Lemmy today

Both can be true?
- Yup

Cloudflare is a business. Businesses protect their profits. Online casinos are scams subject to regular massive DDOS by their scumbag competitors and by people who want them shut down. Cloudflare wasn't going to eat that loss anymore so they kicked them to the curb to save money. Also the time frame wasn't 24 hours. More like a month. This makes me suspect the scamming casino's story more.
- And insurances provide monetary compensation until you become a common liability, too high to be covered by any sort of fee. DDOS protection is just the same. It's only feasible if it happens rarely, like they usually happen. However if it's a common occurrence it will just eat up the profits made by the fees and then some, which just is stupid to do in any case.
  
  I think they are only “very regulated” if they are based in certain western countries?
  I used to hear a bunch of stories about issues getting payouts.
  
  It's not that they got DDoSed, it's that unregulated off-shore gambling is illegal in many countries, so their IP addresses were getting blocked in these countries. The way CDNs like CloudFlare work is that many customers share the IP addresses, so they were getting other CloudFlare customers blocked as well.
  CF wanted them to move to a "bring your own IP" plan so that their IP blocks wouldn't affect other customers, and that came with the steep price tag.
  
  Online casinos are also tech. The devops in the article literally says they set up proxies to continue operating in countries where their main domain is blocked. I know the core domain of casinos are very regulated, but I doubt the entire tech aspect of online casinos are regulated. I imagine there's plenty of fuckery to do there.
  Also casinos will throw out people who benefit too much at the expense of the casino. The casino benefitted too much at the expense of Cloudflare and refused to share the profits, so Cloudflare did what any casino would do and kicked them out.
  
  They provide a whole lot more to begin with.
- That wasn't it, Cloudflare didn't like the way the casino was using Cloudflare's IPs, since they were getting banned in multiple countries.
  Cloudflare only offers byoIP as part of a business package, and that comes with extortionate pricing.
- Cloudflare is a business. Businesses protect their profits
  You say that like it's ok to do shitty things as long as "you're a business protecting profits"
  
  The purpose of the comment is clearly: "Cloudfare didn't kick out the casinos because of a compromise with good ethics, but because it was making them lose money". Please read it again.
  
  I say that like its the way things are.

I was reading the blog post by the casino's tech person and kept thinking to myself, "this is a casino; they may not be the most reliable narrator". That said, CF was also stupid slow on taking down kiwi and stormfront, so they're not great either.
Both of them suck and this whole thing is amusing to me. Hopefully this will serve to improve CF's behaviour.
- What was kiwi?
  
  KiwiFarms, a forum dedicated to doxxing and IRL harassing of LGBTQ people, women, and anyone else they didn't like. It ~~was~~ is a breeding ground for Nazis and other Conservative bigots and their ideologies, and they successfully harassed people into moving and hiding (or worse).
  Edit: they're still around
  
  A website similar to 4chan, but much much worse. They'd dox pretty much anyone they didn't like, often LGBTQ+ people and allies
- It isn't clodflare's job to take down or in any way take a stance on what websites they are providing most likely only DDOS and DNS services for.
  That's for example why privacy sites can use them.
  It's the police or maybe hosting provider that should decide when/if to take down sites.
  If cloudflare were hosting the site I think they have more responsibility.
  
  I feel like if you're protecting a site that has caused as much harm as kf, it might be morally correct to stop doing so.

Context?
- cloudflare has a known habit of taking heavy users and forcibly converting companies from a $250/m plan to a $12,000/month plan.
  some people would be happy for that to happen to bad entities like an online casino, but really, to cloudflare the business use is irrelevant and it could happen to any of us.
  the lesson is to minimize your cloudflare dependencies. if you have to use it, use it in an agile method where you can move to something else quickly should you need to.
  
  Thank you
  
  12000 a month is probably chump change for a casino and money well spent at that for the features cloudflare provides
  At my job, a reasonably sized it customer generates about 100-500k a month.
- My feed has been all about posts like this one https://programming.dev/post/14669153
  If yours hasn't you're missing some stupid flame wars and nothing of value.
  
  That makes sense, I don't subscribe to !technology@lemmy.world and only ever check ALL if there's an emergency or I'm logging into a fresh install of Sync.

Nice! A topical meme relevant to today's top Lemmy story!
- I think I haven't seen story you mention.
  
  https://programming.dev/post/14669153
- What is a "top" story on Lemmy, given everyone subscribes to different communities? Is it the most popular across all communities?

reminder that cloudflare routinely works with white supremacist and other hate sites to protect them and have most recently refused to stop hosting kiwi farms, as they were doxxing and threatening trans people
- They don't "work with white supremacists". They try to self-polish the tremendous power the have, seeking neutrality in most cases.
- THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED WITH PURPOSE OF HATE AND (OR) ENCOURAGING HATE.
  You forgot to put it.
  I heavilt dislike cloudflare, but this is not valid reason to hate them.
- You're describing Twitter and Facebook as well.
- The same place that regularly bullies and bear-baits 'lulcows' for entertainment? The same people who bullied an autistic adult over a shitty Sonic fan character webcomic?

Por qué no los dos?

What's the problem with CloudFlare? They're trying to make a profit, and so in the long run are the same as anybody, but every interaction I've had with them recently has left me impressed.
Edit: The answer is that the way their thing works nullifies HTTPS.
- Remember when google was beloved by everyone back then when they're still have "don't be evil" motto? Cloudflare right now is like google back then: super useful, provides a lot of free services that would be expensive on other providers. But unlike google, if cloudflare go full evil in the future, the impact will be much larger because they're an mitm proxy capable of seeing unencrypted traffics across all websites under their wing. Right now they're serving ~30% of top 10,000 websites and growing.
  
  Oh, okay, so I'm not wrong that they're good right now.
  I'm a little unclear on how it works. Do they strip off HTTPS somehow? Otherwise, there's not too much unencrypted traffic around anymore.
  
  There's no proof they aren't doing anything nefarious with that data right now, other than company statements saying, "trust us".
  People default to trusting giant corporations first it seems.
- They seem to hate my devices. Lots of captchas.
  They seem to hate when people bypass their country's censorship. Using sites behind cloudflare through tor is pain without end.
  
  I get so many cloudflare captchas browsing on Firefox. They mostly go away when I change my user agent string to Chrome. Making the Internet more hostile for a particular group of users is pretty shitty behavior in my book.
  
  They've gotten a lot better over Tor - that's the main thing I'm thinking of, actually. I used to give up most of the time when captcha'd, but now with the JavaScript based verification I pretty much always can get in, even on mobile.
  Most providers don't give a shit about Tor, or actively try to block it. They actually went out of their way to make it easier.
- They are the world's largest MITM as a service.
- RIP your inbox. Enjoy a whole lot of self-righteous lectures in business ethics.
- What’s the problem with CloudFlare?
  So far, not much other than being "too" content neutral for a lot of people. They have potential to be immensely horrible whenever they decide to engage in enshittification to maximize profits.
  
  they're called crimeflare for a reason. besides being a government goldmine having access to everyone's encrypted TLS traffic, they selectively enforce censorship in unethical ways.
  why block kiwifarms when you still allow hosting monkey torture sites? or sites for sourcing bathtub HRT secretly sent to minors? they shouldn't be policing the internet in the first place. this is dangerously close to invalidating Section 230 protections as well.
  there's so many more reasons it's not even funny.
  
  Apparently they also strip encryption off and see everything, too.
- They're a giant middleman getting everything you put into html forms unencrypted.
  That includes all your usernames, passwords, and everything you submit via text boxes. Do not trust any site that uses cloudflare.
  
  This is such a Lemmy take, good god.
  "Cloudflare has been around for over a decade and doesn't do anything nefarious with my data and have never shown any intention of doing so... but, consider this for a moment... what if they DID?"
  
  Oh hey, thanks for Lemmy!
  Yeah, I'm a bit horrified to learn that Cloudflare is the crytographic endpoint for clients. I'm wondering how much stuff I've let them see while unaware now.
  Y'know, because obviously nobody would voluntarily sign up for this kind of security bad practice. /s
  
  Oh yeah I'll do a full research next time I enter a web page to see who hosts it. If it's by Amazon or Microsoft I'll give green light.

Both of course, but if I had to choose, Cloudflare. Definitely Cloudflare. That company must be purged by fire and magnets. Sure, casinos are evil, but they mostly stay in their lane doing their thing of preying on the vulnerable. When Cloudflare just straight up breaks half the internet for lunch and there's, by design, no way around it.
- In this particular story, if there's any truth to it then it's basically extortion. They could have just said that due to their usage profile they will need to switch to an enterprise license for the next billing period . Instead they tried to extort it within 24h lol.
  And of course you have to buy a whole year of service (lol). This last thing is a symptom of a degenerate market with few competitors. No company that fears competition would try to pull that stunt.
  
  No, the site had 2 weeks. They decided to argue with CF until that deadline was up.

What exactly has Cloudflare done to those poor casino thugs, they were only trying to extract more money from gambling addicts?!?

🤘

I won five grand from an online casino in 2001, and they not only paid me my winnings, they also included an extra $262 in comps for having bet aggregately over a quarter of a million dollars. That money went a long way for my early-20s ass. Paid off a credit card and bought a new mattress for me and my new wife.
When Full Tilt Poker got shut down by the DOJ, though, I was sort of okay with it. There were waaaaay too many action flops for those hands to have been truly randomized.
- Gambling ruines lifes. Just because people can get their win does not mean it should be defended in any case. These casinos intentionally make people addicted, causing so much suffering and death.
  
  you can defend casinos as long as you treat it as entertainment and don't bet your entire life savings on it and cry about it
  I set my initial bet amount, once that's gone my game is done. on the other side if I double it my game is done
  
  These casinos intentionally make people addicted, causing so much suffering and death.
  Noted, but so does alcohol and you can find it almost everywhere. Most people have the capacity to exercise caution when engaging in potentially addictive behaviors. Unless we intend to ban everything that could cause addiction and lead to destruction of a person's life (gambling, alcohol, tobacco, food, sex, claw machines, loot boxes...), then we have to let people make their own choices and be responsible for their own decisions. When it becomes apparent to a person that they have an addiction, it is their own responsibility to tend to it.
- they also included an extra $262 in comps for having bet aggregately over a quarter of a million dollars.
  Why do you have credit card debt that had to wait for a 5k gambling "windfall" if you can afford to slowly spunk 250k up the wall at the same gambling sites?
  you have a problem... you are an addict...
  I can't figure out if this is a joke post or not
  
  I think what he means is that he bet some money, won, and then used that to bet again, repeat and eventually the aggregate bets made totalled to be 250k.
  
  Because I was 24 years old and I put $50 on a debit card and managed to pump it up to $5000 and it was a one-off occurrence more than two decades ago? Relax.
  
  he learned from his mistake chill the fuck out

Only two buttons and you got five fingers. Math>you

Where does online sports “betting” fit into this meme? Genuine ask because I have no experience or awareness of online casinos. Thanks.
- Generally if it's connected to gambling there's scummy stuff going on.
  
  That was number 13. Online casinos.
- They usually go hand in hand.

Fuck CloudFlare -- I don't like monopolies or monopolike.

I'm staying out of this
- So you are.

whenever websites break, you can see cloudflare, and also online casinos!

Why are online casinos bad? I don't understand this pervasive need some people have to force their way of life on others and take away their agency over their own lives. It comes off to me as some kind of superiority complex. "They're too stupid to make their own decisions, I know better what's best for them, I must protect them from themselves".
- Sounds more like you just don't know anything about the gambling industry. They run rigged games in predatory ways. They happily let organised crime launder money for a cut. They fight regulations designed to reduce problem gambling.
  Nevertheless, nobody here is "forcing their way of life on others and taking away their agency over their own lives". They're just acknowledging that casinos have a long history of being absolute cunts.
  
  They run rigged games in predatory ways.
  I don't know what you mean by this. Games have a fixed margin which is usually disclosed or can be computed (exactly like the 0 and 00 in the roulette skews the odds in the house's favor if you want to do just black/red). There are then whole chapters in national regulations about random number generators to ensure the odds are correct and the games are not rigged (i.e., a game certified for 98% should have that outcome). Are games designed to have the house win a 2,5,7,9% margin? Sure, but this is out there in the open, there is nothing to "rig" in the same way having 0 or 00 is not "rigging" a game of roulette.
  They happily let organised crime launder money for a cut.
  At least in Europe, you get audited quite often and AML regulations are very tight. Laundering money via online gambling companies with their cooperation seems quite unlikely to me (and inefficient, possibly, but I don't know).
  They fight regulations designed to reduce problem gambling.
  Some do, but not all, and not in all cases. Addicts are bad for business for gambling companies, or at least for some of them, moderate long-term customers are generally better (and require way less effort).
  I don't know what you know about gambling, I definitely think that the ethics are questionable, and I left the industry when I could also for those reasons, but the company I worked for was not very bad in this regards. Maybe you worked/had experience with some of the shady ones (like those who operate in illegal markets using a single license from a random tiny country)?
  
  Who's "they"? I don't know much about the gambling industry but if it's anything like any other industry then it's not a centralized monolith but many independent business. As long as the founding principles aren't inherently corrupt (and in the case of casinos they aren't. Nobody is forced to play and everyone knows the house has an advantage and in the long term is guaranteed to win. Because of this it doesn't make sense for the house to cheat and risk getting caught, it will win anyway.) there is no reason to think that the majority of the industry engages in criminal activity. This is a massive generalization.
- Why are online casinos bad?
  How can players be sure they are honest?
  I must protect them from themselves.
  People should be protected from scammers with fake (always lose) casinos.
  
  There are ways to cryptographically verify bet integrity, but that's not important. The point I was trying to make is that people should have the right to make their own decisions, even if you disagree with them, even if they're objectively wrong.
- "They're too stupid to make their own decisions, I know better what's best for them, I must protect them from themselves".
  I've never been given a reason to not think most people are morons
  
  You haven't met most people. :)
  
  I presume you don't consider yourself to be a part of the aforementioned majority? Do you believe it makes you superior? Do you believe you know better what's best for them? Do you believe you must protect them from themselves, even at the cost of their self-determination?
- Is meth bad? Would a company that specifically targets meth sales to the most likely drug using demographics be bad? Would a company that sold meth in shiny, futuristic containers that said "Lucky Dreams!" be bad?