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So the "controversy" is that a company supports free speech and isn't willing to try and censor people that disagree with the opinions of the people running the company? That sounds like a good thing to me.
I wonder if they censor conservatives, as do many other tech-nerd companies...
Sooooo.......are we done yet with this new cloud flare?...... truly the one thing I enjoy is this site.....so ultimately I guess the government censorship will take that away as well!........ I pretty much hate new technology.....it's not always better and this is one of those cases.....
So let's ask the question, has the site been hacked and our data compromised?
I put this question specifically to the Administrator, and the answer is no.
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A few other members expressed concern about Cloudflare, and while my comments below were originally written in response to a concern expressed by a member on a different thread, I'll copy those comments here, to address some of the concerns earlier expressed in this thread.
Originally Posted by spinningwheel
Count me in too. This Cloudflare just popped up 3 days ago, how it got in my computer is a mystery.
This was the first time it didn't show up going on the forum. I tried to get rid of it but couldn't on my Mac.
The only one to blame is Cloudflare!
Don't worry, Cloudflare didn't "get into your Mac".
Cloudflare is a website protection service used by the vast majority of large scale websites. It isn't located in our computers. As the name implies, it is located in the "cloud".
Websites can get "attacked" by hackers, and websites can also get "attacked" by "bots", or automated processes. Cloudflare is a service that detects and deters these types of attacks, often in a prophylactic way, before any damage can be done.
The consequence of Cloudflare's "Johnny on the Spot" fast reaction service (which is also automated) is that legitimate users must endure the inconvenience of extra vetting, prior to being admitted to the website, when Cloudflare is triggered by a red alert.
On late Friday afternoon, (or evening for east coasters), the Cloudflare service "sensed" an automated thread generating Distributed Denial Of Service attack. That attack may or may not have taken place without Cloudflare, but given that FTE pays for Cloudflare's automated protection, Cloudflare's algorithm sensed a potential DDOS "attack" might be taking place, and immediately kicked into a higher protection mode, to frustrate and thwart the attack.
Unfortunately, the additional layer of security that kicked in over the weekend also frustrated regular users, who were interrupted with the Cloudflare vetting process.
An analogy would be similar to the TSA screening process when boarding a flight. Some folks here might be old enough to have flown before there was any such thing as metal detectors in airports. And before the whole Patty Hearst deal in the 70's, the rules simply were that long guns had to be stowed in the overhead compartments. And there was an ashtray in every seat. I remember the grumbling when they made the new rule that moved smoking to the last 10 rows of the airplane. So let's put this Cloudflare into proper perspective.
No matter what other website Cloudflare protects, be that website good or evil, politically correct or corrupt, Cloudflare is simply a service. If a criminal used a Ford truck to rob a bank, does that make Ford Motor Company an accomplice to the crime?
Since Cloudflare triggered into a higher mode of protection at the end of the workweek, late Friday afternoon, the network technicians for FTE were not available to evaluate the reasons why Cloudflare kicked into high gear to protect us. Once those network administrators showed up for work on Monday morning, they were able to turn a **** to dial down Cloudflare's proactive protection from any possible attack mode, into the mode it is in right now, which is the mode it has been in on FTE for years... where we don't even notice it.
The alternative is to not have the TSA. Not have metal detectors. Allow any airline passenger to bring box cutters, pistols, knives, long guns, anything they want onto the air plane, and just hope that they mean well, and will not do us harm.
Our experience with hijackings has shown that this is an unrequited and unrealistic hope. So we endure the delays of TSA screening, in exchange for some sort of vetting process that may not eliminate, but vastly increases the difficulty for random rogues to do us harm.
Likewise, Cloudflare serves as the "TSA" for thousands of websites, usually large websites that can afford the service, and every once in a while, Cloudflare's automated sniffers sense activity that could be construed as a DDOS attack, and then Cloudflare does what IB paid it to do, which is protect FTE servers from attack, automatically, until the network technicians can have a look see and determine that all is OK.
FTE was not hacked. No one's personal information was compromised. What we witnessed over the weekend was how FTE's servers are protected, even when the network administrators are at home sleeping. Cloudflare is not an insidious invasion into our home computers. Cloudflare is in the cloud. It is the TSA in the air, checking our metaphorical bags (browsers) before letting us on the FTE plane.
Cloudflare's high alert work is done for now, and is standing down, but remains at ready to step in again, should it sense a potential threat that warrants the additional security.
Thanks for letting us know it wasn't breached. I checked several of the other IB sites, I didn't realize how many were under the one company, and it seemed like it was only FTE.
I still believe that for something so troubling to the members of a site, there should be better coverage from Cloudflare than the situation of went home for the weekend; we'll take care of it on Monday after we have coffee.
Another FTE member had this to share about Cloudflare, and about his own company's website over this past weekend:
Originally Posted by 67L48
Cloudfare is a private company that does a pretty good job of blocking threats to a website. For example, you may have remembered the hearings about China stealing IP last summer and fall, with lots of companies claiming damages and even charging that China's government is complicit in the theft. One of the ways an actor gets access is by raiding websites with bot attacks. Here's my company's own website over this past weekend. Someone or something hit us hard and we had a 50x spike in traffic due to bot activity. Why? Not sure, but this is what Cloudfare is meant to eliminate -- these are actual data from google analytics of my site:
FTE has been utilizing the Cloudflare platform as a front-end security/traffic filtering service since at least 2017, this isn't new. Services like this normally remain invisible to the end-user but can respond faster in an attack (or what the platform [thinks] is an attack) until human sysadmins get involved to evaluate the situation. If you are operating an online presence today (which is everything with an internet connection; devices, e-mail, websites, cloud apps, internal company apps that are public facing, etc.), you must have layers of security tools/services to filter out an incredible amount of junk traffic just to keep "IT systems" stable and reduce your chances of unauthorized access. The balance is challenging, keeping IT systems secured to avoid ending up in the evening news but enabling folks to access/work anywhere in the world with various levels of skill and understanding of technology platforms.
