mirror of
https://codeberg.org/crimeflare/cloudflare-tor
synced 2024-08-20 17:57:10 +00:00
326 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
326 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
Audience: General, people who stumble upon gnu.org
|
||
1924+/-395 words english
|
||
1028+/-395 words instead?
|
||
755 words rahisibhasha
|
||
stab at french
|
||
Version: 2019-05-29
|
||
|
||
|
||
#########################################
|
||
|
||
大云墙 (Dà Yún qiáng)
|
||
大きな雲壁 (Ookina Kumo kabe)
|
||
The Great Cloudwall
|
||
|
||
by Jeff Cliff
|
||
|
||
essistensa una reason you go to
|
||
|
||
#########################################
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
There is a reason that none of your favourite work has appeared on Tor since early 2016[15].
|
||
That reason has lead to the discovery of a threat to the operation of the World Wide Web.
|
||
|
||
Prerequisites:
|
||
- The JavaScript Trap[47]
|
||
- Understanding that Google is not to be trusted[45][46]
|
||
- Nick Szabo: "Trusted Third Parties are Security Holes"[44][48]
|
||
|
||
Cloudflare is a network service for turing tests its users use against visitors, which means that it frustrates attempts
|
||
by users of its users to develop software to interact with their websites[3].
|
||
This might seem strange at first - why would you need a program to access a web resource?
|
||
But there's many things that work on the web like this, including RSS, streaming, chat, podcasts, and anti-virus definitions[57][58] which
|
||
are completely broken by a CAPTCHA appearing mid stream[11].
|
||
"We humans don't make HTTP requests, our machines to do it for us."
|
||
This makes clear what is really being tested here - whether or not you have the right software stack in between you and
|
||
Cloudflare.
|
||
|
||
This is not hypothetical: Cloudflare is currently attempting to dictate which browsers users of their "protected"
|
||
websites may use[60].
|
||
|
||
{{expand}}
|
||
|
||
Your right to use Free Software in this stack is at risk and could disappear at any moment.
|
||
|
||
It also is extracting free labor from website users[35], in effect tricking humans into acting like robots in order to
|
||
pass a test designed to see whether or not they are a robot. Worse, this labor is being used to train[62] Google's artificial intelligence, a very
|
||
poor candidate for "friendly AI"[36]. Given unfriendly AI is an existential[43] risk[42] to mankind, avoiding this
|
||
should be among the highest of priorities.
|
||
|
||
This software stack includes human language: the CAPTCHAs are in English, leaving non-English speakers around the world
|
||
at a disadvantage[13]. Attempts to fix this are bound by the fact that they also leak language information to
|
||
Cloudflare[21].
|
||
|
||
Furthermore, they use Google's reCaptcha for their turing test/"proof you are a human" challenge and Google is known as a part of NSA's PRISM surveillance project so they expose their website visitor's data to PRISM data collection.
|
||
|
||
On its own, this is terrible bad but it's also worth pointing out how the reCAPTCHAs work. It isn't by whether or not you
|
||
click on the correct icon (though that is a factor too) but also collect:
|
||
|
||
> mouse movement, its slightness and straightness
|
||
> page scrolls
|
||
> time intervals between browser events
|
||
> keystrokes
|
||
> click location history tied to user fingerprint
|
||
> device information
|
||
> All these criteria are stored in the browser’s cookie and are processed by Google’s servers
|
||
> It should be emphasized that there is DARPA technology to identify people by mouse movements and typing
|
||
[23]
|
||
|
||
This collection of data is likely illegal in regions where privacy is taken seriously (like the EU)[24].
|
||
|
||
It is frustrating even when it works because you have to fill out 20 captchas on the off-chance that you succeed one time in
|
||
twenty. So this is 95% censorship and 5% wasting users' time[5].
|
||
|
||
More important, though, is that it starts to form a ratchet for web browser technology; the captchas are upgraded all the
|
||
time and if you use an older browser, you risk being left behind even when it works.
|
||
|
||
|
||
*How Cloudflare Threatens You*
|
||
|
||
"When you fetch a page from a website that is served from Cloudflare, JavaScript has been injected on-the-fly into that
|
||
page by Cloudflare. And they also plant a cookie that brands your browser with a globally-unique ID. This happens even if
|
||
the website is using SSL and shows a cute little padlock in your browser" [10]
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare tracks you
|
||
Even if your traffic is protected from onlookers, Cloudflare itself can see your traffic[6] because they are a MITM[14][31].
|
||
In addition, if Cloudflare[53] has intercepted your traffic(MITM), so has the NSA[33].
|
||
"If a site uses Cloudflare, then the browser lock icon is a false promise."[14]
|
||
"The short version, a rhetorical question: Would you trust a key escrow regime, in which an “authorized” entity was
|
||
entrusted with the potential to decrypt all communications at will? If not, why would you trust a de facto mass decryption
|
||
chokepoint at which many communications are actually decrypted?"[34]
|
||
In other words,
|
||
|
||
- They are in a position to track, tap, and link Internet activity across a wide range of sites. [14]
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare frustrates accessibility efforts[25][27][36]:
|
||
"CAPTCHA remains the most problematic item indicated by respondents"
|
||
Cloudflare is one of the largest, if not the largest source of unconsensual CAPTCHAS, making them quite possibly the
|
||
biggest impediment in accessibility efforts worldwide.
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare makes using Tor frustrating by making efforts to become anonymous more difficult and making it more likely
|
||
that people will use non-Tor connections for some or all of their web browsing. The problem is getting worse with time.
|
||
[13]
|
||
|
||
- It's not just Tor[19] but Tor users are the biggest group of people who've noticed it and are organizing against it so
|
||
far.
|
||
|
||
- In particular, the model of Project Honeypot depends on one IPv4 address, meaning one person. As IPv4 addresses become
|
||
scarce, more and more ISPs (and whole countries[22]) are forced to use higher and higher levels of NAT. The result is that
|
||
the kinds of treatment of Tor users by Cloudflare starts to be not just for Tor, but for all web users. "Tor is just being
|
||
slightly ahead of what the IPv4 Internet is going to look like pretty soon."
|
||
The next time a large group wakes up, millions of websites might be down (including critical ones) across a whole
|
||
continent. This has actually happened already. [49]
|
||
|
||
"It was made clear in the Snowden leaks that GCHQ, the NSA, etc. would like people to stop using Tor so I am sure they are
|
||
very happy to see CF make general web browsing difficult and frustrating for ordinary users." [12]
|
||
|
||
- Worse, Cloudflare makes using Tor *dangerous* because enabling JavaScript and images to deal with their system makes it
|
||
likely that some people will enable JavaScript and images on other websites, which, even if Cloudflare wasn't threatening
|
||
them, would. [9]
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare is capable of tracking users of its websites, and initial looks into its JavaScript/CAPTCHA seems to bear out
|
||
that they are doing so.
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare can target individual users with JavaScript malware; since you typically wind up enabling their JavaScript
|
||
to use websites, you fall into their trap. Because they track users, are giving, individualised code, and work directly
|
||
with the US government/DHS, there's no reason why they can't tailor attacks to specific users.
|
||
|
||
- Even if they aren't doing it yet, they are at any point one US government administration, one vulture capital funding
|
||
purchase[26], or one internally rogue element away from executing JavaScript code on hundreds of millions of people's
|
||
computers a "highly attractive" target[7] with no oversight. The code CAPTCHA itself protects attempts to detect such
|
||
things from happening.
|
||
|
||
- The way that Cloudflare is constructed means that even by accident, billions of people can be analyzed by their
|
||
government[51] and have their access limited or completely cut off at the government's whim.
|
||
|
||
*Background : How Cloudflare threatens the web*
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare is a MITM for the whole web
|
||
|
||
- As of 3 years ago 10% of the top 25,000 websites used Cloudflare[2]
|
||
- A billion people in china are restricted by the Great Firewall[8]. Anyone who goes so far as to circumvent that must then
|
||
deal with the "Great Cloudwall" for accessing the open internet.
|
||
|
||
- This is not just an individual problem, but fundamentally threatens the ecosystem of the web.
|
||
Cloudflare is breaking the open internet one site at a time. The web is massively resilient - we can do without Stack
|
||
Overflow, GNU.org or even Google but when a significant enough portion of websites use a single provider, there starts to
|
||
be a systematic risk that if that single provider goes down, all of the websites behind it will be inaccessible. Worse, you
|
||
won't be allowed to access it unless you have the right kind of US government approved credential, contingent, perhaps, on
|
||
running software only they approve of.
|
||
|
||
It is becoming a single point of failure for the internet. [39]
|
||
|
||
Right now, there are alternative sources for, for example, the US constitution[17]. It is not unthinkable that Cloudflare
|
||
is getting big enough to threaten even that.
|
||
|
||
{FIX ME - make section clearer}
|
||
"A.1 sometimes there are necessary websites for some degree of necessary. Government websites, public service, etc. How
|
||
long until those are behind the "Great Cloudwall"?
|
||
B: Not long. Our service is competitive and convenient. If public service websites choose to use our service for awesome
|
||
DDoS protection, it's their choice."[36]
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare has already started down the slippery slope[52] of censoring websites. If they didn't have a stranglehold on
|
||
people accessing the internet, it would not be a problem. They are big enough that censorship from Cloudflare is starting
|
||
to be a systematic exclusion from the political process.
|
||
|
||
"Cloudflare is perfect: it can implement censorship on the fly without anyone getting wise to it!"[40]
|
||
|
||
- DNS[39]: given that they have become so systematically powerful, the next step to cementing their power is to attack
|
||
DNS. Their 1.1.1.1 DNS server, like Google's 8.8.8.8, is marketed to people so that Cloudflare will still be able to see
|
||
you're going to them even if you don't interact with websites "protected" by them. It gives them even more data to track you
|
||
with.
|
||
|
||
*Background : Where does Cloudflare come from?*
|
||
|
||
Cloudflare comes from a project called "Project Honey Pot"[61], originally intended to track online fraud and abuse.
|
||
|
||
"What was Project Honey Pot?
|
||
'A service that positions itself as some kind of a grassroot-y anti-spam registry, but in reality seems to be a pro-
|
||
corporate law enforcement tool with the specific aim of entrapping and prosecuting spammers/phishing scammers in a way
|
||
that’s friendly to the marketing industry.'"
|
||
|
||
The US Department of Homeland Security approached the developers in 2007-8[1][36] for access to their data and they have
|
||
been working with the US government[54] and law enforcement ever since[1].
|
||
|
||
On HTTP GET requests:
|
||
|
||
Cloudflare has a history of shutting down open DNS and open NTP servers.
|
||
|
||
"It would be great if they allowed GET requests - for example - such requests should not and generally do not modify server
|
||
side content. They do not do this - this breaks the web in so many ways, it is incredible. Using wget with Tor on a website
|
||
hosted by CF is... a disaster. Using Tor Browser with it - much the same. These requests should be idempotent according to
|
||
spec, I believe."
|
||
|
||
{FIX ME - "critical of it"?}
|
||
Cloudflare has a history of closing tickets that are critical of it without actually resolving the issue[29][30][32]
|
||
|
||
"Cloudflare is based in a country with secret courts, secret police, and secret prisons that are above the law - and this
|
||
secret government has characterized Cloudflare's data as extremely valuable"[28]
|
||
"The CEO says, "Cloudflare's strength lies in the DATA it collects -- not in its CODE.'"[28]
|
||
"The U.S. federal government is a Cloudflare customer."[28]
|
||
"Cloudflare has never stated that a government agency did not install wiretapping equipment or software on the same
|
||
premises as a Cloudflare server."[28]
|
||
"Cloudflare has never indicated that the architecture of its content distribution network is resistant to warrantless
|
||
mass surveillance."[28]
|
||
"Cloudflare has given the Chinese government unprecedented censorship capability."[28]
|
||
"Cloudflare has no intention to shut down as Lavabit did in order to protect the user from unlawful surveillance."[28]
|
||
"Some Cloudflare customers are paying over 1 million dollars per year for an undisclosed service."[28]
|
||
|
||
*"But Cloudflare is really necessary, the web is a nasty place"*
|
||
|
||
- The more of the web is held within Cloudflare, the more pressure will be on websites not behind Cloudflare
|
||
- As of 2016, by Cloudflare's own data, Tor was not as bad as normal internet connections.
|
||
- People: "But we need Cloudflare to protect us from DDoS.”
|
||
Cloudflare: "That’s a nice site you have there. It would be a shame, such a shame, if anything happened to it. Why don’t
|
||
you let us decrypt all your TLS sessions[59] so we can protect you?"[14]
|
||
|
||
*I heard Cloudflare is working with Tor and all is good now?*
|
||
|
||
- Just because you can't see the problem doesn't mean it's not there.
|
||
|
||
- This is not true. Their websites still CAPTCHA their users, same as ever, and news agencies across the political spectrum
|
||
screwed up stories about how the 'problem is fixed'. [18]
|
||
|
||
- It's actually worse, though[17], if we couldn't see it[60] - it was easy to get a lot of riled up Tor users to understand
|
||
that Cloudflare was their adversary. It's a lot harder to convince people who are not blocked from their websites, today,
|
||
why giving systematic control over the world wide web might be a bad thing tomorrow.
|
||
|
||
"Right now, Cloudflare says it monitors nearly 1/5 of all Internet visits. An astounding claim for a company most people
|
||
haven’t even heard of"[40]
|
||
|
||
- But they are now doing more to track users and threaten the anonymity of Tor users.
|
||
|
||
- Cloudflare is one of a couple of large network providers that are capturing the vast majority of digital communications,
|
||
effectively creating private networks the size of the modern internet that are competitive with and not subject to the
|
||
same kinds of scrutiny and regulation as the internet[58].
|
||
|
||
*What if we shut down Cloudflare and migrate all websites out of them?*
|
||
|
||
We're probably going to have the same problem with another company very soon. Just as when suddenly Microsoft no longer had
|
||
a monopoly on software, we didn't get rid of the problem of proprietary software, there's a couple of problems that, if we
|
||
don't solve them, something like Cloudflare is roughly inevitable as a consequence:
|
||
|
||
*Cloudflare DNS*
|
||
|
||
"DNS[50] is around, servers are insecure, proper end-to-end crypto isn't the norm hence MITM goes unnoticed, anonymity is an edge case, routing lacks built-in resiliency to disruption, we're always going to have actors building a business model around cobbling together superficial, overapproximating mitigations."[20]
|
||
|
||
*Mozilla and Cloudflare*
|
||
|
||
"At least for browsing with Firefox, because Mozilla has partnered up with Cloudflare and will resolve the domain names
|
||
from the application itself via a DNS server from Cloudflare based in the United States. Cloudflare will then be able to
|
||
read everyone's DNS requests."
|
||
Sharing DNS requests with Cloudflare represents mozilla having a security hole, straight to the Cloudflare (and probably:
|
||
the NSA).
|
||
|
||
*What can you do?*
|
||
|
||
Learn more about Cloudflare and make sure the people around you know about Cloudflare. Use Tor by default to be more
|
||
exposed to the blocks. Go to the anti-Cloudflare collaboration repository[41] and make sure websites you use aren't
|
||
"protected", and if they are, contact the people who run the website requesting that they no longer use Cloudflare. Get
|
||
involved!
|
||
|
||
|
||
References
|
||
|
||
[1] crimeflare. Is CloudFlare a honey pot? https://web.archive.org/web/20170721161127/http://www.crimeflare.us/honeypot.html
|
||
[2] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:15
|
||
[3] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:21
|
||
[5] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:28
|
||
[6] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:30
|
||
[7] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:32
|
||
[8] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china
|
||
[9] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:51
|
||
[10] crimeflare. Is CloudFlare a honey pot? https://web.archive.org/web/20170721161127/http://www.crimeflare.us/honeypot.html
|
||
[11] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:59
|
||
[12] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:66
|
||
[13] mikeperry. The Trouble with CloudFlare. https://blog.torproject.org/trouble-cloudflare
|
||
[14] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24351#comment:8
|
||
[15] Unknown. Google+ https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/G9nnQBnLtjp
|
||
[16] Unknown. Google+ https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/XnQryQ7hR9G
|
||
[17] msmach. Cloudflare Ends CAPTCHAs For Tor Users https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12641622&cid=57348584
|
||
[18] msmach. Cloudflare Ends CAPTCHAs For Tor Users https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12641622&cid=57388544
|
||
[19] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:90
|
||
[20] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:112
|
||
[21] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:132
|
||
[22] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:141
|
||
[23] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:147
|
||
[24] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:160
|
||
[25] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:175
|
||
[26] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:183
|
||
[27] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:231
|
||
[28] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:236
|
||
[29] ioerror. Issues with corporate censorship and mass surveillance. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18361#comment:255
|
||
[30] gk. Cloudflare breaks loading the chat. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/23141
|
||
[31] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24351#comment:20
|
||
[32] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24351#comment:44
|
||
[33] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24351#comment:52
|
||
[34] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24351#comment:60
|
||
[35] nullius. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24321#comment:13
|
||
[36] Anonymous. Cloudflare philosophy. https://codeberg.org/crimeflare/cloudflare-tor/src/master/cloudflare-philosophy.md
|
||
[37] Peter O'Shaughnessy. Screen Reader User Survey Results #7. https://toot.cafe/@peter/99398584471715976
|
||
[39] ungeich. A new feature in Firefox https://blog.ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2018/08/04/mozillas-new-dns-resolution-is-dangerous/
|
||
[40] Yasha Levine. iSucker: Big Brother Internet Culture http://exiledonline.com/isucker-big-brother-internet-culture/
|
||
[41] Anonymous. The Great Cloudwall. http://codeberg.org/crimeflare/cloudflare-tor
|
||
[42] lesswrong wiki. Unfriendly artificial intelligence https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Unfriendly_artificial_intelligence
|
||
[43] Ben Harack. What is an existential risk? https://www.visionofearth.org/future-of-humanity/existential-risks/what-is-an-existential-risk/
|
||
[44] Nick Szabo. Twitter http://twitter.com/nickszabo4
|
||
[45] FSF. Google's Software is Malware https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.en.html
|
||
[46] Richard Stallman. Reasons not to use Google https://stallman.org/google.html
|
||
[47] Richard Stallman. The JavaScript Trap https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
|
||
[48] Nick Szabo. Trusted Third Parties are Security Holes. 2001. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/trusted-third-parties
|
||
[49] slashgeek. CloudFlare is ruining the internet (for me) https://www.slashgeek.net/2016/05/17/cloudflare-is-ruining-the-internet-for-me/
|
||
[50] Hamid Sarfraz. How likely is it that CloudFlare is an NSA operation? https://www.quora.com/How-likely-is-it-that-CloudFlare-is-an-NSA-operation/answer/Hamid-Sarfraz
|
||
[51] Karthik Balakrishnan. Airtel is sniffing and censoring CloudFlare’s traffic in India and CloudFlare doesn’t even know it. https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censoring-cloudflares-traffic-in-india-and-they-don-t-even-know-it-90935f7f6d98
|
||
[52] http://pleroma.oniichanylo2tsi4.onion/notice/1563
|
||
[53] StopMITMInt. Add an option to stop trusting Cloudflare certificate https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/1743#issuecomment-351555735
|
||
[54] goody2shoes. Block Global Active Adversary Cloudflare https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2018-January/043889.html
|
||
[55] EFF. The Crypto Wars https://www.eff.org/document/crypto-wars
|
||
[56] http://forums.clamwin.com/viewtopic.php?t=4915
|
||
[57] November 2018 Archives by thread http://lists.clamav.net/pipermail/clamav-users/2018-November/thread.html
|
||
[58] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/20181218/Documents/Geoff_Huston_Presentation.pdf
|
||
[59] Thorin-Oakenpants. let's talk about our little buddy cloudflare. https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/issues/310#issuecomment-351913412
|
||
[60] ghost. What do you think about Cloudflare? https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/374#issuecomment-460413259
|
||
[61] Unspam Technologies, Inc. https://projecthoneypot.org/
|
||
[62] TechRader. Captcha if you can: how you’ve been training AI for years without realising it https://www.techradar.com/news/captcha-if-you-can-how-youve-been-training-ai-for-years-without-realising-it |