Cloudflare Blocks Abusive Content on its Ethereum Gateway * TorrentFreak

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Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company intends not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take measures. This means responding to DMCA citations and hosted content takedown requests, for example. Additionally, Cloudflare now reports that it has blocked access to "abusive" content on its Ethereum gateway.

Popular Internet Infrastructure Service cloud flare serves millions of customers and offers a variety of connectivity and privacy features to the general public.

People can freely use the company's open DNS resolver 1.1.1.1for example, or use your IPFS and Ethereum gateways to access the content of these decentralized web services.

One of Cloudflare's main goals is to make the Internet more secure while respecting the privacy of its users. This laudable goal is widely respected, but like other Internet services, abuse of Cloudflare services can lead to conflictive situations.

The California-based company previously canceled service to controversial sites, including the daily storm and Kiwi farms. These actions were taken voluntarily and Cloudflare cited an immediate threat to human life as the reason for Kiwi Farms' intervention.

Domain lock

In addition to these rare developments, the Internet infrastructure company is also subject to court orders from around the world. In some cases, these orders require the company to block access to domain names linked to piracy.

Cloudflare mentions these blocking orders in its latest transparency report covering the second half of 2022. The report does not mention the number of court orders or blocked domains, but confirms that Cloudflare complies with legitimate legal decisions.

"If we determine that the order is valid and requires action by Cloudflare, we may limit blocking access to the content to those areas where it violates local law, a practice known as 'geo-blocking,'" Cloudflare writes.

DNS blocking

DNS blocking orders apply locally and should not affect people in other countries. However, things got complicated recently when an Italian court required Cloudflare to restrict access to three torrent sites via your public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.

Cloudflare strongly opposed the order, but ultimately lost the legal battle. That left the company with no choice but to take action. But, instead of blocking content through its global DNS resolution, it geo-blocked domains for Italians.

“To the extent those websites used Cloudflare services, Cloudflare took steps following the issuance of the order to disable access to those websites for users in Italy or from Cloudflare equipment in Italy.

"Cloudflare took steps to geo-block the three domains that were covered by the court order and that were using our service at the time the orders were issued through Cloudflare's pass-through CDN and security services," the company added. company.

IPFS and Ethereum restrictions

In its most recent transparency report, Cloudflare further notes that it has implemented access restrictions on its public Ethereum gateway. The company does not store any content on the Ethereum network nor can it be deleted. However, you can block access through your service.

If Cloudflare receives valid abuse reports or copyright infringement complaints, it will take appropriate action. The same applies to the gateway for the decentralized IPFS network.

In its previous transparency report, Cloudflare already mentioned more than 1,000 IPFS actions a figure that increased slightly in the second half of last year. At the same time, Cloudflare also restricted access to 99 “items” on the Ethereum network.

Since these are "gateway" related restrictions, there is no impact on content hosted on IPFS or Ethereum. Instead, it will only make it impossible to access the content through the Cloudflare service.

It's unclear how many of these restrictions are abuse or copyright-related, as not much context is provided. Ethereum's actions are, at least in part, a response to the US Treasury Department's sanctions against the cryptocurrency. Cash Tornado.

"Such sanctions raise important legal questions about the extent to which particular computer software, rather than the individuals or entities that use that software, may be subject to sanctions," Cloudflare writes.

"However, to comply with legal requirements, Cloudflare has taken steps to disable access through the Ethereum Gateway operated by Cloudflare to the digital currency addresses identified in the designation."

DMCA Notices and Subpoenas

There are also more obvious copyright answers. While Cloudflare generally does not block content in response to DMCA notices for customers using its CDN services, it does remove infringing content permanently hosted on its servers.

These hosting services have expanded over the years and so has the volume of valid DMCA notices received, which increased from 18 to 972 in the span of a year, as shown below. It is still a fairly modest figure for a company with millions of customers.

Finally, Cloudflare reports that the number of civil subpoenas, including those issued under the DMCA, has decreased. These requests are often used by rights holders, including the Motion Picture Association (MPA), to obtain identifying information about Cloudflare customers.

In the second half of last year, the company received 20 civil subpoenas targeting 57 domain names. This is the lowest number since Cloudflare first revealed this statistic five years ago, indicating a downward trend.

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A copy of the latest Cloudflare Transparency Report is available here (pdf)