Post AUHRr9VOnOcYIBgG4e by uniqx@chaos.social
(DIR) More posts by uniqx@chaos.social
(DIR) Post #AU2N7B6PfCvfVZy13I by dentangle@chaos.social
2023-03-27T08:46:50Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I'm noticing more and more organisations, including ones I respect (eg. OSI, RIPE), putting their websites behind Cloudflare's servers.Is centralizing the web behind a US company like Cloudflare, on balance, a Good Thing ™️ ?Feel free to reply and explain your thinking. Why is it needed? Why is it good/bad? If you have done this yourself, why did you do so?:BoostOK:
(DIR) Post #AU2N7BziLbAIH5qBFY by Uilebheist@chaos.social
2023-03-27T08:56:12Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dentangle It's bad for several reasons.#accessibility - cloudflare, akamai and fastly will add captchas to any browser they don't like, including the ones which make things more accessible. The result is that sites using these services become unusable.#security - having a man-in-the-middle attack by default on every access.#privacy - all it needs is a court order from a US judge for your data to go to whoever wants it.
(DIR) Post #AU2N7DkXoyDdicl5sm by Uilebheist@chaos.social
2023-03-27T09:00:14Z
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@dentangle In fact, if there was a search engine with an option to exclude any results hosted by clourflare, akamai, google or fastly, I'd definitely use that.But of course there's no advertising money in offering such an option.
(DIR) Post #AU2QEhRA8sWpgLx08O by markhughes@mastodon.social
2023-03-27T10:10:00Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@dentangle fingers crossed we can begin to push back against this and other internet hegemonies late this year. The fediverse can only slow this a while so I'm looking forward to a peer to peer secure alternative that will be accessible to all and create a playing field that actually favours small organisations and individuals.
(DIR) Post #AU2SAwRya7oGzifPuq by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-03-27T10:50:55Z
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@dentangle What you're doing is like asking a Church service whether God is real and good.
(DIR) Post #AU2TCcOyBzEnLfclLk by dentangle@chaos.social
2023-03-27T11:02:25Z
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@Hyolobrika There are a lot of websites that sit behind Cloudflare and similar these days, and there are a lot of web developers, SREs and the like on Masto, so I thought I'd ask. Clearly a lot of people think it's a good thing, or at least a necessary evil, or it wouldn't be happening. Will the survey result be biased? Sure. I'm more interested in finding the reasons. I have my own views, but I want to know what others think.
(DIR) Post #AU2asXjQe396hr8FKy by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-03-27T12:28:26Z
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@dentangle I think the people who use Cloudflare probably don't think it's *good* per se, just convenient. But I don't really know.As for the people who run Cloudflare. They're probably not doing it because they think it's good for humanity as a whole, just for them in particular.
(DIR) Post #AU2b3R6pbjwHLuGy1o by mar77i@gleasonator.com
2023-03-27T12:30:25.772310Z
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@dentangle Private companies are perfectly optimized for selling a product and writing a bill for it. Freedom and questions of culture categorically run counter to that.
(DIR) Post #AU2caEk2i8JaVOolZw by mar77i@gleasonator.com
2023-03-27T12:47:32.979270Z
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@dentangle Free markets are great, a private companies are perfectly optimized to produce a product and sell it. Freedom, questions of culture in general tend to run counter to that when competition is weak, non-existent or has the same problems, which allows these companies to impose their warped, colorless green ideas and VC-imposed, furiously ESG-compliant fever-dreams on their customers.I talked my workplace out of CloudFlare in recent years, because I consider it a massive MITM operation on the internet, which could be in cahoots with some secret service, or inadvertently become instrumental in insdustrial espionage at a nauseating scale.
(DIR) Post #AUH2BpLSLhQx2UEBrE by xtaran@chaos.social
2023-04-03T11:29:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dentangle: Yep, also that they (e.g. https://www.linux.org/) no more work with all cookies disabled is a blatancy.
(DIR) Post #AUH2BqRAHxauQTuGOW by dentangle@chaos.social
2023-04-03T11:30:33Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@xtaran just tried visiting linux.org - blocked by a cloudflare captcha.
(DIR) Post #AUH2DRWZstkRjwCU4m by onepict@chaos.social
2023-04-03T11:37:02Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dentangle @xtaran I don't even get as far as the CAPTCHA.
(DIR) Post #AUH2DYc9WZMnjFrXEm by xtaran@chaos.social
2023-04-03T11:38:41Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dentangle: Looks like this here.@onepict: /me neither. Probably due to one of the privacy-focussed browser extensions I use, too.
(DIR) Post #AUHRr9VOnOcYIBgG4e by uniqx@chaos.social
2023-04-03T13:58:31Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
@dentangle Well, I had to fight off putting f-droid.org behind cloudflare. What really scares me is how some people who talk a lot about privacy and foss don't get why companies like cloudflare are toxic for the free and open web ...Now we're spending ~100€/month on webservers plus my volunteered time maintaining it. Cloudflare would sponsor #FDroid traffic for free. But I think it's worth my effort. :)