this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Privacy

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Privacy is the ability for an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.

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Has avoiding Cloudflare become Impossible? (links.hackliberty.org)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by c0mmando@links.hackliberty.org to c/privacy@links.hackliberty.org
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Nearly every website today seems to be hosted behind Cloudflare which is really concerning for the future of privacy on the internet.

Cloudflare no doubt logs, stores, and correlates network telemetry that can be used for a wide array of deanonymization attacks. Not only that, but Cloudflare acts as a man-in-the-middle for all encrypted traffic which means that not even TLS will prevent Cloudflare from snooping on you. Their position across the internet also lends them the ability to conduct netflow and traffic correlation attacks.

~~Even my proposed solution to use archive.org as a proxy is not a valid solution since I found out today that archive.org is also hosted behind Cloudflare...~~ edit: i was wrong

So what options do we even have? What privacy concerns did I miss, and are there any workaround solutions?

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[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (22 children)

That's a circular argument.

"It's impossible to avoid this these companies because a lot of sites use them."

Ok. Why?

"Because they provide fundamental services."

Ok, what's so fundamental about them?

"A lot of sites use them."

...ok? WHY?

[–] Strykker@programming.dev 8 points 2 years ago (9 children)

The service they provide to websites is "better user experience" by acting as a cdn close to the user they get better download speeds and responsiveness. It also is a benefit for the business because they don't have to worry nearly as much about deploying and maintaining multiple servers around the world.

That is why it's impossible to avoid these companies, every sane website engineer is going to want the services they offer.

And it's a service that is easiest to offer when you are an already established large cdn.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Sure, so they're fundamental to businesses. Not to the internet.

[–] freedomPusher@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You say “fundamental” when I think (from context) you mean to say “essential”. But to be clear, Cloudflare is not essential to business or the internet. Consider banking in the US. Big banks are competent enough to not need CF. But credit unions are small and on shoestring budgets. So CUs are increasingly exposing all their customers to Cloudflare to save money. If you are a client of a CU that starts using Cloudflare, I suggest switching to paper statements and quit using the website. Switch to a CU that does not expose you to Cloudflare. So far that’s not difficult but that could change.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Thanks! Good tip.

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