139
Blocked by Cloudflare (jrhawley.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The author was blocked from accessing a work website due to issues with Cloudflare's browser integrity checks. Despite having credentials to prove his identity, an attempt to bypass the checks by disabling fingerprinting in Firefox resulted in Cloudflare blocking all access. He could still access the site on Chrome, showing the block was based on his browser configuration. This left the author unable to complete important work tasks and questioning how much control individuals really have over authentication in an increasingly centralized web ecosystem dependent on remote attestation. It highlights the need for transparency and user agency in how identity verification is implemented online.

all 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] peter@feddit.uk 32 points 1 year ago

I don't think that's what happened to the author. Cloudflare generally doesn't leave you on that page if it detects a suspicious browser. Plus, how is cloudflare supposed to use your corporate VPN and your certificate to verify your identity? They don't have an omnipotent view of all corporate VPNs that exist. The check that cloudflare does on that page is pretty javascript heavy and I assume it was just temporarily broken in Firefox. Which is an issue in itsself, but it's not the massive deal that the author makes out.

[-] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 22 points 1 year ago

I can't speak for the author but I've experienced this issue a few times, with increasing frequency of late, on Firefox and even other apps (not Chrome). Especially if I'm browsing under private mode (which I often am, just because I don't like any cookies/cache to be saved for random sites). Now, it's not like it's some random site who's Javascript broke or something, perfectly functioning sites would stop working and display that CloudFlare access denied message, when they previously worked just fine.

The other app I'd experience issues with is Tachiyomi, a manga reader and scraper. Whilst it works fine for the most part, every once in a while I'd get blocked by CloudFlare, which prevents Tachiyomi from searching/accessing various manga sites. But if I access the said site via Chrome, it'd work just fine.

It's not just CloudFlare. Sometimes, when again browsing via Firefox's private mode and say I needed to run a Google search, Google sometimes throws a captcha at me because it finds my activities "suspicious".

Just so you know, there's nothing unusual about my internet setup - I'm just a standard home user, with a static-ish IP from a well known ISP. My public IP has been the same for over an year now, and I don't run any web/mail servers or anything that my ISP or a website would dislike.

What it is, is just plain discrimination. Just because I have my privacy filters up and blocking all tracking and crap, it's seeing me as suspicious. If this sort of stuff is going to be the norm, I can only imagine how much more bleak our future would be if Google's WEI went into effect.

[-] peter@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago

Google sometimes throws a captcha at me because it finds my activities “suspicious”.

To be fair, google does that to me too and I use chrome

[-] tiwenty@jlai.lu 25 points 1 year ago

I hate it when in selfhosted circles they recommend CF. Why in hell would you want to be tied to them when you are wary enough to selfhost ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's popular because many people don't have static IP, behind a CGNAT, or simply don't want their residential IP address exposed, so their option is either use a vps as a tunnel (cost money) or use cloudlare tunnel (free). Obviously the free one get more use.

[-] tiwenty@jlai.lu 7 points 1 year ago

I totally understand the appeal. But I don't usually see people explaining the drawbacks and alternatives. Only a plain and simple "just use CF tunnel" for instance.

[-] bob@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago

Who would you recommend as an alternative DNS provider?

[-] tiwenty@jlai.lu 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tbh I don't think as a DNS provider they are too bad, it's pretty simple and one or another will do the job. I was more thinking about the techs talked in the article, or features such as tunnels and all.

[-] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Use a pihole with unbound so that you become your own DNS. It's waaaay better and it's easy as hell to set up. You don't even need a raspberry pi. It can be set up using in windows using wsl.

https://github.com/DesktopECHO/Pi-Hole-for-WSL1

If you have an old spare computer that can be left on all the time, you could set it up on that computer and point your router DNS at it so your entire network benefits from it.

[-] upstream@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Someone I know who works in payments told me they had to go to CF because of the insane amount of DDoS attacks they were facing.

While having three ISPs and mitigating a boatload of DDoS on their own infrastructure they were simply unable to cope with the persistence.

They first tried another provider, but they handled less DDoS than their own internal systems.

Cloudflare wasn’t even sure they wanted them as a customer.

Some of the biggest attacks mitigated by Cloudflare last year (they wrote about it) was this client.

[-] tiwenty@jlai.lu 1 points 1 year ago

I guess we can say we're not in the selfhosted circles anymore haha

[-] upstream@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Depends on what you mean by self-hosted. Because basically they are. No cloud providers meet their security requirements (required for their level of PCI certification).

[-] tiwenty@jlai.lu 1 points 1 year ago

Fair enough, I may have confused selfhosted with homelabs in my answers.

[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

I feel like this is way overblown. If you tamper with browser headers and user agents, you will be blocked.

If you use incognito mode or TOR, you won't be blocked, and in fact, cloudflare offers onion routes for your website so the traffic is fully secured.

If it weren't for cloudflare, I would have to pay three times the server costs and put twice as much time into managing it.

[-] Squiddles@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

The author explicitly says that they didn't tamper with headers or user agent. I'm neutral/not knowledgeable on the rest of your comment, but wanted to clarify that point.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

The problem is that they're a monopoly abusing their position to make it impossible to have the basic privacy you should be unconditionally entitled to to browse the internet.

It should be blanket illegal to block/discriminate against traffic based on the browser used in literally all contexts.

[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The situation is analogous to being at sea – if you don't respond to calls and signals, you are viewed as a potential threat. Altering user agents doesn't decrease your visibility; in fact, it has the opposite effect. It amplifies the uniqueness of your digital fingerprint, thereby making you more identifiable.

By default, Firefox uses a single identifier for all users, making it difficult to pinpoint individual users, which aligns with the recommended approach as described above.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

if you don't respond to calls and signals, you are viewed as a potential threat

This is unconditionally unacceptable behavior and an inexcusable and unforgivable violation of privacy. It is not and cannot under any circumstances be your business what a user does on their own computer while connected to your site. There are no exceptions.

Willfully terminating a connection for anything resembling that in any way should automatically get your domain seized with no path to ever getting it back.

[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Oh, it's quite evident that you've never had the joy of owning or managing a website. Your perspective is truly enlightening, showcasing your vast experience in the world of cybersecurity.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

It's perfectly possible to understand how the internet works without being a piece of shit who thinks they're entitled to dictate the software choices of their customers.

[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Well, that escalated quickly. Thanks for proving my point. Blocked.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Escalated like running arbitrary code on someone else's computer to decide if they're allowed to visit your site?

It's not possible to be an acceptable human being and think that's OK.

[-] Sh4d0w_H34rt@geddit.social 10 points 1 year ago

Been dealing with Cloudflare crap for a while now, thought they just had a hatred of TOR traffic. With Google truing to push website DRM I can only see things like this getting worse.

this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
139 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37603 readers
498 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
alyaza@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
SemioticStandard@beehaw.org
coldredlight@beehaw.org
rs5th@beehaw.org
Los@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social
remington@beehaw.org