the internet.
The concept of Free Speech is the most important right we have as humanity, while I may not agree with some peoples words I will fight for their right to say those words
And do not even come at me with "well they are private company" we impose all kinds of regulations on private companies when it comes to basic human rights like free speech and Free Association for example private companies can not refuse service based on race, sex, age, etc.
yet you WANT them to censor content, censor speech. You want them to apply your left authoritarian world view to legal speech, and yes everything you have cited is LEGAL SPEECH in the USA.
If there are actual threats, True Threats as defined in US law, then the police should be involved and the people arrested. If there is defamation or other illegal speech then the courts should be involved
It should NOT be the position of private companies to regulate speech online
I think you're being downvoted because of the bit about regulation. At least, that is what I choose to believe, because imagine our state of affairs if you are being downvoted because of your comments about the idea of free speech.
Silicon Valley is full of Authoritarians that believe the Tech Companies should be our overlords and be allowed to choose what "truth" is, and who can revel that "truth" to you
Actually it's the opposite. It's the newer people that are this way [0], for in my day, most people didn't even trust computers, let alone buying things with a computer, or always carrying an always-connected computer with a microphone and multiple cameras in their pocket.
Eastdakotas replies here and in previous threads indicate that his team have more oversight into his own wants and desires. He also writes more about being consistent in actions than they had when he did this action. I think that's a positive way forward. But the person at the top will be the weakest link. If I was a nation state that's where I would be applying the force not at the company level. Maybe he also realised this?
So who should be the arbitrator of truth? You do understand that I can cite many many many many many examples though out history where actual truth was suppressed, actual advancement was suppressed by those in power.
Free Speech is the most powerful tool Minorities and oppressed people through out the world have to end their oppression, and you just want to strip it away because of fear...
How can you not see how utterly dangerous this idea is, how can you ignore all of human history to believe it is a good idea to suppress speech.
It is not a slippery slope at all, is termination of basic human rights, is the the return to the dark ages, to Totalitarianism.
You hope that be installing a regime of censorship and speech control you will end "lies" and/or "hate" when in reality you will ensure its continued existence and growth while taking away peoples power to challenge it in the open light of public debate
> So who should be the arbitrator of truth? ... Free Speech is the most powerful tool
Generally, an independent judiciary is the arbitrator of truth.
Free speech has never been absolute. Free speech does not protect intentionally false speech. For example, tricking people to give you money is fraud. Libel is too. You can support free speech while also protecting truth. When the issue pops up, a judge determines who's right and wrong.
I can agree with that, in part, what I cant agree with is that CloudFare, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox or any other Tech Company should be in charge of this which is what the OP was asking for.
Almost all of the content the Authoritarian left wants to be banned today the independent judiciary has already ruled many times to be Legal Speech under the US definition of Free Speech
I don't have an answer to who should be the arbiter, but:
> Free Speech is the most powerful tool Minorities and oppressed people through out the world have to end their oppression,
So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
The other side(what we currently have) is equally as bad, if not worse. Right now you have a situation where the BBC in the name of "fairness" gives equal air time to a political party who only exist as a protest vote, and they allow for climate change denier to air their views against scientists. Public debate doesn't work based on facts, it works based on emotions, and it doesn't matter how nuanced or level headed your response is, "think of the children" or "the government is trying to suppress our rights" are emotional arguments that consistently Trump facts and reason. Free speech isn't a right for you to have a platform to voice your opinion, it's a right to not have your opinion be suppressed by the government.
I don't have a solution, but at some point you have to accept that tolerance of intolerance is intolerance, and when we're talking about a single incident of a platform that claims Marital Rape is ok [0],and that murdering 50 people because of their religion is "a prank" [1], they are objectively the opressors, not the opressed.
>So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
Yes. That's one of the founding principles of America. Cloudflare is a common carrier like a telco, not a hosting provider. The content on websites that use them as a CDN shouldn't be paid attention to by Cloudflare one way or another, as long as it's legal. This is their position, and it's the correct and most moral one. You also seem to be missing the fact that Cloudflare famously banned Daily Stormer; the only time they've ever banned any website: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
The best way to empower extremists is by trying to stamp them out. You can never, ever win when your primary weapon is censorship. Fascism thrives and festers in darkness.
>>So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
yes, for many reasons. One Should not be celebrating Moving the Cliff of Censorship on the bias of "Dangerous Individuals" like Facebook recently did. [2]
>Free speech isn't a right for you to have a platform to voice your opinion, it's a right to not have your opinion be suppressed by the government.
100% incorrect, Free Speech is a social concept that is often codified into law as through out history governments are the ones that often use the power of censorship to silence dissent, however threats by government is NOT the only threat to free speech.
Free Speech is a cultural value first, it has become a legal articulation based on that cultural value. [2] Platform Access Is A Civil Right, You should now have the same right to speak on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that you do in a public park.[0]
If you would not celebrate government censoring opinions you dislike why would you celebrate corporations doing it?
>>I don't have a solution, but at some point you have to accept that tolerance of intolerance is intolerance
The US Supreme Court disagrees with you, you can not fight intolerance by suppression. it has never worked in all of history, it only makes the extremism more extreme and violent. One can make the strong case that the more society pushes these people out of the sunlight the more violent they become, and if they allowed the modern public square, where their idea's would be challenged, debated and debunked there is a high probity there would be LESS violence.
Censorship does nothing but drive extremism under ground allowing it to fester, become more extreme, and then you get violence. This is also true for other forms of Censorship. Take for example the recent bills to "stop human trafficking" by censoring platforms and making them liable for it. Did it actually stop any human trafficking... No, all it did was drive it under ground making it harder for law enforcement to track and stop, while suppression lots of legitimate speech, had massive negative effects on voluntary sex workers, and untold other unintended consequences. This censorship was a net negative both in its stated goal, and for freedom in general. It accomplished nothing but taking the rights away from people.
Once your Nation has a "Chief Censor" [1] you know you have gone away from anything that could be considered Free Speech
Never said it did, etc was in reference to other protected classes in the list which vary by state.
Many states, including California, have political ideology has a protected class as well.
IMO companies run a foul of that when they start banning people for subjective ideology based reasons like "hate speech" which is not illegal in the US, and is every much based in political ideology to make the determination as to what is "hate".
Encrypting dns is bad for end users. Please cut this shit out. You are acting like you are defending against the NSA, but in reality we will have a bunch of shitty IoT phoning data to indecipherable IP addresses without any meaningful defense of consumer privacy.
It is hostile to customers who want to troubleshoot wtf apps are doing.
In my country, government/ISP blocks websites and changes the DNS results of 8.8.8.8 since it is not encrypted.
If ISP can create a valid certificate, that browsers trust [1], they may be able to access my Gmail or Github account.
Archive.is’s authoritative DNS servers return bad results to 1.1.1.1 when we query them. I’ve proposed we just fix it on our end but our team, quite rightly, said that too would violate the integrity of DNS and the privacy and security promises we made to our users when we launched the service.
The archive.is owner has explained that he returns bad results to us because we don’t pass along the EDNS subnet information. This information leaks information about a requester’s IP and, in turn, sacrifices the privacy of users. This is especially problematic as we work to encrypt more DNS traffic since the request from Resolver to Authoritative DNS is typically unencrypted. We’re aware of real world examples where nationstate actors have monitored EDNS subnet information to track individuals, which was part of the motivation for the privacy and security policies of 1.1.1.1.
EDNS IP subsets can be used to better geolocate responses for services that use DNS-based load balancing. However, 1.1.1.1 is delivered across Cloudflare’s entire network that today spans 180 cities. We publish the geolocation information of the IPs that we query from. That allows any network with less density than we have to properly return DNS-targeted results. For a relatively small operator like archive.is, there would be no loss in geo load balancing fidelity relying on the location of the Cloudflare PoP in lieu of EDNS IP subnets.
We are working with the small number of networks with a higher network/ISP density than Cloudflare (e.g., Netflix, Facebook, Google/YouTube) to come up with an EDNS IP Subnet alternative that gets them the information they need for geolocation targeting without risking user privacy and security. Those conversations have been productive and are ongoing. If archive.is has suggestions along these lines, we’d be happy to consider them.