Comment by doctorfoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by doctorfoo | Hacker News Reader

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> having you tried contacting CloudFlare Support about it?

I could do - but I'm kind of angry that I even have to. What about the less technically literate, who might barely know what CloudFlare is, let alone figure out how to contact their support? (Yes, I use a VPN, but there's plenty of ways a non tech person might have a shared IP.) And why should I have to go to this effort, just to get read access to a website?

And what if I'm on a different IP tomorrow? Begging for my IP to be unblocked is no long term solution. (What about when malicious activity comes from it tomorrow, after you unblocked it? You'll just block it again.)

Just now, in my other browser tab:

>Please complete the security check to access coinmarketcap.com

(btw, Disqus is giving you different comments depending on whether https or not, that's why I missed my comment being published.)

I'm asking because I work for CloudFlare and specifically I'm about to start working on the reputation system that deals with things like the CAPTCHA that you are seeing. So, I'm personally interested in understanding what you are seeing because we should not be blocking people who are legitimate.

If you don't feel like contacting CloudFlare Support you could always just email me directly: jgc (you guess the domain name :-)

In the spirit of hopefully improving things, I'll contact support.

It's still scary the power your company has, mind.

Let them know that I told you to contact them.

Not technically literate enough to contact cloudflare support but using TOR or a VPN is an interesting combination.

You missed:

> there's plenty of ways a non tech person might have a shared IP

e.g. some mobile internet, university/school campuses, workplaces, shared wifi points. All of which might have some abuse. I guess perhaps not the amount of a VPN/Tor.

That being said, there's more people than ever using Tor lately. And I'm sure CloudFlare are more than aware of Tor already. And lots of relatively casual users signing up for VPNs to get to blocked file sharing sites etc.

Just now, in my other tab:

> Please complete the security check to access torrentfreak.com

> Not technically literate enough to contact cloudflare support but using TOR

It's more likely than you think:

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

http://piratebrowser.com/

All someone needs is to have read something on some social media website, followed a link, and installed some software. Boom, they're accessing the Internet through TOR.

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