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SECURITY


CLOUDFLARE ONCE AGAIN COMES UNDER PRESSURE FOR ENABLING ABUSIVE SITES


CLOUDFLARE MASKS THE ORIGIN OF ROUGHLY 10% OF ABUSIVE DOMAINS, WATCHDOG SAYS.

by Dan Goodin - Aug 1, 2024 12:22am CET

100

Critics have made similar arguments about the harm resulting from Cloudflare
hosting sites spreading malware and phishing and openly fostering harassment and
threats of physical harm, particularly to more vulnerable Internet users such as
transgender, Black, or Jewish people.

Cloudflare reiterated its longstanding policy in an emailed statement on
Wednesday.

"Cloudflare has an extensive and thoughtful abuse reporting process that allows
users to report suspected illegal or malicious activity, which Cloudflare then
flags for the hosting provider and website owner and law enforcement, if
appropriate," the statement read in part. "While we disagree with Spamhaus on
this issue, especially when terminating users will only remove security services
for websites while not removing the content, we note that Spamhaus uses
Cloudflare's services itself and we welcome further engagement with
organizations like Spamhaus on how best to address malicious activity."

While the company will police content that paying customers host on its site, it
takes no action against users of its pass-through services, which merely place a
site behind its infrastructure so it can withstand what would otherwise be
crippling attacks.

The content-neutral policy enjoys its fair share of supporters. Among them is
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which in 2022 argued that Cloudflare cutting
off sites it deemed harmful could cause unintended consequences.

"Online actions create real world harm—and that can happen in multiple
directions," the EFF’s Corynne McSherry and Jillian York wrote. "But
infrastructure providers are rarely well-placed to evaluate that harm. They may
also face conflicting requirements and demands based on the rules and values of
the countries in which they operate."

An example, they said, was the move by Cloudflare to terminate DDoS protection
for Switter, a Mastodon instance that provided a safer means for sex workers to
connect with clients. Switter founders blamed the move on the FOSTA-SESTA, a
bill that went into effect in 2018 and was pitched as an anti-sex trafficking
measure.

Eric Goldman, a professor specializing in Internet law at the Santa Clara
University School of Law, also agreed that Cloudflare is more of an
infrastructure provider than an “edge” provider, a position that limits its
options when receiving complaints of abuse.

"In those circumstances, wielding the 'off' switch can have dramatic
consequences for the terminated customer and uncertain and potentially
significant consequences for its customers' users," Goldman wrote in an email.
"Furthermore, like most content moderation decisions, Cloudflare's decisions are
zero-sum situations, i.e., someone will get the outcome they want, someone else
won't. Cloudflare is in a lousy position to adjudicate these situations knowing
that someone is bound to be unhappy with its decision."

Cloudflare has made exceptions to its hands-off policy in the past, including
its cutting off of neo-nazi site Daily Stormer in 2017 and far-right forum Kiwi
Farms in 2022. So far, the network provider has steadfastly resisted calls to
cut off other sites from its pass-through services, even when they openly
traffic in abuse.

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Dan Goodin / Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he
oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking,
encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and
following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him
at @dangoodin on Mastodon.

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