-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, 3 Jan 2023 21:40:43 -0500 Doug Jenkins <d...@dougjenkins.com> wrote:
> My checklist will use CloudFlare (free). They have a bunch of > services that we are going to use to make this happen. I have a "burr under my tail" about CloudFlare. This four-year-old blog entry echos my objections. - - Walsh, Ray. "How CloudFlare and ReCaptcha Are Ruining the Net (and What to Do)." Blog. 8 Nov. 2018. ProPrivacy. 4 Jan. 2023 <https://proprivacy.com/privacy-news/cloudflare-recaptcha-nightmare>. > Everyone has suffered that annoying moment when CloudFlare serves > them a Google reCaptcha. Often, the captcha can be a little tricky — > resulting in failure and multiple attempts. If you are particularly > unlucky, you could be asked to click images of traffic lights, > street signs, or zebra crossings — up to five times — before > Google’s reCaptcha finally accepts that you are human. This is > totally infuriating and a massive waste of time. I know this isn't WeeWX-related, but it has to be said wherever CloudFlare is being promoted. Basically, CloudFlare does not serve Web pages such as your weather site equally to all comers. In the name of squelching nefarious 'bot traffic, CloudFlare insists that some requesters submit to Turing tests to assess their humanity before serving results. In an ideal Internet world, all requesters would be treated equally, but CloudFlare feels it is their mission to treat some more equally than others. In particular CloudFlare singles out blocks of IP addresses from certain Internet Service Providers (ISPs) domestically and over seas for special treatment — not Google, of course — because, in CloudFlare's sole judgment, CloudFlare deems them to be sources of spam or hacking activity. The wall of text posted by commenter Irma Dalakanitzkova is more specific. In part it reads: > Unfortunately, using proxy servers, The Onion Browser (TOR), or a > VPN will NOT DIMINISH but INCREASE the number of CloudFlare's > reCaptchas! > <snip> [A] simple comparison of IP addresses is easy to do and > spells a curse of doom for users of the TOR browser: One gets > bombarded with that reCaptcha crap — first to access the site, then > to view links, later to post a comment — SEVERAL TIMES on the same > page. Furthermore, it's not just two or three pages of stamp-sized > grainy pictures, but up to a dozen per set. Even if the check-mark is > placed, after clicking the button, it may very well disappear, and > the same harassment begins again — up to three to five times. My > personal record so far were 27 pages of «try again» crosswalks, > traffic lights, parking meters ... and the time can be up to 10 — 15 > minutes, because each individual little square on each page of a > sequence of pages takes a painstakingly slow 3 — 5 seconds to change > from one picture to the next. > <snip> CloudFlare goes to great lengths to make life for their users > impossible under the pretext of «bad things are usually being done > using proxies or VPNs». Guess what, idiots, somebody who has really > devious intentions will go through the hassle anyway, but, for > hundreds of millions of ordinary users, this bullshit is a > curse. CloudFlare's & Google's unholy alliance, forcing educated > grown-ups to waste hours per week clicking on hardly decipherable, > grainy, tiny thumbnails, is a perfect example of a cure that's worse > than the disease. Especially for merely passive use of websites > (reading, following a link, looking at graphics/pictures). Ask yourself what you have that a 'bot or a hacker would want to purloin or interfere with. If you can afford to block readers from accessing your weather page from an arbitrary but long list of VPNs around the world, by all means, go ahead then and patronize CloudFlare. You won't have any trouble from 'bots and hackers. - -- .. Be Seeing You, .. Chuck Rhode, Sheboygan, WI, USA .. Weather: http://LacusVeris.com/WX .. 38° — Wind SW 9 mph -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iF0EARECAB0WIQT+MY/5I/LMPSswTbVg2/xipKOWUgUCY7Wp6QAKCRBg2/xipKOW UsrKAJ9rgfaIU9VkMEMeMQBGoUtO1arosgCfYpciCWGNyF3KS9RXhNWrlI2VQyU= =T7HW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to weewx-user+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/20230104103137.0f37df74%40wealthy.
