• HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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    2 days ago
    1. they can already block VPN traffic (unless you use their VPN)

    2. their whole business model is based on them being a man in the middle that decrypts ssl and analyses the packets plainly

    3. about a third of the worldwide websites are using cloudflare so they have a pretry good birds eye view on behaviour of any machine, datacenter or ip range that will be visiting a lot of websites, which in turn will trivially whether it is normal user behaviour or a crawler.

    • Zerush@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 days ago

      Not the first time that, with all my privacy measures on, instead of an page, I see the page from Cloudflare analyzing if I am a bot, before it let me access the page I wanted. Invisible in the web is only a bad joke. Anybody is visible in the moment he goes online, irrelevant if he use VPN, TOR or whatever, this times have passed. Believing it is as hilarious as in the Movie Independence day infecting with an Virus an Alien Mothership, using an crappy Laptop (I have laughed a lot with this scene).

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      they can already block VPN traffic unless it goes through their VPN

      Yeah that’s how most VPNs work.

      their whole business model is based on them being a man in the middle that decrypts ssl and analyses the requests plainly

      Okay? Analyze all you want. They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

      about a third of the worldwide websites are using cloudflare so they have a pretry good birds eye view on behaviour of any machine that will be visiting a lot of websites

      Great. Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

      • HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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        2 days ago

        They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

        They can and do. What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

        Bots intentionally change up their behavior and identifying information as to be undetected.

        If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          2 days ago

          What is blocked depends on what the website owner sets as settings in cloudflare.

          And how does the owner know which connections are bots?

          If they have to crawl the web while behaving like a normal human, it will be magnitudes slower and more costly.

          They don’t care, they have trillions of dollars of VC money to power through.

          • HelloRoot@lemy.lol
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            2 days ago

            The owner sets the level. If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

            They do care. VC funding happens because the result is profitable. If it is less profitable, there will be less funding because of higher investment risk.

            • Ulrich@feddit.org
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              2 days ago

              If they set strict level, all bots are blocked.

              I don’t know what you don’t understand. These bots are not labeling themselves as bots. They are camouflaging themselves to look like any other type of traffic.

              VC funding happens because the result is profitable.

              No, VC funding happens because investors are duped into thinking the result is profitable.

                • Ulrich@feddit.org
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                  1 day ago

                  I’m not and your tone is completely unnecessary so maybe dial it back a bit.

                  Yes, VC funding can be profitable. It’s also often not. Like any other investment. Corporations will absolutely lie and blow smoke up their ass if they think it can get them more money.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        They can’t stop bots on any of the other sites they regulate either.

        Why not? They are doing edge caching, they can literally just block the connection from visiting the site just like they do with their DDoS mitigation.

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          2 days ago

          they can literally just block the connection

          block which connection? Again, these AI companies know people don’t want them crawling their sites and they do everything they can to be invisible. This has been an issue for years at this point.

          just like they do with their DDoS mitigation

          blocking DDoS is trivial by comparison.