[Peace-discuss] Cloudflare’s new ‘privacy-focused’ DNS service speeds up your web browsing

[J.B. Nicholson]

Dianna Visek wrote:
> This might be a way to ensure access to Socialist websites and others
> being targeted.
> 
> "One of the main use cases that the company seems to be tackling here is
> how governments have used DNS to get network providers to censor
> citizens access to the web." Cloudflare’s new ‘privacy-focused’ DNS
> service speeds up your web browsing

I strongly encourage one and all to reconsider Cloudflare's service here, 
particularly with regard to ensuring access to Internet-based services 
where free speech is important.

Cloudflare, architecturally speaking, is also in an ideal spot to be a spy 
on users. Whether it's logging visitor traffic or injecting content into a 
conveyed copy of a site (like ISPs have been doing for some time now), 
Cloudflare could undo one's privacy quite effectively.

Cloudflare also has a horrible track record when it comes to respecting 
their users' freedom of speech. Consider what TorrentFreak.com reported in 
https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-kicking-daily-stormer-is-bad-news-for-pirate-sites-170817/ 
regarding Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince.

Prince went from saying:

> We're the plumbers of the internet. We make the pipes work but it's not
> right for us to inspect what is or isn't going through the pipes. If
> companies like ours or ISPs (internet service providers) start censoring
> there would be an uproar. It would lead us down a path of internet
> censors and controls akin to a country like China.
when asked about blocking access to websites Cloudflare caches which link 
to speech some find objectionable and saying:

> Even if it were able to, Cloudflare does not monitor, evaluate, judge or
> store content appearing on a third party website.

in 
https://www.cloudflare.com/media/pdf/cloudflare-whitepaper-intermediary-liability.pdf 
(page 4) on intermediary liability for alleged copyright infringement, to 
saying:

> I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them [Daily
> Stormer] off the Internet.

when he decided to terminate the account of Cloudflare customer and alleged 
neo-nazi site Daily Stormer.

When free speech comes with limits, you never really know where the line is 
in /this/ transaction, or with /this/ set of users, or in /this/ moment.