Alleging that it has helped the Islamic state propagandas, Anonymous has attacked web services startup CloudFlare for providing protection against cyberattacks to pro-Isis websites.
The company is popular amongst groups like Anonymous by routing connections through its own content delivery network and helps to protect customers against the distributed denial of service (DDoS). It prevents DDoS attacks from succeeding in their goal of overwhelming a website with traffic so that it collapses, by weeding out malicious connections.
The technology is also being used by pro-Isis websites to protect themselves against the hacktivist collective’s attempts to bring down their servers, according to members of Anonymous, which was reaffirmed its yearlong "war" against Isis following the Paris attacks.
Almost 40 websites that use CloudFlare’s services to protect their content were identified by Ghost Security Group, an Anonymous-affiliated “counter-terrorism network”, the week before the Paris attacks. 34 were propaganda websites, four were discussion forums, and two offered technical services according to GhostSec.
While arguing for quite some time that it is not its job to police content on its network, CloudFlare is not new to such accusations. The company’s chief executive Matthew Prince published a blogspot laying out its view on free speech on its network in response to similar allegations from James Cook, a reporter at the Kernel magazine in August 2013.
Prince wrote: “A website is speech. It is not a bomb. There is no imminent danger it creates and no provider has an affirmative obligation to monitor and make determinations about the theoretically harmful nature of speech a site may contain …
“If we were to receive a valid court order that compelled us to not provide service to a customer then we would comply with that court order. We have never received a request to terminate the site in question from any law enforcement authority, let alone a valid order from a court.”
“I did see a Twitter handle said that they were mad at us,” Prince told The Register redoubling his stance in response to the latest criticism from Anonymous.
“I’d suggest this was armchair analysis by kids – it’s hard to take seriously. Anonymous uses us for some of its sites, despite pressure from some quarters for us to take Anonymous sites offline,” Prince said.
“Even if we were hosting sites for Isis, it wouldn’t be of any use to us … I should imagine those kinds of people pay with stolen credit cards and so that’s a negative for us.”
Those statements are now prompting a further call amongst Anonymous members to boycott the company altogether.
(Source:wwwtheguardian.com)
The company is popular amongst groups like Anonymous by routing connections through its own content delivery network and helps to protect customers against the distributed denial of service (DDoS). It prevents DDoS attacks from succeeding in their goal of overwhelming a website with traffic so that it collapses, by weeding out malicious connections.
The technology is also being used by pro-Isis websites to protect themselves against the hacktivist collective’s attempts to bring down their servers, according to members of Anonymous, which was reaffirmed its yearlong "war" against Isis following the Paris attacks.
Almost 40 websites that use CloudFlare’s services to protect their content were identified by Ghost Security Group, an Anonymous-affiliated “counter-terrorism network”, the week before the Paris attacks. 34 were propaganda websites, four were discussion forums, and two offered technical services according to GhostSec.
While arguing for quite some time that it is not its job to police content on its network, CloudFlare is not new to such accusations. The company’s chief executive Matthew Prince published a blogspot laying out its view on free speech on its network in response to similar allegations from James Cook, a reporter at the Kernel magazine in August 2013.
Prince wrote: “A website is speech. It is not a bomb. There is no imminent danger it creates and no provider has an affirmative obligation to monitor and make determinations about the theoretically harmful nature of speech a site may contain …
“If we were to receive a valid court order that compelled us to not provide service to a customer then we would comply with that court order. We have never received a request to terminate the site in question from any law enforcement authority, let alone a valid order from a court.”
“I did see a Twitter handle said that they were mad at us,” Prince told The Register redoubling his stance in response to the latest criticism from Anonymous.
“I’d suggest this was armchair analysis by kids – it’s hard to take seriously. Anonymous uses us for some of its sites, despite pressure from some quarters for us to take Anonymous sites offline,” Prince said.
“Even if we were hosting sites for Isis, it wouldn’t be of any use to us … I should imagine those kinds of people pay with stolen credit cards and so that’s a negative for us.”
Those statements are now prompting a further call amongst Anonymous members to boycott the company altogether.
(Source:wwwtheguardian.com)