# Cloudflare Thunderstorms Pirate Bay Proxy



## drmike (Apr 25, 2015)

Cloudflare is threatening to boot a customer running a Pirate Bay proxy.  Reason?  The UK is blocking IPs due to piracy / IP protectionism and the IP belongs to Cloudflare and fronts many websites.

Is the end of Cloudflare as a useful decoy?

Source article:

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-blockade-censors-cloudflare-customers-150424/


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## GIANT_CRAB (Apr 25, 2015)

Instead of criticising Cloudflare of no longer being a "useful decoy", why not just change the government... Elections is on 7 May anyway.


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## drmike (Apr 25, 2015)

But I can't vote in the UK.  Blokes over there need to start pushing the outdated, be they well intentioned politicos to get with it.

I am mixed about the matter.  PB is clearly mass pushing indirectly, and perhaps conceptually legal piracy.  Without piracy some big subset of folks wouldn't be aware of lots of things.  YouTube runs and has the world's biggest piracy stash and no blocking of their junk.


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## Francisco (Apr 25, 2015)

It sounds like an easy way to force torrent sites/etc out of hiding and into DDOSville.

Given the types of sites they cache/proxy (every booter out there, countless terrorist sites, tons of torrent sites, etc), you'd think they'd stretch their "we just cache/speed things up" and move that single site to its own IP address and be done with it. By doing this it means ISP's (like, say, ChinaTelecom/ChinaUnicom) just have to nullroute a bunch of CF IP's they don't like and CF's going to have to get rid of the sites to bring the rest back, or start playing animal farm and start actively playing guardian to certain sites.

Francisco


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## HalfEatenPie (Apr 25, 2015)

I think of it as more of a giant clusterbutt.

I totally understand it from their perspective, but then again I also understand it from the FoS people.  This can potentially be a pretty crazy can of worms.


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## drmike (Apr 25, 2015)

Francisco said:


> It sounds like an easy way to force torrent sites/etc out of hiding and into DDOSville.
> 
> 
> Given the types of sites they cache/proxy (every booter out there, countless terrorist sites, tons of torrent sites, etc), you'd think they'd stretch their "we just cache/speed things up" and move that single site to its own IP address and be done with it. By doing this it means ISP's (like, say, ChinaTelecom/ChinaUnicom) just have to nullroute a bunch of CF IP's they don't like and CF's going to have to get rid of the sites to bring the rest back, or start playing animal farm and start actively playing guardian to certain sites.
> ...


CF has 1.2 million IPs.  http://bgp.he.net/AS13335

Shuffling problems off to dedicated IPs wouldn't be hard or costly.

Today the whack-a-mole is about indirect IP piracy.  Tomorrow government will be applying the same successful tactics to silence whistleblowers, independent media and anyone with an opinion they don't like.

With this situation it proves CF has hit it's limits and either refuses to engineer a simple solution or has bowed to government on the backside.

Considering how much smack and puffery has come out of CF about protecting sites getting huge DDoS and attacks, I am really surprised how easily they buckled on this.


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## William (Apr 25, 2015)

Considering the amount of RIPE IPs CF buys off the market (No. 3 behind the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Iranian ICT Company (ICT), saw a bunch /16 go to CF a few days ago again (plus a /13 to STC)) they should be able to simply give each website a dedicated IP and solve it that way..... let's see.


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## HalfEatenPie (Apr 26, 2015)

Wasn't there an article recently about how someone's website was also somehow linked to pornographic websites?  

Then everyone realized it was behind cloudflare and the journalist/article writer got flack for it.


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## Licensecart (Apr 26, 2015)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> Instead of criticising Cloudflare of no longer being a "useful decoy", why not just change the government... Elections is on 7 May anyway.


That's a pathetic statement, the government have nothing to say in it. As it's stated the UK that's a misleading fact.

The reason is the MPAA, and other big companies are going threw the "High Court" to ban pirate sites from YIFY Movies to Pirate Bay and more see: http://www.ukispcourtorders.co.uk/That's what BT use not sure of Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk pages.

- Members of BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited and of Phonographic Performance Limited

- The Football Association Premier League Limited

- Members of the MPA (Motion Picture Association of America Inc)

- [SIZE=11pt]Cartier International AG[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]- Montblanc-Simplo GMBH[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]- Richemont International S.A.[/SIZE]


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## k0nsl (Apr 26, 2015)

I was threatened about the same issue back in December of 2014:



> Hi,
> 
> It has come to our attention that your website -- tpb.k0nsl.org -- is causing CloudFlare IPs to be blocked by SkyB, an ISP located in the UK. This is impacting other CloudFlare customers.
> 
> ...


The end of the story was that if I didn't remove it, they'd chuck me out.


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## drmike (Apr 26, 2015)

Thanks to the good Mr K0nsl!

Sad that this has been going on like this.  Stealth mode mostly until now....

If this isn't about election day and broken laws in the UK, I am unsure what it is about big picture.

Are you saying @Licensecart that elected officials haven't enacted laws and instead these suit happy customers are using the activist courts to enforce these offlinings?


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## Licensecart (Apr 26, 2015)

drmike said:


> Thanks to the good Mr K0nsl!
> 
> Sad that this has been going on like this.  Stealth mode mostly until now....
> 
> ...


The Government here don't make laws unless it's really really really really really needed, and that goes via the Queen, otherwise the only thing they make is tax rules, like "The Bedroom Tax" or "Capping price increases on Gas / Electric" etc.


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## drmike (Apr 27, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> The Government here don't make laws unless it's really really really really really needed, and that goes via the Queen, otherwise the only thing they make is tax rules, like "The Bedroom Tax" or "Capping price increases on Gas / Electric" etc.


Sounds like entirely different situation than in the US these days.


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