If the origin server uses any proper TLS configuration, even a self-signed certificate, this method stops working. It only succeeds when the upstream connection to the origin is unsecured.
If you want to test this on a random site without Cloudflare or reverse proxy in general on HTTP:
curl http://www.digiboy.ir/boobs.jpg -v
mort96 9 days ago [-]
Ah, Cloudflare. The world's most widely deployed encryption remover.
* Is it insecure by default or you have to be intentionally insecure?
* Why would anyone pick the flexible/potentially-insecure option?
penteract 9 days ago [-]
> Why would anyone pick the flexible/potentially-insecure option?
Because having a connection that's encrypted between a user and Cloudflare, then unencrypted between Cloudflare and your server is often better than unencrypted all the way. Sketchy ISPs could insert/replace ads, and anyone hosting a free wifi hotspot could learn things your users wouldn't want them to know (e.g. their address if they order a delivery).
Setting up TLS properly on your server is harder than using Cloudflare (disclaimer: I have not used Cloudflare, though I have sorted out a certificate for an https server).
The problem is that users can't tell if their connection is encrypted all the way to your server. Visiting an https url might lead someone to assume that no-one can eavesdrop on their connection by tapping a cross-ocean cable (TLS can deliver this property). Cloudflare breaks that assumption.
Cloudflare's marketing on this is deceptive: https://www.cloudflare.com/application-services/products/ssl... says "TLS ensures data passing between users and servers is encrypted". This is true, but the servers it's talking about are Cloudflare's, not the website owner's.
Going through to "compare plans", the description of "Universal SSL Certificate" says "If you do not currently use SSL, Cloudflare can provide you with SSL capabilities — no configuration required." This could mislead users and server operators into thinking that they are more secure than they actually are. You cannot get the full benefits of TLS without a private key on your web server.
Despite this, I would guess that Cloudflare's "encryption remover" improves security compared to a world where Cloudflare did not offer this. I might feel differently about this if I knew more about people who interact with traffic between Cloudflare's servers and the servers of Cloudflare's customers.
mort96 9 days ago [-]
> Setting up TLS properly on your server is harder than using Cloudflare
This is probably technically true, but setting up TLS properly on your server is really ridiculously simple.
tracker1 9 days ago [-]
These days, absolutely... I usually use Caddy for reverse proxy chores and it's been a great option to deal with. Traefic hasn't been bad either.
ffsm8 9 days ago [-]
...in 2025
Let's encrypt and ACME hasn't always been available. Lots of companies also use appliances for the reverse proxy/Ingress.
If they don't support ACME, it's actually quite the chore to do - at least it was the last time I had to before acme was a thing (which is admittedly over 10 yrs ago)
wavesquid 9 days ago [-]
Historically?
1. Because TLS certificates were not free
2. Because firewall was "enough" in most people's minds
3. Because TLS was the most CPU intensive part of serving a static site
4. Because some people were using cheap shared hosting providers that upcharged for TLS
KomoD 9 days ago [-]
> * Why would anyone pick the flexible/potentially-insecure option?
I pick it whenever I don't want to setup HTTPS on my origin but still want HTTPS. Just for projects where I really don't care.
bawolff 9 days ago [-]
Is it really that different than AWS? You either trust your service provider or you don't.
lmm 9 days ago [-]
AWS doesn't route requests from their load balancer to your server across the public internet. Cloudflare does.
akdev1l 9 days ago [-]
You can do that with AWS if you really want to.
It will cost you a ton.
p0w3n3d 9 days ago [-]
EU should simply do the global surveillance quietly on cloudflare, instead of asking all the countries for the law
</Irony>
spoiler 9 days ago [-]
To be fair, Cloudflare is also the reason why most sites even have TLS at all, because it offered free certs (through letsencrypt I think?) in a fairly easy to set up way.
Certs used to be expensive, and had way more operational overhead and quirks (even setting up ACME/LE)
estimator7292 9 days ago [-]
Absolutely not, no. That is all thanks to Let's Encrypt.
DoctorOW 9 days ago [-]
This was true before Let's Encrypt existed, they'd buy massive 500 domain wildcard SSL certs that free users would split.
koakuma-chan 8 days ago [-]
Let's Encrypt is unusable for me because they want you to install that certbot thing. I don't know what that is or what it does. I don't want some magical auto update thing. Is it so hard to just make a generate button that gives you cert.pem and pkey.pem? Cloudflare managed to do it.
anticrymactic 8 days ago [-]
Let's encrypt supports ACME. Here are hundreds of ways to obtain a certificate:
Right, DoctorOW correct me; I have limited memory about the state of affairs from a decade ago. They offered free certs for a long time regardless of LE integration
thayne 9 days ago [-]
Cloudflare has native integration with Let's encrypt, which makes using TLS with a CDN much easier than if you had to acquire the ACME cert and deploy it to the CDN yourself.
Granted, most CDNs these days have some form of free certicate system, but that wasn't always the case.
Bratmon 9 days ago [-]
People on this website will just type any wild lie. I kinda love it.
The sky is purple! Charlie Brown had hoes! Cloudflare invented Let's Encrypt! Just say anything you want! We live in a post-truth world- there's no need for anything you say to correspond to any external reality!
tracker1 9 days ago [-]
I'm pretty sure Lincoln said that first...
balamatom 9 days ago [-]
Congrats! You get it!
ranger_danger 9 days ago [-]
> this website
you must be new to the internet...
spoiler 8 days ago [-]
I never said Cloudflare was behind Let's Encrypt… Did I? Probably just a misunderstanding.
Someone l pointed out I mixed up my timeline a bit because this was over a decade ago, but it turns out CF offered free certs even earlier than LE :)
So, while i got the details wrong, I still stand behind what I say: most sites on the web even have TLS enabled because CF offers it for free. I'm not talking about the reverse proxy aspect, but from the UA's perspective
Tostino 9 days ago [-]
I'm not going to give them credit for the work that Lets Encrypt did.
master_crab 9 days ago [-]
I agree, Let’s encrypt and ACME played a massive role. But it’s still far easier having Cloudflare handle TLS encryption for you.
And i say this as someone who uses ACME in certmanager and certbot at home and still prefers the ease with which Cloudflare generates a cert for my domain and terminates TLS for the public side of my cloudflare tunnel.
Tostino 9 days ago [-]
For my home stuff I just use nginx-proxy-manager and haven't thought about it since I set it up a couple of years ago.
For work, I used to use certbot directly at my old place. Now I am building my new stuff on k8s, and I have the ingress manage my certs for me (likely using certbot or similar behind the scenes). Both have been extremely low setup effort and no ongoing effort.
I don't like giving Cloudflare my (or my companies/customers) data in exchange for being able to click a checkbox.
TiredOfLife 9 days ago [-]
Lets Encrypt can proxy my old http only website to show as https? Without access to server configuration? How?
Tostino 9 days ago [-]
With nginx-proxy-manager which uses Let's Encrypt for certs you can... This isn't the gotcha you think it is.
TiredOfLife 9 days ago [-]
I don't have access to the server.
Tostino 9 days ago [-]
It can be run anywhere. You don't need it on the same server. Cloudflare isn't running on the same server either.
TiredOfLife 9 days ago [-]
Cloudflare is a checkbox.
Tostino 9 days ago [-]
And you only let them see every bit of traffic to and from your site in exchange.
What a deal.
You changed the subject btw.
TiredOfLife 9 days ago [-]
I didn't. I said that Cloudflare is the one that allowed my http only site to become https.
spoiler 8 days ago [-]
My bad! I slightly confused my timeline. CF offered free certs long before LE!
udev4096 9 days ago [-]
[flagged]
spoiler 8 days ago [-]
Are we witch hunting Cloudflare now? What have they done? I think overall CF seems like a pretty decent company? Lol I'm a bit out of the loop it seems.
Also what mis-information (other than the claiming CF integrated with LE, but it turns out CF offered free certs before LE even existed lol) did I spread?
udev4096 9 days ago [-]
Interesting. I was just setting up a LB like this:
client ->LB(nginx) ->TLS terminate for LB conn -> proxy_pass to backend which is behind nginx and has separate TLS certs. it's surprisingly easy to configure. Wonder why people still use HTTP at all. Even at home, I have setup LE certs for all local domains
On a side note, nginx doesn't support HTTP/2 for https load balancing so I am thinking of switching to haproxy which supports it
butvacuum 9 days ago [-]
Because you've now published your internal machine names. Look up certificate transparency logs.
udev4096 9 days ago [-]
What do you mean? I used self-signed for communication b/w LB and the nginx serving backend
Edit: I don't see any "machine name" on crt.sh for public LB which uses LE
Ah, you meant the DNS address is on CT now. You think I wouldn't know that? Regardless, a dns01 challenge is far better than using self-signed at home
ranger_danger 9 days ago [-]
I don't think this is true... a reverse proxy/CDN can see the full request URL even if the origin server is using TLS (unless you're using mTLS, which almost nobody is), and we don't even know if it's the proxy/CDN or the origin that is filtering based on keywords... but all of them could be doing it.
bobmcnamara 9 days ago [-]
It'll also work DigiNotar-style, when using the only root CA blessed by the National Information Network for general use: I.R. Iran.
huflungdung 9 days ago [-]
Digiboy is a treasure trove of enterprise software. Where else would I get a pirated hpe ilo license from?
losvedir 9 days ago [-]
How's this work with https like in the example? The hops along the way shouldn't see the path.
Is this implying that all TLS is terminated at the Iran border and proxied from there? And all Iranian sites are required to host via http? That has significantly more implications than what this post is about.
Maybe certificate authorities aren't allowed to issue private certs to Iranian organizations? Even LetsEncrypt?
tgma 9 days ago [-]
This is referring to something else: to detect whether the backend server host itself is inside or outside Iran. TLS doesn't prevent the backend network from reading the URL of course.
bawolff 9 days ago [-]
Well it would if things are setup according to best practises (i.e. use TLS between the backend connections). Presumably most people dont do that.
tgma 9 days ago [-]
Again, you are assuming a normal situation. The point is the country itself is operating (or has a heavy grip and perhaps even subsidizes) the backend CDN and enforcing that stuff in a rudimentary way.
"TLS between backend connections" usually involves termination and decryption on the frontend webserver and re-encryption of the upstream traffic, whatever it may be.
SahAssar 9 days ago [-]
A lot of CF upstreams are (or at least used to be) plaintext. It is one of the criticisms of CF since it "whitewashed" plaintext to look like proper TLS when it was only TLS for client<->CF and then plaintext for CF<->server.
koakuma-chan 9 days ago [-]
Has anything ever prevented you from having TLS on your origin server? You can even get a certificate from Cloudflare.
selcuka 9 days ago [-]
This is a problem for the visitor, not for the server's owner. There is no way to know whether the traffic is encrypted between the server and CloudFlare.
tialaramex 9 days ago [-]
Regardless of Cloudflare, there is no way to know whether the traffic is encrypted between your apparent end-point and where it's actually used, nor whether that traffic is subsequently revealed to other parties, on purpose or by mistake.
When you type your password into e.g. Hacker News, you are sending that password to the server. It doesn't matter that they're using bcrypt tuned for $1Bn attackers and you chose a sixteen character random alphanumeric string because that precise string, the valid password, is deliberately sent by you, to them, to authenticate and so if they accidentally reveal that or get compromised in any way, game over.
It's getting a little bit better in some areas. My good bank actually has halfway decent security now, but the bank with most of my money (which is owned by my government, and thus avoids any risk consideration - if that bank fails, the currency my money is denominated in also fails, so, it doesn't matter any more) still thinks passwords are a good idea. Google lets me use a Security Key, but most web sites I authenticate with still use passwords.
SSH is slightly better, because of its target audience. A lot of people use public key auth for SSH, which doesn't have this issue. But that's not the web.
lmm 9 days ago [-]
> Regardless of Cloudflare, there is no way to know whether the traffic is encrypted between your apparent end-point and where it's actually used, nor whether that traffic is subsequently revealed to other parties, on purpose or by mistake.
Any server could be leaking plaintext data, sure, but Cloudflare offers and even promotes wrong-thing-as-a-service.
LoganDark 9 days ago [-]
I've set up CF for a personal site and I even tell CF to use a client certificate (called "Origin CA") so nothing else can even connect to it.
tgsovlerkhgsel 9 days ago [-]
Have they started to use per-domain certificates for this, or can anyone who finds the origin bypass the check by creating their own (different) Cloudflare domain and pointing it at your origin?
Edit: Looks still the same by default, but at least they're (somewhat obscurely) documenting the issue and providing the option to use a custom cert now...
> Is this implying that all TLS is terminated at the Iran border and proxied from there?
Yeah, the law-abiding type on the Iranian National Information Network(NIN), either using the Electronic Commerce Council's I.R.Iran CA for HTTPS or just HTTP.
> Maybe certificate authorities aren't allowed to issue private certs to Iranian organizations? Even LetsEncrypt?
Due to NIN registrations being not very much not anonymous, https://xkcd.com/538/ seems pretty appropriate if you want to use an unapproved certificate authority.
9 days ago [-]
Yokolos 10 days ago [-]
I'm wondering for what purpose one would be interested in finding out if a site is hosted in Iran or not.
nostrademons 9 days ago [-]
Would assume it's to check if a site is foreign propaganda. A lot of the lesser-known news sites that you see linked on social media are actually psy-ops pushing an agenda, many of them foreign-based. Follow the technique in the article and you can easily blacklist Iranian ones.
elemdos 9 days ago [-]
I don’t buy psy-ops unless it’s American-made
keybored 8 days ago [-]
Why are people in the (presumed) West particularly afraid of the propaganda of a Middle Eastern country? Is the intelligence/propaganda unit there so good that they can program minds from a different continent better than Western oligarchs? This has got “Russia stole American democracy with millions worth of FB ads” vibes to it.
But if there is an easy technical implement to avoid some propaganda then good on them I guess. Why not. One less thing to worry about.
Iran is actively working hard to make us hate our fellow citizens. That matters.
rozab 9 days ago [-]
More concretely, a bunch of Scottish nationalist accounts were unearthed as Iranian by the recent X location switch-on
FilosofumRex 9 days ago [-]
[flagged]
ifidishshbsba 9 days ago [-]
So true, can this be adapted to detect Hasbara?
greenavocado 9 days ago [-]
Ask the person you are arguing with to denounce certain things and the response is often informative
kortilla 9 days ago [-]
If you’re in any western democracy you should worry about propaganda bots from Iran, DPRK, Russia, and China.
They have well known active operations of helping fuel the flames of political division by amplifying both sides of extremely divisive topics.
If you’ve ever engaged in flame wars about abortion, brexit, Scottish independence, the Ukraine war, the Gaza war, etc, there is a really good chance there were many participants from one of those parties.
austin-cheney 9 days ago [-]
Everybody spies and attempts psyops campaigns. I am much more concerned about nations that actively and massively attempt to exploit US election interference: Russia and Israel.
AngryData 9 days ago [-]
I worry even more about native propaganda bots honestly. Just because they are native it doesn't mean they aren't pushing a massive agenda, and they have even more motivation to do so.
Waterluvian 9 days ago [-]
Those all did concern me. These days they concern me far less than the U.S. I’ve got to prioritize my foes.
greenavocado 9 days ago [-]
JIDF never disappeared, it merely got a fresh coat of paint and disappeared from the public eye
BergAndCo 9 days ago [-]
JIDF was a geocities website by a random rabbi in his basement
greenavocado 9 days ago [-]
The website is irrelevant
keybored 8 days ago [-]
That’s terrible. There’s no war/conflict but the class war.
ipaddr 9 days ago [-]
Worry about these countries don't worry about Israel? Doesn't Israel fund both sides of fueling political division?
cj 9 days ago [-]
It’s illegal for US companies to do business with anyone in Iran.
delichon 9 days ago [-]
I'd rather not do business there.
asdefghyk 9 days ago [-]
Im guessing - its for some protest action? ... but really I have NO IDEA.
KiranRao0 10 days ago [-]
Does anyone have sample sites that return this?
phgn 10 days ago [-]
Also interested in a sample site where the request successfully resolves ;)
asdefghyk 9 days ago [-]
If search in google search with site:ir
it returns lots .ir links.
I clicked on one and it went to a .com domain site.
This may or may not be useful. How all this works is beyond my knowledge ..
10 days ago [-]
readthenotes1 9 days ago [-]
Are you asking if there are pictures of boobs on the internet?
miniBill 9 days ago [-]
You never know! Maybe they've all disappeared!
KomoD 9 days ago [-]
Here: tehranpich.com
It's behind CF
Aloisius 10 days ago [-]
So presumably Iran has a reverse proxy in front of the entire internet for HTTP?
I really want to know what's on the webpage for the iframe.
mschuster91 9 days ago [-]
> So presumably Iran has a reverse proxy in front of the entire internet for HTTP?
Standard DPI firewalls can do that for you. Absolutely no issue.
manmal 9 days ago [-]
For the path component, in a TLS secured request?
bobmcnamara 9 days ago [-]
It's a CDN, not an IP router. CDNs usually terminate TCP+TLS as close to the client as possible. This used to be done right at the edge - within the NIC for a long time, but CPUs have been more than capable for the last decade+
Few guesses:
1) CDN connects to backend server over TLS, using the national I.R. Iran root CA
2) CDN connects to backend server over HTTP
3) Backend server is running a nationally blessed Linux OS
For 1 & 2, the National Information Network would be implementing this DigiNotar style but they already own the root keys. For #3, the backend does so itself. These are the people who p0wned DigiNotar after all.
pavel_lishin 9 days ago [-]
A long time ago, my friends and I found a "scary"-looking image, written in a mixture of English and Arabic, warning the viewer that they'd come afoul of ... I forget, some Iranian government department of censorship?
Naturally, we made it so that 1% of the requests to a forum we ran at the time displayed it to the viewer. :)
vivzkestrel 9 days ago [-]
I am probably a little dumb, i read the article but dont understand what happened. can some HNer kindly explain?
whynotmaybe 9 days ago [-]
I guess that if you GET https://somedomain.com/boobs.jpg you get a 404 (not found) from a web server hosted outside of Iran but if the server for the domain is hosted in Iran, you get a 403 (forbidden) because the request is intercepted by a firewall that detect the word "boobs" and reject it with a 403 without forwarding it to the webserver that would usually return the 404.
bawolff 9 days ago [-]
So does this mean 10.x.x.x is publicly routable inside iran? Why wouldn't the Iranian government just use its own ip space for the censorship message?
lmm 9 days ago [-]
> Why wouldn't the Iranian government just use its own ip space for the censorship message?
IP addresses are expensive if you're not the US. Also they might be reusing a standard corporate filtering product that expects to be deployed on a private network (and in a way, that's what the Iranian internet is).
ycombinatrix 9 days ago [-]
I just tried this on a few Iranian websites and never got a 403, let alone an iframe.
JumpCrisscross 9 days ago [-]
I wonder if this could be broadened to a list of Wikipedia links to humanitarian content folks in repressed regimes are or might get blocked from. Tiananmen Square [1]. Wen Jiabao's staggering corruption [2]. Epstein's e-mails [3]. Et cetera.
Like Netflix launching Fast.com, this would directly weaponise these regimes' censoring tendencies against themselves.
Is there a Scunthorpe problem looming there? Birdwatchers might seek out information about boobies - are they treated like boobs.jpg is?
cluckindan 9 days ago [-]
Wow. The screenshot had the IP address exactly where I placed my finger to scroll, and iOS Safari briefly opened a popup window where it started connecting to that IP.
Fuck this shit, I’m moving to a hovel in the woods.
rootusrootus 9 days ago [-]
Along the same lines, I occasionally find myself cursing iOS for its willingness to just bring up the dialer and call a number. I really, really wish that it would confirm any dialing before doing it, especially if you didn't click on a phone number on a contact. Couple times I've ended up dialing a recent spam caller, which is the last thing I ever want to do.
lxgr 9 days ago [-]
On top of that, the only possible interaction with the number is to call it or to not call it.
Want to copy the number into the clipboard to call it later, call it from a different app, or forward it to somebody else? Tough luck.
furyofantares 9 days ago [-]
There are a few options available if you press and hold it (Call, Message, Add to Existing Contact, Create New Contact, Delete).
I feel this only make the fact that tapping calls without confirmation more annoying though.
lxgr 9 days ago [-]
That's assuming there is something I can press and hold, e.g. a phone number displayed in Safari or an email.
Some apps seem to call some "make a phone call now" API, and that opens a modal pop-up with exactly two options – make the call or don't.
One workaround is to take a screenshot of the number being displayed, but... Come on, Apple.
MaintenanceMode 9 days ago [-]
Occasionally, if you're lucky enough, an option to copy the phone number shows up, it seems like completely at the whim of the OS. And that's after accidentally starting to dial the number, of course.
quesera 9 days ago [-]
iOS presents me with "Dial NPA-NXX-XXXX" and "Cancel" options in a bottom-raised dialog, when I tap a tel link.
I don't recall doing anything special to make this happen, but I wouldn't put it past me.
rootusrootus 9 days ago [-]
That may be specific to a web browser hyperlink. Click on an entry in your recent calls list and it'll immediately dial the number that called you.
quesera 9 days ago [-]
Got it, I missed the context.
Agreed, now that I remember the self-training I had to do to avoid the issue, this is an obnoxiously awkward design choice!
pizzalife 9 days ago [-]
It’s in a private Ip range so unless you’re inside Iran you’re fine.
ycombinatrix 9 days ago [-]
I don't think that works in Iran either
culi 9 days ago [-]
Agree it's a stupid default but you can (and imo should) turn off link previews in iOS
Thanks for posting this. I mostly gave up on viewing the one or two Twitter feeds that interest me after nitter stopped working. It wasn't ideological, I just wasn't able to reliably view and navigate without an account, and when I made an account it just kept showing me like "black HS football player bad sportsmanship".
Look like I've got about two years of James Cage White story arcs to check in on.
skeledrew 9 days ago [-]
This has been so useful to me that I've created a filter in URLCheck[0] that automatically converts all X-related links.
This is a hosted instance of nitter, the reason why nearly all nitter instances died is because "guest" accounts got removed, so now you need tons of real twitter/x accounts instead of just generating thousands of "guest" accounts.
behnamoh 10 days ago [-]
[flagged]
qbit42 10 days ago [-]
I don't want to have to create an account to view the full context.
hypeatei 10 days ago [-]
> XCancel is an instance of Nitter.
> Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance.
Where is the mission statement about wanting X gone?
Almost like you are engaging in entirely bad faith.
throwaway290 10 days ago [-]
if nitter robs twitter,
then ublock robs youtube and youtubers. actually
worse because nitter at least saves musk money on server costs.
lexlambda 10 days ago [-]
Like posting an archive.is link, others can actually read it. No login required for reading replays, no popups and signup nagss.
floodle 10 days ago [-]
It's easier to view the tweet, to be fair
dvngnt_ 10 days ago [-]
you can view replies without logging in
llimllib 10 days ago [-]
some people don't want to give clicks to X, no we're not done with it. It doesn't harm you does it?
behnamoh 10 days ago [-]
[flagged]
mikestew 10 days ago [-]
So the question is, what does a commercial website gain from people clicking on links to that website? I’m not even sure where to start to explain that one if one has to ask.
behnamoh 10 days ago [-]
[flagged]
lovegrenoble 10 days ago [-]
Why not?
gnarlouse 9 days ago [-]
I saw “boobs” so I ran.
-Iran
Rendered at 10:02:38 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Proxy/CDN: HTTPS (443) → Origin server: plain HTTP (80)
(example: Cloudflare in Flexible mode)
If the origin server uses any proper TLS configuration, even a self-signed certificate, this method stops working. It only succeeds when the upstream connection to the origin is unsecured.
If you want to test this on a random site without Cloudflare or reverse proxy in general on HTTP: curl http://www.digiboy.ir/boobs.jpg -v
I didn't quite get if Automatic TLS (https://developers.cloudflare.com/ssl/origin-configuration/s...) could use plain transfers.
So:
* Is it insecure by default or you have to be intentionally insecure?
* Why would anyone pick the flexible/potentially-insecure option?
Because having a connection that's encrypted between a user and Cloudflare, then unencrypted between Cloudflare and your server is often better than unencrypted all the way. Sketchy ISPs could insert/replace ads, and anyone hosting a free wifi hotspot could learn things your users wouldn't want them to know (e.g. their address if they order a delivery).
Setting up TLS properly on your server is harder than using Cloudflare (disclaimer: I have not used Cloudflare, though I have sorted out a certificate for an https server).
The problem is that users can't tell if their connection is encrypted all the way to your server. Visiting an https url might lead someone to assume that no-one can eavesdrop on their connection by tapping a cross-ocean cable (TLS can deliver this property). Cloudflare breaks that assumption.
Cloudflare's marketing on this is deceptive: https://www.cloudflare.com/application-services/products/ssl... says "TLS ensures data passing between users and servers is encrypted". This is true, but the servers it's talking about are Cloudflare's, not the website owner's.
Going through to "compare plans", the description of "Universal SSL Certificate" says "If you do not currently use SSL, Cloudflare can provide you with SSL capabilities — no configuration required." This could mislead users and server operators into thinking that they are more secure than they actually are. You cannot get the full benefits of TLS without a private key on your web server.
Despite this, I would guess that Cloudflare's "encryption remover" improves security compared to a world where Cloudflare did not offer this. I might feel differently about this if I knew more about people who interact with traffic between Cloudflare's servers and the servers of Cloudflare's customers.
This is probably technically true, but setting up TLS properly on your server is really ridiculously simple.
Let's encrypt and ACME hasn't always been available. Lots of companies also use appliances for the reverse proxy/Ingress.
If they don't support ACME, it's actually quite the chore to do - at least it was the last time I had to before acme was a thing (which is admittedly over 10 yrs ago)
1. Because TLS certificates were not free
2. Because firewall was "enough" in most people's minds
3. Because TLS was the most CPU intensive part of serving a static site
4. Because some people were using cheap shared hosting providers that upcharged for TLS
I pick it whenever I don't want to setup HTTPS on my origin but still want HTTPS. Just for projects where I really don't care.
It will cost you a ton.
</Irony>
Certs used to be expensive, and had way more operational overhead and quirks (even setting up ACME/LE)
https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/#other-client-op...
Granted, most CDNs these days have some form of free certicate system, but that wasn't always the case.
The sky is purple! Charlie Brown had hoes! Cloudflare invented Let's Encrypt! Just say anything you want! We live in a post-truth world- there's no need for anything you say to correspond to any external reality!
you must be new to the internet...
Someone l pointed out I mixed up my timeline a bit because this was over a decade ago, but it turns out CF offered free certs even earlier than LE :)
So, while i got the details wrong, I still stand behind what I say: most sites on the web even have TLS enabled because CF offers it for free. I'm not talking about the reverse proxy aspect, but from the UA's perspective
And i say this as someone who uses ACME in certmanager and certbot at home and still prefers the ease with which Cloudflare generates a cert for my domain and terminates TLS for the public side of my cloudflare tunnel.
For work, I used to use certbot directly at my old place. Now I am building my new stuff on k8s, and I have the ingress manage my certs for me (likely using certbot or similar behind the scenes). Both have been extremely low setup effort and no ongoing effort.
I don't like giving Cloudflare my (or my companies/customers) data in exchange for being able to click a checkbox.
What a deal.
You changed the subject btw.
Also what mis-information (other than the claiming CF integrated with LE, but it turns out CF offered free certs before LE even existed lol) did I spread?
On a side note, nginx doesn't support HTTP/2 for https load balancing so I am thinking of switching to haproxy which supports it
Edit: I don't see any "machine name" on crt.sh for public LB which uses LE
Ah, you meant the DNS address is on CT now. You think I wouldn't know that? Regardless, a dns01 challenge is far better than using self-signed at home
Is this implying that all TLS is terminated at the Iran border and proxied from there? And all Iranian sites are required to host via http? That has significantly more implications than what this post is about.
Maybe certificate authorities aren't allowed to issue private certs to Iranian organizations? Even LetsEncrypt?
"TLS between backend connections" usually involves termination and decryption on the frontend webserver and re-encryption of the upstream traffic, whatever it may be.
When you type your password into e.g. Hacker News, you are sending that password to the server. It doesn't matter that they're using bcrypt tuned for $1Bn attackers and you chose a sixteen character random alphanumeric string because that precise string, the valid password, is deliberately sent by you, to them, to authenticate and so if they accidentally reveal that or get compromised in any way, game over.
It's getting a little bit better in some areas. My good bank actually has halfway decent security now, but the bank with most of my money (which is owned by my government, and thus avoids any risk consideration - if that bank fails, the currency my money is denominated in also fails, so, it doesn't matter any more) still thinks passwords are a good idea. Google lets me use a Security Key, but most web sites I authenticate with still use passwords.
SSH is slightly better, because of its target audience. A lot of people use public key auth for SSH, which doesn't have this issue. But that's not the web.
Any server could be leaking plaintext data, sure, but Cloudflare offers and even promotes wrong-thing-as-a-service.
Edit: Looks still the same by default, but at least they're (somewhat obscurely) documenting the issue and providing the option to use a custom cert now...
https://developers.cloudflare.com/ssl/origin-configuration/a...
Yeah, the law-abiding type on the Iranian National Information Network(NIN), either using the Electronic Commerce Council's I.R.Iran CA for HTTPS or just HTTP.
> Maybe certificate authorities aren't allowed to issue private certs to Iranian organizations? Even LetsEncrypt?
Due to NIN registrations being not very much not anonymous, https://xkcd.com/538/ seems pretty appropriate if you want to use an unapproved certificate authority.
But if there is an easy technical implement to avoid some propaganda then good on them I guess. Why not. One less thing to worry about.
Iran is actively working hard to make us hate our fellow citizens. That matters.
They have well known active operations of helping fuel the flames of political division by amplifying both sides of extremely divisive topics.
If you’ve ever engaged in flame wars about abortion, brexit, Scottish independence, the Ukraine war, the Gaza war, etc, there is a really good chance there were many participants from one of those parties.
This may or may not be useful. How all this works is beyond my knowledge ..
It's behind CF
I really want to know what's on the webpage for the iframe.
Standard DPI firewalls can do that for you. Absolutely no issue.
Few guesses:
1) CDN connects to backend server over TLS, using the national I.R. Iran root CA
2) CDN connects to backend server over HTTP
3) Backend server is running a nationally blessed Linux OS
For 1 & 2, the National Information Network would be implementing this DigiNotar style but they already own the root keys. For #3, the backend does so itself. These are the people who p0wned DigiNotar after all.
Naturally, we made it so that 1% of the requests to a forum we ran at the time displayed it to the viewer. :)
IP addresses are expensive if you're not the US. Also they might be reusing a standard corporate filtering product that expects to be deployed on a private network (and in a way, that's what the Iranian internet is).
Like Netflix launching Fast.com, this would directly weaponise these regimes' censoring tendencies against themselves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of...
[3] https://jmail.world
Fuck this shit, I’m moving to a hovel in the woods.
Want to copy the number into the clipboard to call it later, call it from a different app, or forward it to somebody else? Tough luck.
I feel this only make the fact that tapping calls without confirmation more annoying though.
Some apps seem to call some "make a phone call now" API, and that opens a modal pop-up with exactly two options – make the call or don't.
One workaround is to take a screenshot of the number being displayed, but... Come on, Apple.
I don't recall doing anything special to make this happen, but I wouldn't put it past me.
Agreed, now that I remember the self-training I had to do to avoid the issue, this is an obnoxiously awkward design choice!
Look like I've got about two years of James Cage White story arcs to check in on.
[0] https://github.com/TrianguloY/URLCheck
> Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance.
Where is the mission statement about wanting X gone?
https://xcancel.com/about
> then I ask: what does X gain from your clicks?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100703
> Worst that can happen is they waste resources showing you ads that you don't click on.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100744
Almost like you are engaging in entirely bad faith.
-Iran