Russian government threatens to block CloudFlare | Hacker News Reader

Russian government threatens to block CloudFlare

rkn.gov.ru

97 pointsrbanffy108 comments

The cases of adding CloudFlare CDN addresses to the unified registry of banned information٭ are becoming more frequent.

It is related to active use of this service by violators of Russian laws.

Attempts to determine hosting provider for such web-sites using whois return CloudFlare IP addresses, hiding whereabouts information for this site in Internet.

This makes interaction between Roskomnadzor and real hosting provider harder and, factually, eliminates the possibility of removing illegal content in time, to restore٭٭ access to the blocked resource.

CloudFlare representatives are refusing to cooperate and do not react to official Roskomnadzor notifications.

Many conscientious resources using this CDN are blocked by ISPs in Russian Federation due to lack of reaction from CloudFlare.

To avoid such situations we recommend hosting web-sites using native (russian) hosting providers which abide Russian laws in good faith and timely restrict access to internet-resources and information which is prohibited for distribution in Russian Federation.

٭yes, it is as bad as it sounds

٭٭implying access will be restored after "illegal content" will be removed

Just to clarify, aside from the footnotes this is a translation of the original page.

They actually do restore the site.

Russian authorities have blackholed my site a couple times because some trolls posted illegal material there, and then turned around and reported that site to the authorities. Once the files were brought to my attention and removed, the blackhole was also removed.

As an aside, I hope authorities (and hosts) realise this is a trivial and common tactic to take down websites. It's one of the cheapest and least technical attacks available. Only the really large sites (the 0.1%) are immune to it due to their stature. I'm tempted to say that attackers employing this method are more skilled, because they understand risk-tree analysis better than the clowns with huge fancy botnets.

I think that Ruskomnadzor does understand the dynamic nature of the Internet which is why your sites were restored when you removed the illegal material. They don't want to block you, they just want to stop Russians from ignoring the law and sharing copyrighted materials.

Just remember, Russia is not the Soviet Union, neither the real one nor the imagined one that the West is always going on about. Russia is a technically advanced country that intends to be the most modern country in the world in the 21st century. A force to be reckoned with.

Is 'force to be reckoned with' a prerequisite for modern-country status?

I can think of plenty of countries that I consider modern that cannot change the course of global events by force, but do so by example.

Here in Seattle, USA, the way we teach our children mathematics may yet be altered by ideas from Singapore, a modern country.

Russian here. It's only small part of what is coming from the goverment in near future... Soon, if you are using/registering ".ru"-domain and use it, you will have to "register" it in gov - pay ~30$ and wait for 5 days. If you doesn't do that, then created site can be immediately blocked via providers with no warning on any day. So a lot of us moving to .com now adays... Worst is yet to come. Now we have a blacklist of domains, and maybe have to expect whitelist in 2015 or so.

Emigrate. We appreciate the intelligence and skill of our Russian hacker friends. Let's not lose a generation of highly-skilled talent due to psycho-nostalgic policies. You guys have come too far for all this.

Did you see this? http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/305590/general+immigrat...

World != USA only. Just move somewhere in Europe, you have like dozens of different flavours ;)

Avoid anywhere too close to Russia, it might not stay "in Europe". Instead it will "always have been part of Russia".

The Russian government probably wants disgruntled Russians to move to places like that. The Russian fertility rate isn't high, but it's higher than all its nearest neighbors, and Empire is a long-term game.

And as Kasparov likes to say: You don't need smart people to run a petrol state. Brain-drain is bad for Russia but good for Putin.

You should really cut down on your TV time. Parroting stuff that comes out of that box makes you look .. I don't know .. lacking your own basic intelligence?

Do you seriously think Russia will invade Ukraine or Baltic republics? What f#cking for? Who needs to annex countries that are already knee deep in debt, while pissing off the rest of the world? This makes no sense. Just use your gray matter a bit.

> Do you seriously think Russia will invade Ukraine or Baltic republics

Have you not been paying attention? This has already happened.

Way to quote by stripping away the context. Have you not been paying attention too? To things like history of Crimea or its geographical location, for example?

The question remains - what will invading Ukraine, strapped in debt and with nothing to offer, give the invaders to be? The brainless hysteria surrounding this situation is absolutely ridiculous. It's twice as ridiculous if you'd remember that Russians and Ukrainians generally treat each other as close relatives. Annoying at times, but still same blood basically. There are radical nationalists on both sides, but that's marginal. Just look at how Ukrainian team was welcomed at the Olympics - with an ovation. And how things were unfolding in Crimea - with flash-bang grenades and blanks.

It's not about Russia threatening Ukraine. It's about Russia paying back US and EU for stirring shit in Ukraine to drive it away from Russia. This is all macro-political. Ukraine is just a casualty caught in a cross-fire.

--

Have I been paying attention? Yes, I have been. Have you though?

> To things like history of Crimea or its geographical location, for example?

If history and geography trump the current citizens and laws, then the yanks should all fuck off back where they came from and leave it to the native americans and the mexicans, no?

> Have you though?

Enough to realise that something is fishy.

Russian troops invaded crimea, surrounded the Ukrainian military bases, and then declared it was all "legit" because a referendum had 96% voting in favour of joining Russia, despite polls from previous years showing 34% support.

All but 2 members of the UN Security Council voted to declare the referendum invalid - it was only defeated because Russia has veto power.

Your argument is that Russia doesn't get anything out of this. Like Putin is a completely rational guy who does shit because it makes sense, rather than because he's a whack job who pines for the "glory" of the USSR.

> If history and geography trump the current citizens and laws, then the yanks should all fuck off back where they came from and leave it to the native americans and the mexicans, no?

Just the former. Because, you know, the latter, inasmuch as they are distinct from the former, have the same problem as "the yanks".

You're saying the current day USA-Mexico border is the limit of where any pre-columbian Mexicans ever inhabited?

I'm saying that "Mexican" isn't a meaningful description of any group of people that existed before the Spanish conquest.

The people who inhabited what is modern day mexico.

before colonisation the native americans weren't called native americans or indians but that doesn't mean they didn't exist.

> despite polls from previous years showing 34% support.

Link? Crimea has always been pro-Russian, to the extreme.

http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/crimea-referendum-34-percent-n...

Yeah, that's just some guy on US government payroll pulling numbers from thin air and an Ukrainian politician quoting some other guy who said this and that. That's not "polls from previous years showing 34% support" as you put it.

Just some guy.. who happened to be Putin's economic advisor for 5 years.

... who's now on US payroll.

Bottom line is that Crimea is massively pro-Russian. Unlike you I've actually been there multiple times and have friends who still live there. The overall sentiment has always been that Khrushev was an idiot to detach Crimea from Russia and "gift" it to Ukraine in the 50s. That 97% looks pretty damn close to the reality. If you are interested in this, take a look at BBC coverage of the referendum. The turnout and voting numbers were in fact all legit and no one was going to the voting booths under a gunpoint.

> If you are interested in this, take a look at BBC coverage of the referendum

They quoted a single woman who claimed the Ukrainian government are nazis. Sounds legit.

> have friends who still live there. The overall sentiment

I lived in Australia for 29 years and everyone I know thinks Tony Abbot is a fucking idiot, so he must have rigged the election, right? How many of the 2 million Crimean people do you know well enough to have had discussions about their thoughts on Russia? Anything over a million and you're probably safe.

> The turnout and voting numbers were in fact all legit and no one was going to the voting booths under a gunpoint.

a) facts have to be proven. b) who says you need a gun to rig a poll?

Apart from being illegal according to their own constitution, the referendum gave no option to maintain the status quo - only to become part of Russia, or to become independent. That sounds amazingly legit.

A Russian citizen in Crimea on a one year visa was allowed to vote, which is illegal. There are confirmed reports of people having their identification confiscated before they could vote.

Add to this - Russia invited "observers" to validate the legitimacy of the vote. The leader of the group invited to observe is a Neo Nazi and Adolf Hitler admirer. The "observers" from the group were a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a Hungarian. All three are former members of neo-Nazi parties, and currently members of far-right-wing political parties. Still legit though right?

And of course every country on the UN security council except China and Russia must be just saying it's illegal and illegitimate for shits and giggles, not because of any evidence.

It depends on your perspective. Crimea agreed after the fact that the Russians were merely securing their own territory, correct? If so, then there was no invasion.

If the Crimeans had voted no, would Russia still be there?

> If the Crimeans had voted no, would Russia still be there?

Seriously?

Do you actually believe that, or are you simply posting here as part of your job?

You have absolutely no clue as to what a free election is if you believe that 97% of the people in Crimea voted to join Russia. I won't even bother posting any details as to the wording of the ballot, or as to all the Russian slanted propaganda prior to the vote. 97% votes only happen in "People's Republics".

Putin and his kleptocrat buddies (nee oligarchs) are busy looting Russia. Hope you're getting your share.

Man, it's be awesome to get paid to post. I mean, yeah, you'd probably be a shill for some large conglomerate, but the paycheck would probably be great to supplement my other earnings.

I'm curious as to how you know what my beliefs are. I don't think they were in the GP post.

> Crimea agreed after the fact that the Russians were merely securing their own territory, correct?

Those are the results announced by Russia immediately after their military invasion, yes.

It doesn't mean those are the actual results, that the voting was actually done by "the Crimeans", or that the voting was free or fair. [1]

> If so, then there was no invasion.

No, even if the people of the invaded part of the Ukraine actually agreed after-the-fact, Russia unauthorized intrusion with military forces into what Russia had previously by treaties (in which it also agreed to respect and guarantee the soveriegnty and territorial integrity of the Ukraine, as part of a deal wherein the Ukraine gave up the former Soviet nuclear weapons on its territory) agreed was Ukrainian territory would still be an invasion. It doesn't retroactively become "not an invasion" based on events after the invasion occurs.

> If the Crimeans had voted no, would Russia still be there?

Almost certainly.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/un-hints-russia-may-have-rigg...

You might as well skip the US who is not very hacker friendly either and come directly to western Europe :)

Well, I'm a java developer from Russia and I want to emigrate. But don't know how. A lot of people here want to leave Russia. But it's not as easy as going from one state to another (USA) or going from one EU country to another.

The Netherlands is very welcoming to knowledge migrants and offers lucrative tax benefits on top, so just apply to one of the companies that are subscribed to the ruling and you should do just fine.

You can find all companies that offer the ruling at https://ind.nl/zakelijk/openbaar-register under the heading 'Erkende referenten Arbeid Regulier en Kennismigranten'

Do keep in mind that homophobia is both not acceptable and that you'll meet actual openly gay people here, so if you have a problem with that you'd probably be better off elsewhere.

You have a funny way of making someone feel welcome, regurgitating memes and stereotypes propagated by Western media. Really, that last line in your post wasn't necessary.

Also, as the immigrant he will eventually be at the receiving end of at least some minor racism or xenophobia, no matter how progressive and open you think your society is. So lecturing him on that is kind of pointless as well.

It's actually based on a real life example that happened to me personally which cost myself and several other people their jobs.

In my experience there are some Russians who come here expecting to be able to be openly homophobic which, as I can personally attest to, is a recipe for disaster.

I've worked with lots of Eastern Europeans and many of them have been perfectly accepting of my orientation and the vast majority treated me respectfully though.

Unfortunately, when you move from a society where being gay is still considered a mental illness by 70+% of the population, you can't assume that everyone is just able to leave that behind when they move.

No point in pretending that you can just cross a border and do what you want. In particular, Netherlands does have a very different attitude to gay people than even the USA. Best to warn people that emigrating involves cultural shock and changing your interactions with the society in which you live.

Actually I would advise Russians in every country to practice smiling at strangers, on the street, in shops, everywhere. Keep notes and make sure that you smile at least 20 times a day, and always smile at the people you buy stuff from. Smiling is not just for your best friends.

Wow, guys, thank you!

As for homophobia: I am open-minded, respect other people's beliefs, orientation, views and so on.

Actually, I have a very European way of thinking, rather than Russian (at least I think so).

Nevertheless, there are some problems with migrating to Europe/USA (and other countries) that scare me a little bit.

They are:

1. Bureaucracy. A lot of documents, visa, cv, cover letter etc.

2. Language barrier.

3. I have a girlfriend. I don't know how to leave Russia together. Who will give her visa? Who will invite her?

4. I'm not very confident about my skills. I think that foreign employer will hire you only if you are a genius or a strong senior specialist with many years of experience.

And so on...

I hope that the real situation is not so scary and complex :)

> Actually, I have a very European way of thinking, rather than Russian.

Luckily most people who want to move to Europe do ;)

As for the rest.. I can answer for the Netherlands, since we're quite unique in how easy we make it for international workers.

> 1. Bureaucracy. A lot of documents, visa, cv, cover letter etc.

The only bureaucracy is about getting hired. After that the company will arrange everything.

> 2. Language barrier.

Everyone in the Netherlands speaks fluent English and at pretty much everyone of the companies on that list it'll be the official working language.

> 3. I have a girlfriend. Who will give her visa?

Dutch knowledge migrant visas actually have room for a spouse. She can even work freely here.

> 4. I think that foreign employer will hire you only if you are a genius...

No, they'll hire you because you're cheaper. Since you'll both get the tax discount and will not negotiate as hard they can pay you less while you still get plenty enough. Also; Dutch employees have a reputation of not listening to the boss and many bosses don't like that ;)

The one thing I have found is that you need to have your CV in the right style for the country since each country has different standards. Dutch ones are more about understanding what your main responsibilities / daily activities were. Russian ones tend to be summaries of all types of tasks your job involved. US ones are often 'boasting' about the results you've achieved.

As for common objections; the main reason not to hire Russians is usually a lack of communication, since we expect much more cooperation and interaction. It's not a deal breaker since we're used to it, but if you can convince people on the other side you communicate well/better than they're used to it'll be a big plus.

For a Dutch style CV that works well you have a look at mine at http://michiel.trimpe.nl

Hi there, my gf works for a recruitment company who's helped quite a few developers from outside the EU find work here. Drop me a message at davedx@gmail.com if you'd like me to pass on your details.

FWIW I work in a room full of Russian speakers at the moment. I quite like the atmosphere :)

kovrik, if you seriously put your mind on it, you can move out of Russia. I won't say "effortlessly", but it is probably easier than you think.

Make sure to do your research – e.g. countries like Australia and Canada are much easier to move to than US or EU. IT professionals are in high demand everywhere. You can start by working remotely, etc.

Good luck.

Sound like a sweet invitation and not a bad idea, thank you! :)

Sounds like a good use for Namecoin and .bit domains.

That wouldn't stop them from banning CloudFlare's IPs.

This is a plan only that probably will not be accepted

"... information which is prohibited for distribution in Russian Federation"

— And what information would that be exactly? Maybe anything that wouldn't agree with Putin & his cronies? The Russian gov't has been known to sit on their hands (to put it politely) while dissenting journalists were being killed off in the open street in bright daylight.

Fuck the Russian government.

> to put it politely

Yes, you were almost too polite given that these journalists mostly had anti-government attitudes.

- War propaganda; pornography and antisocial behavior propaganda

- Free speech abuse: Extremism

- Free speech abuse: Drug production and acquisition information

- Free speech abuse: Secret information disclosure

- Free speech abuse: Latent influence (e.g. hipnosis)

- Anything related to extremism

- Malicious programs

- Information which is a crime by itself (slander, humiliation, call for terrorism, offer for a drug use, etc.)

- Improper advertisement (alcohol and tobacco ads)

- Secret inforation

It's worth to note, that they can and actually do block addresses without court order.

And in practice anything they want. Example: navalny.livejournal.com is not available in Russia for some time. Not chosen articles, whole blog.

For a good reason. If Snowden published US secrets soemwhere, how fast do you think it will be taken down by cloudflare. wikileaks never had a problem with hosting either it seems, right?

Perhaps you've missed it, but numerous media outlets have published US secrets collected by Snowden. Where are the takedowns you expect against NYT, Washington Post, Guardian, NBC News, etc.?

All these media outlets make a point of saying that they have carefully redacted anything that may put people's lives in danger. I imagine that any site which published it raw would be taken down even in USA.

Remind me, those photos of Guardian destroying Snowden files all over the news sites are clearly because Russians forced them to? Or was it UK government?

That was a quick moving of the goalposts.

Navalny is a political opponent of Putin. He has nothing in common with whole whistle-blowing thing. Blocking his blog is like banning Fox from broadcasting.

> Information which is a crime by itself.

Which includes gay propaganda, i.e. anything that mentions homosexuality in a positive or accepting context.

Anyone want to start a pool on when "Free Speech Abuse" becomes a thing in the US?

English translation (Google translate) --- The cases made in the Unified Register of banned information network addresses CDN- service CloudFlare. This is due to the active use of this service sites - Russian law violators . When trying to determine the hosting provider such websites whois services indicate ip- address CloudFlare, concealing information about the location of your hosting provider , providing accommodation in this Internet site.

This complicates the interaction Roskomnadzora with this hosting provider and virtually eliminates the possibility of timely removal of illegal information to regain access to locked resources .

CloudFlare representatives refuse to cooperate and do not respond to legal notices Roskomnadzora .

In the absence of reaction on the part of many conscientious CloudFlare Internet Resources using this CDN- service fall under lock operators on the territory of the Russian Federation.

To avoid such situations , it is recommended to place web- sites on the capacities of local hosting providers who operate in good faith and in a timely manner the Russian legislation restricting access to Internet resources with information dissemination in the Russian Federation is prohibited.

Can someone translate the google translate? (obviously even better would be a russian speaker translating/summarising the article)

CloudFlare is hosting sites which, according to claims in this article, violate Russian law. CloudFlare is not responding to legal notices from the Russian government (or is not complying with the demands in these notices).

It sounds like they're warning website operators that they will be blocking access to CloudFlare in the future, and that operators should move sites to local hosting providers who comply with local Russian laws.

I guess I don't understand this, I thought cloudflare was just a cdn and put up static versions of sites when sites were under DDOS (along with DDOS mitigation techniques), I didn't think they hosted sites themselves? am I missing the point or do they host or act as an intermediary for some websites or something similar?

EDIT: found this post which answers my question (obfuscated whois records is the problem russia has with it): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572336

WHOIS records come from the registrar not Cloudflare, perhaps they mean obfuscated traceroutes?

From what I took from it the TL;DR would be that Cloudflare are refusing to reply to Russian legal demands to take down sites or materials considered to be illegal in Russia in a timely manner or at all.

Except missing the context that it's part of a move to a Great Firewall, China style, and that the a lot of the blocked content concerns 'dissenting opinions.'

Oh I get the context, that's just not what the article is meant to confer. :)

Above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572336

I think that's a paste of Google translate, it doesn't read as logical English.

Props to cloudflare. What with the number of websites that are using cloudflare these days the public outcry against a ban of cloudflare would probably be heard all the way to Warswaw. It might even have a Streisand effect bonus causing people to wonder what exactly it is that they're not supposed to be looking at.

How much did CloudFlare have to pay to get this advertisement and endorsement from the Russian Government?

This is a good one :) Build some decent service, have it used by human rights activists, and any sufficiently oppressive government will advertize (the same way) it for free.

That's unfortunate. I happen to run a site somewhat popular with some Russians (on a lark, since I don't understand anything), and it has attracted its share of DDoS attempts.

CloudFlare has been a boon here. I don't pay them to speed the site up, nor to hide from the government, I pay them so I don't need to spend any time on these occasional low-grade DDoS attempts.

I don't think it'll go anywhere fast.

Russia has been on a media-blocking spree, shutting down 'dissenting opinions,' ever since the Ukraine conflict started. With CloudFlare they're running into the problem that their infrastructure can't selectively block specific CloudFlare sites and that blocking all of CloudFlare would cause far too much of an outcry.

That's why this press release was made: as a feeble attempt to influence CloudFlare.

If CloudFlare stands its ground (which it should given the political/human rights nature of the majority of these blocks,) nothing will happen until they block CloudFlare wholesale, which would probably not actually happen unless the conflict escalates into Cold War II territory.

P.S. If anyone from CloudFlare reads this and you're not sure what to do with it; go talk with the US government. I'm fairly sure they're willing to give you all the support you might need.

Well if Google already said it's OK to do censorship, I don't see why would anyone else would give away their profits.

Right, so Google is now the bar for moral turpitude? :)

Unfortunately citing the general public - it seems so.

> shutting down 'dissenting opinions,' ever since the Ukraine conflict started

Much, much earlier.

Very true; although they did ramp it up significantly after the Ukraine conflict.

I agree though that you could also turn it around and say that it was only temporarily toned down a bit for the Olympics.

It took CloudFlare 5 weeks to even respond to one of our DMCA takedown notices, let alone take action (which would simply include passing the DMCA notice onto the origin hosting provider).

It is very frustrating - CloudFlare is used to protect a number of warez and file sharing forums and websites, but we struggle to get hold of the origin host information and have to go through CloudFlare who clearly are not geared up to deal with it.

Did you actually follow the DMCA procedure and send them a letter to their registered agent, as is the law?

Anyways the worlds largest pirate ebook site LIBGEN.ORG is being run out of Moscow apartment, so pot, kettle, black

Yes, and followed up 5 times.

Us too...

Cloud Flare and LeaseWeb are not playing nice. LeaseWeb is asking Cloud Flare to give me the IP so that I can enter it into LeaseWeb's automated system, but Cloud Flare refuses to do so.

They've sent the IP to LeaseWeb, but LeaseWeb refuses to do anything manually.

Ugh.

So... Cloudflare sent you the IP and they are not "playing nice"? You have to understand that they can not remove any content because they don't have access to the server. If you want to blame someone, blame LeaseWeb or Netherland's law.

Also, Cloudflare chose to stay neutral and this is good in some cases and bad in others. They may protect warez sites but they also protect websites with content that some goverments and people loved to erase from the internet.

This can be bad for you, but the internet is not perfect...

No... CF sent the IP directly to LeaseWeb. Not me.

They refuse to send it to me, but LeaseWeb refuses to take any manual action with it.

Good. CF should not send you the IP address. If they sent the origin IP address to any random person with a DMCA claim, their service would be useless, as attackers would just send any old DMCA, demand the origin IP address, and DDOS that.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you send a DMCA to the actual company who's responsible for the content and they don't respond?

Probably CloudFlare makes difficult for Russian government to censor certain sites.

Probably a good idea to follow how this plays out, in case leaders like Cameron and Erdogan decide to take a page out of the same playbook.

However, not every populace is as accustomed to falling into line with their government as the Russians are. Russia is still about 200 years behind the standards of civilization elsewhere.

If I were you, I'd stop at acknowledging most of them have no clear idea of what a democracy, or even rule of law, looks like. On many aspects of "civilisation" they are pretty much on par with the rest of the world.

Native-sounding translation:

The cases of adding CloudFlare CDN-service internet addresses to the unified registry of prohibited information have become more frequent. This is related to the active use of the above service by sites which violate Russian law. During attempts to ascertain the hosting provider of these websites, whois reveals ip addresses belonging to CloudFlare, hiding information about the whereabouts of the hosting provider of the actual site.

This makes cooperation of the ROSKOMNADZOR[1] with the actual hosting provider difficult and basically eliminates the possibility of removing illegal information in order to restore access to blocked resources.

CloudFlare representatives refuse to cooperate and do not respond to official notifications by ROSKOMNADZOR.

As a result of CloudFlare's lack of response, many conscientious internet resources using this CDN-service are falling under[2] blocking restrictions by ISPs on Russian Federation territory.

To avoid similar problems, we recommend hosting websites using the facilities of domestic hosting providers, which comply with Russian legislation in good faith and restrict access, in a timely manner, to internet resources containing information whose dissemination in the Russian Federation is banned.

[1] Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (ROSKOMNADZOR)

[2] Unclear from the text whether this already happened or will happen

"CloudFlare representatives refuse to cooperate and do not respond to legal notices"

Ha ha. I wonder if they bother to translate these...

Why should they?

Because ummm... people are posting pirated files maybe? We've been fighting this battle for a month now.

Pirated files? I thought that's what vk.com is used for and Russian gov doesn't seem to have any problems with it AFAIK.

This is why most CDNs like Akamai don't allow illegal sites to use their service. You have a shared-destiny with all their other customers. If someone goes after a site like Rescator for selling credit cards online or blocks 4chan for child-porn, your site can be affected because it's served from the same Cloudflare network.

A few CDN's have build entirely separate networks with a different ASN's for keeping their more questionable content away from the bulk of their customers. I've not checked if Cloudflare have done this or not, but it would make a lot of sense. This segmentation can really help. For example, a bunch of hacker groups use Cloudflare and by putting them all on the same IPs, you can magically stop them from DDOS'ing each other.

Related to CloudFare, I know what a real CDN is, but I'm not sure what cloudfare does useful at all, ex:

http://halfelf.org/2013/i-dont-understand-cloudflare

http://pergento.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/cloudflare-slowed-d...

http://amix.dk/blog/post/19627

Like they tell you to use CloudFare w/ a CDN. what? It appears that they are a good marketing company, and OK tech, but not clear to me what. Compare it to real CDN Fastly or MaxCDN.

So other than marketing, what does Cloudfare do when you pay them?

Cloudflare is a CDN with security options (they stop bots, spam, ddos, etc). In some cases websites load faster, in others load slower... you have to try and see.

I'm using Cloudflare on 3 websites ($30/month) and on the last 30 days they saved 4.9 TB in bandwidth [1]. The "5TB" plan on MaxCDN costs $299/month.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/xqQ3Aea.png

Oh, how glad I am that I got out of that shithole.

Was working for CF really that bad?

Too many gay porn with Putin leaked perhaps ;) He must've been like "Kurva, abort abort, block teh whole interwebs!" :D

From what I understand, the political aspect of the issue aside, the problem is that if a site is served via CloudFlare, there's no easy way to identify and communicate with the actual hosting company.

Off the top of my head, this could be solved by adding the origin IP in CloudFlare's HTTP response headers. Am I wrong? Or this makes no sense (or it's there already) and I just don't know what I'm talking about?

EDIT: Ha! Got downvoted, probably because someone thought I want to help Russia censor the web. :)

Thing is, CloudFlare shouldn't be responsible for taking down sites, whatever the basis of the takedown might be; this should be addressed at the host level, not this or any other proxy.

>the problem is that if a site is served via CloudFlare, there's no easy way to identify and communicate with the actual hosting company

Isn't that the the entire point, though?

I don't follow. I use CloudFlare to make my sites respond faster and be protected from DOS attacks. Hiding the place where my files are stored is not why CloudFlare exists -- at least I thought so.

Of course one might argue that revealing the origin IP exposes it to DOS attacks, but this is a different issue.

That's basically what I was arguing - giving access to the origin IP undermines its value as a service.

In the end, it's all geopolitics. US funds revolutionary Ukrainian groups in an attempt to bring the Ukraine under the US sphere of influence, Russia annexes Crimea in an effort to reinstate its sphere of influence, US threatens visa restrictions on Russian elite, Russia begins to threaten companies that act as extensions of the US on trumped up charges. And so the cycle goes.

If the US funded the revolution in Ukraine it did a pretty damn good job of finding a representative cross-section of the Ukrainian population to do so.

It's much more likely that it's a classic case of an economically failing petro-dictatorship attempting to stay in power through the age old technique of radicalizing it's population through cracking down on free media, ramping up propaganda and starting some 'little wars' to restore former glory.

It is a classic case of an economically failing superpower trying to stay afloat with skyrocketing debt, shifting attention from it's internal problems and feeding on wars in other countries. US keep supporting terrorists in Syria and did so in all other uprisings they fueled. None of them ended well for any of the countries involved so far - Libya, Iraq, Syria.

Totally. If you'd have asked me five months ago which super power was most likely to start the next world war I would've said the US. It seems we overlooked and misjudged a player we thought was fairly harmless though.

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