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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Cloudflare is trying to protect websites from hacking attempts and similar, most of which is illegal

I don't think we can say "most" Tor traffic "is illegal" [1]. At the very least, we agree that some of it is legal. That means Cloudflare, a private company, is treating users differently based on its interests and its interpretation of the law.

> A government official (or anyone, actually) trying to check for compliance with the law isn't doing anything illegal

They probably aren't. Neither is Uber. They're just treating their users differently based on their interests and interpretation of the law.

Law enforcement has tough-as-nails methods at its disposal. It could subpoena, audit, intercept, sue, et cetera. The downside is those methods come with oversight and transparency requirements.

[1] https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en

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You are in Libertarian La-La Land to call what Uber did "treating users differently based on its interests and its interpretation of the law".

As Volkswagen discovered, in the United States this is called "criminal conspiracy" and "obstruction of justice."

> As Volkswagen discovered

Night and day. Volkswagen was falsifying data provided to the government at an identified testing facility. Uber is fuzzing data and refusing to provide services to certain customers who have not identified themselves as police, though may be*.

A city official cannot demand entry to private property without a warrant. Furthermore, one can eject someone from your place of business--again, provided they don't have a warrant. To get a warrant, investigators need probable cause. There are good reasons we limit the power of those seeking probable cause.

You're confusing the crime with the cover-up. Nobody knows what Uber was trying to hide. The point was simply that such attempts to hide corporate wrongdoing are aggravating factors or can even have legal consequences on their own.

They also presumably did this not just in the US. Other countries have different interpretations of the extend of sovereignty over property, and maybe if an Uber is considered "private". I know, for example, that the police in Germany can demand entry to night clubs during public events without cause or warrant.

> such attempts to hide corporate wrongdoing are aggravating factors

Usually. But I don't believe that is the case here. Uber was public about the fact that they were breaking Portland's taxi rules--they blogged to that extent. Prosecutors had enough evidence to get a subpoena and demand what they wanted. But the cops didn't do that. They chose to collect $5,000 fines from the drivers. That's their prerogative, but that upside comes with a cost.

> Other countries have different interpretations

That might be the case. I am only commenting with reference to American laws and customs.

There's a legal requirement to comply to emissions laws.

Is there a legal requirement to make it easy for cops to use your service? Are they a protected class?

If I didn't want to sell donuts to the cops, I sure wouldn't tell them it's because they are cops. I would just be mysteriously out of donuts every time they come in.

There is a legal requirement to not operate an illegal taxi service.

I think you misinterpreted what matt4077 said. Most "hacking attempts and similar" are illegal. Tor is often (nobody said always) used in attacks, so the IPs of most exit nodes show up during attacks, which requires future users coming from those same exit nodes to solve the captcha. Cloudflare makes these decisions based on data, not on interpreting the law.

> Cloudflare makes these decisions based on data, not on interpreting the law

As they are entitled to do. Uber saw damaging activity coming from burner phones. They blocked and/or modified the related services.

If the investigators had identified themselves to Uber and then Uber did this, that might be different (though law enforcement is not, for good reasons, a protected class). The investigators chose a quieter path and Uber reacted accordingly.

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