[elefantastisch]

They address this:

> Giving everyone the ability to sign up for our services online also reflects our view that cyberattacks not only should not be used for silencing vulnerable groups, but are not the appropriate mechanism for addressing problematic content online. We believe cyberattacks, in any form, should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

[Borgz]

My point is this: if there are certain types of content that they deem unacceptable to host, why do they deem it acceptable to protect?

I disagree that the paragraph you quoted is relevant to that. But if it is, then it doesn't seem good that their goal of eradicating cyberattacks is more important to them than actual human lives.

[elefantastisch]

So, if someone is standing trial for murder and it turns out the evidence against them was collected illegally, they will end up getting away with it even if everyone knows they did it.

It's not that we value police procedure more than we value the life of the victim. We value rule of law and due process as a society more than any individual gap in applying justice in a given case.

Yes, if we ignore procedure and lock that murderer up anyway, we will have done better justice for the victim. But then we will no longer have a functioning criminal justice system, and that's much worse in the long run.

If Cloudflare allows DDoS to take down these horrible sites, the world will definitely be a better place in many ways. But then it will also be a world where we deal with problems via DDoS and whether you get to keep your site up or have it DDoSed is subject to the whims of Cloudflare. DDoSing sites won't be "wrong" anymore, it'll be a question of whether they deserved it or not.

This is not how we do justice as a society. If someone punches you in the face without instigation, we don't ask if you deserved it, we charge them with assault.

Cloudflare allowing DDoS of content they don't like would be a bit like allowing assault of people we don't like. Maybe there are some people we're happy to see punched in the face, but in the long run, our society suffers.

Protecting people from getting punched in the face, even when they deserve it, is fundamental to maintaining rule of law in society. Wrongdoers are punished after due process of law, not arbitrarily by any vigilante who decides to give them what they deserve.

That is essentially what Cloudflare is arguing.

[M2Ys4U]

> So, if someone is standing trial for murder and it turns out the evidence against them was collected illegally, they will end up getting away with it even if everyone knows they did it.

That very much depends on jurisdiction; don't assume that American laws and norms are universal, nor that they are the best way of doing things.

[endtime]

Rule of law and due process are the best way of doing things, and are not exclusively American concepts.

[freeone3000]

Absolutely, but, Canadian law would absolutely allow illegally-collected evidence. The trial against the officer invading the defendant's privacy is a separate matter; the goal of a trial is to determine the truth of matters, after all, and if the defendant did kill someone, all evidence to support (or refute) that is generally admissible.

[didibus]

This makes so much more sense lol. I think this is a good example of people accepting certain things at face value and never stop to think about it.

[msla]

So what makes the state follow the rules of evidence? Anything?

[google234123]

From what I can tell, Canada is somewhere in between complete exclusionary and inclusionary rules wrt illegally obtained evidence.

[endtime]

Nitpicking the details of the example isn't really a reputation of the more general point, though.

[geodel]

Well, best way would be to do things my way.

[groby_b]

> So, if someone is standing trial for murder

If Cloudflare would like to be nationalized, I'm happy to have a discussion of applying government rules to them. Until then, they're a private company, "due process" does really not apply.

If we think that protecting sites from DDoS is a public good (and I think that's a good question), that is a task that should fall to government entities.

[elefantastisch]

The point is that Cloudflare thinks due process, not DDoS, is the right way to bring down horrible websites. Thus they protect them until such due process happens.

[groby_b]

That's not the point you originally made. Moving the goalpost.

[elefantastisch]

It is, but I will accept this as a valid critique that I probably didn't make my original point as well as I could have.

[fragmede]

You're making it easy more complicated than it needs to be. Cloudflare sells face punching shields and thinks every last single person should have one. Even face punchers. (They make money off this service.)

[Georgelemental]

To use the analogy in the blog post: renting out a building to drug dealers is different from having firefighters save the drug dealers from a fire.

[schleck8]

That analogy is obviously manipulative. A DDoS is not going to kill anyone unlike a fire (or swatting evidently).

[yarrel]

Kiwi Farms recently DDoSed a suicide prevention hotline.

So you are factually wrong.

[Akronymus]

What? A quick search on the farms didn't turn anything up about that. Only thing I can find is the farm being ddosd rather than the other way around.

And for that matter, a search through google and such didnt turn up anything either. And if its just "x says they did it" without ANY evidence, then how could I believe that?

[ranger_danger]

It actually doesn't matter at all. They just proved that there ARE situations that a DDoS can endanger people's lives (including more we aren't even thinking about), whether or not KF is even related in this case.

[schleck8]

You can't DDoS a phone number can you? Maybe their website but google snippets should cache the number

[viraptor]

I can't tell if you're missing the point or trolling, but just in case: There's only a limited number of people in the call centre. By overwhelming the queue, you prevent others reaching the service.

[pixl97]

A huge number of companies use VOIP so in theory, ya you can if you know the servers IP.

[AtNightWeCode]

Agree, there are double standards in work here and I think cf must pick a side.

[solsane]

I feel like this should be the end of the discussion. A crime against a criminal is still a crime. Furthermore, who decides who the ‘criminal’ is? A ‘tit for tat’ policy may leave progressive activists and whistleblowers vulnerable to DDoS.

[wahnfrieden]

They speak to it, I wouldn’t say that’s addressing it. They’re simply repeating a variation of the liberal viewpoint that nazis shouldn’t be punched, they should be convinced of their wrongs through peaceful social means (which invites naziism right in) or law enforcement (which, well, piggies like their own kind).

If Matt Prince were the head of the Inglorious Basterds, he’d evidently reform them to vote blue instead of scalping nazis