I met Ajit shortly after he started in his role. I specifically told him how we can track and trace back these robocalls via SS7 (at least once they hit the PSTN - SIP ingress even easier to track back to the trunks they originate), and I even had proof of concept code and examples. He seemed really excited, then did nothing. No follow-up, etc. It would only work if mandated by the FCC because there is no financial incentive for the telcos to do it.
Well then, if everyone else is doing it!.. I don't buy it. People don't have friends based off of if they're on social media, or play specific video games. If they do, you don't want them as friends. It's the same reason I don't let my 3rd grade boy play FPS games even though he REAAALY wants to, and all his friends do. An 8 year old should not be running around in a realistic game shooting people. When his brain is more mature, he will have plenty of time to play such games.
My middle school aged daughter wanted this installed on her phone the other day. I said no way. The last thing she needs her electronic devices doing is serving up tinder for kids, leaving her obsessing over popularity contests, or another avenue for anonymous bullying.
Ignore was perhaps a poor word choice. They do get responded to, but the response results in no action being taken to stop the abuse, which is what I meant by ignore.
Cloudflare has always sidestepped their responsibility by claiming not to be a "hosting provider". They claim not to host the content, so they claim not to be able to stop any abuse related to it. If the DNS points to cloudflare, if the content to the rest of the world looks and feels like it comes from Cloudflare, then you're responsible for the content whether you consider yourself a "hosting provider" or not. Providing bullet-proof hosting to scammers, spammers, etc. and then ignoring abuse reports and throwing their hands up in the air because it's not their content has left a pretty terrible impression of Cloudflare to me.
I don't think you've tried to report abuse to CloudFlare before, have you? Your analogy is actually further off. CloudFlare IS aware of the abuse and illegal activity. They DO condone it through their inaction. They claim since they aren't the actual source of the content, they don't have to do anything about it, effectively letting the criminals and scammers continue their abuse behind their shield. They have all the capability in the world to respond to valid abuse complaints, and actually stop the abuse, but they actively choose to allow it.
Known abuse happens through their service, and they shield the offending party. You like all of those Viagra spam emails? You like the scams run against vulnerable people? That's not net neutrality. If CloudFlare was an above-board player they would take steps to stop this abuse traversing their services when they are brought to their attention. Instead, they know about the abuse and give the big middle finger to those who report it to them.
I agree with you. CloudFlare is infuriating to attempt to work with if you're trying to stop abuse. It remains a haven for bullet-proof hosting for all sorts of abuse. Need to run a spam campaign? Put your target site behind CloudFlare, they're happy to help you keep it up and running!
