Can someone please explain whether Cloudflare blackmailed Canonical?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Was Cloudflare “blackmailing” Canonical?

  • Many commenters say “blackmail”/“extortion” is the wrong framing.
  • Cloudflare did not threaten Canonical; it sold DDoS protection while also providing (free) services to an alleged DDoS-for-hire outfit.
  • Critics call this a “protection racket” in effect: attackers get free protection, victims must pay for defense. Defenders say this is just market reality, not collusion.

Cloudflare’s role hosting DDoS‑for‑hire sites

  • The attackers’ site uses Cloudflare for its marketing/login front end, but there’s no evidence in the thread that Cloudflare infrastructure carried the actual attack traffic.
  • Some argue Cloudflare’s easy, anonymous, free DDoS protection enabled the modern DDoS ecosystem and lets “booters” safely advertise.
  • Others counter that such services would exist anyway on other hosts (GitHub Pages, Telegram, Tor, etc.).

Legal obligations, abuse handling, and liability

  • Several people stress Cloudflare has no obligation to share customer data without subpoenas or court orders.
  • Some report poor experiences with Cloudflare abuse handling, especially for scams and phishing; others report fast and effective takedowns for clearly illegal content.
  • Debate over whether infrastructure providers should bear more liability for enabling attacks or scams, versus relying on traditional law enforcement.

Content neutrality vs content policing

  • One camp insists Cloudflare should host any legal site until forced by lawful order; otherwise Cloudflare becomes a chokepoint “content police.”
  • Another camp says services explicitly selling DDoS-for-hire cross a line and should be dropped under Cloudflare’s own ToS about illegal/harmful use.
  • There is concern that stricter vetting (KYC-style) would destroy anonymity and raise barriers for small users.

Systemic incentives and alternatives

  • Some see DDoS protection as an inherently perverse “protection racket” born from protocol weaknesses and cheap VPS/residential proxies.
  • Proposed alternatives include government/nonprofit DDoS protection or cooperatives, but feasibility is questioned.
  • There’s side discussion that the Ubuntu outage may have been timed to slow patching of a recent kernel exploit; details remain speculative.

Unclear / disputed points

  • Whether the specific Beamed site actually orchestrated the Ubuntu attack is disputed; the article relies on unverified online claims.
  • The extent of Cloudflare’s responsibility or moral culpability remains sharply contested.