Cloudflare

Here's some information about Cloudflare that is popping up everywhere on the Internet nowadays asking everyone to verify if they're human. I asked Gemini the following simple question:

What is Cloudflare and why is it popping up everyone?

The Invisible Force Shielding Much of the Internet: What is Cloudflare and Why Is It Everywhere?

If you've spent any time on the internet, you've almost certainly used Cloudflare's services without even realizing it. The company has become a ubiquitous, often invisible, force in the online world, and its logo is increasingly "popping up" as it plays a more direct role in user verification and security. But what exactly is Cloudflare, and why has it become so widespread?

In essence, Cloudflare is a company that provides a suite of services designed to make websites and applications faster, more secure, and more reliable. It acts as an intermediary between a user and the website's server, a position that allows it to offer a range of powerful benefits.

At its core, Cloudflare's most well-known service is its Content Delivery Network (CDN). Imagine a website's server is located in San Francisco. For a user in London to load that website, the data has to travel a long distance, which can lead to slower loading times. Cloudflare solves this by caching copies of the website's content on its own global network of servers. When the London user visits the site, they are served the content from a nearby Cloudflare server, resulting in a significantly faster experience.

However, speed is only part of the equation. The other major reason for Cloudflare's explosive growth is its robust security offerings. By sitting between the user and the server, Cloudflare can filter out malicious traffic before it ever reaches the website. This includes:

• DDoS Mitigation: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks attempt to overwhelm a website with a flood of traffic, making it unavailable to legitimate users. Cloudflare's massive network can absorb these attacks, acting as a shield for the website.

• Web Application Firewall (WAF): This service protects against common web vulnerabilities and malicious bots that try to exploit security holes in a website's code.

• Secure DNS: Cloudflare offers a fast and private Domain Name System (DNS) service, which is like the phonebook of the internet, translating domain names (like google.com) into IP addresses that computers can understand.

The "Popping Up" Phenomenon: Ease of Use and a Compelling Free Tier

So, why does it seem like Cloudflare is suddenly everywhere? The answer lies in a combination of its effectiveness, ease of implementation, and a particularly attractive business model.

For website owners, setting up Cloudflare is remarkably simple. It often involves a straightforward change to a website's DNS settings, a process that can be completed in minutes. This accessibility has made it a go-to solution for everyone from individual bloggers to large corporations.

Perhaps the most significant driver of its adoption is its generous free tier. Cloudflare offers a substantial suite of its services, including its CDN and basic DDoS protection, completely free of charge. This has made it an incredibly appealing option for small to medium-sized websites that might not have the budget for expensive security and performance solutions. As these websites grow, they may then choose to upgrade to Cloudflare's paid plans for more advanced features.

The increasing appearance of the Cloudflare logo, often in the form of a security check or a "waiting room" page, is a direct result of its security measures at work. When Cloudflare detects suspicious traffic or when a website is under heavy load, it may present a challenge to the user to verify they are human and not a bot. This is a visible manifestation of the protection it provides behind the scenes.

In conclusion, Cloudflare's pervasiveness is a testament to its success in addressing some of the most fundamental challenges of the modern internet: the need for speed, security, and reliability. By offering a powerful and often free solution that is easy to implement, Cloudflare has become an integral part of the infrastructure for a vast portion of the web, quietly working in the background to make your online experience faster and safer.

Your response highlights the positive aspects of Cloudflare, What about the negative aspects such as too much centralized control over Internet traffic that can be used for censorship and surveillance.

 You've raised an excellent and critical point. While Cloudflare offers significant benefits in performance and security, its immense and growing influence raises legitimate concerns about the centralization of the internet. This concentration of power in a single entity creates potential downsides that are crucial to consider.

Here's a breakdown of the negative aspects you've highlighted:

Centralized Control and Censorship

This is perhaps the most significant concern. Because so much of the world's web traffic flows through Cloudflare's network, the company is in a powerful position to control what content is and isn't accessible.

• De-platforming Power: Cloudflare has the technical ability to effectively remove a website from the internet by denying it their protection and CDN services. Without Cloudflare, a site could be vulnerable to DDoS attacks that would render it inaccessible. They have used this power in the past, most notably by dropping services for the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer and the controversial forum 8chan. While many supported these decisions, it set a precedent for a private company, rather than a legal or governmental body, to make decisions about what speech is permissible online.

• Pressure from Governments and Corporations: As a central point of control, Cloudflare becomes a prime target for takedown requests from governments and corporations. Instead of having to go after individual hosting providers, a government seeking to censor content can exert pressure on Cloudflare to block it. This creates a potential for widespread censorship that is both efficient and opaque.

• Lack of Transparency and Due Process: When Cloudflare decides to terminate services, there is no formal appeals process or public oversight. These decisions are made internally, raising questions about accountability and the criteria used to make them.

Surveillance and Privacy

To provide its services, Cloudflare must be able to inspect the traffic that passes through its network. This creates potential privacy concerns:

• A "Man-in-the-Middle": For many of its services to function, especially its Web Application Firewall (WAF), Cloudflare must decrypt SSL/TLS traffic. This means that for a brief period, the unencrypted data of users is visible to Cloudflare before it is re-encrypted and sent to the website's server. While Cloudflare has a strong privacy policy and has not been shown to be misusing this data, the potential for surveillance exists. This requires a significant level of trust in the company.

• Data Collection: Cloudflare collects vast amounts of data about internet traffic patterns, which is used to improve its services and identify security threats. While this is generally beneficial, it also means that a single company has an unprecedented view of global internet activity. The Snowden revelations demonstrated how intelligence agencies can leverage centralized services for surveillance, and Cloudflare's position makes it a valuable target for such efforts.

Single Point of Failure

The internet was designed to be a decentralized network, resilient to the failure of any single component. The increasing reliance on Cloudflare introduces a significant single point of failure.

• Outages Have a Massive Impact: When Cloudflare experiences an outage, a significant portion of the internet can become inaccessible. This has happened on several occasions, demonstrating the fragility that comes with such centralization. A misconfiguration or technical error at Cloudflare can have a ripple effect across the web, taking down countless websites and services simultaneously.

• Monoculture Risk: In cybersecurity, a "monoculture" refers to a situation where a large number of systems use the same software or infrastructure. This is risky because a single vulnerability could be exploited to attack a vast number of targets at once. If a critical vulnerability were to be discovered in Cloudflare's systems, it could have catastrophic consequences for the internet.

In conclusion, while Cloudflare provides valuable services that have made the internet faster and more secure for many, its rise has come at the cost of increased centralization. This creates a tension between the convenience and security offered by a single, powerful provider and the principles of a free, open, and resilient internet. The concerns you've raised about censorship, surveillance, and single points of failure are valid and are at the heart of an ongoing debate about the future architecture of the internet.

Can you tell me about the history of Cloudflare, how it evolved into the Behemoth that it is today and who are the people behind its development. Does the company have a geographical location?

 From a simple idea to track email spammers to becoming a foundational piece of the modern internet, the story of Cloudflare is a tale of rapid evolution, visionary leadership, and strategic growth. Today, the company stands as a behemoth in web performance and security, its influence touching a significant portion of all internet traffic.

The Genesis: Project Honey Pot

The origins of Cloudflare can be traced back to 2004 with a project called Project Honey Pot. Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway created this open-source project with a simple goal: to track the origins of email spam. Websites could embed a piece of code that would create "honeypots" – decoy email addresses designed to lure and identify spam bots. The project was a success, crowdsourcing a vast amount of data on online threats.

However, the users of Project Honey Pot wanted more. They didn't just want to track the "bad guys"; they wanted to stop them. This user feedback planted the seed for what would become Cloudflare.

The Harvard Connection and the Birth of Cloudflare

In 2009, while studying for his MBA at Harvard Business School, Matthew Prince met Michelle Zatlyn. He introduced her to Project Honey Pot and the idea of taking it to the next level. Together, they, along with Lee Holloway, developed a business plan for a service that wouldn't just track internet threats but actively block them while also making websites faster.

They initially called it "Project Web Wall," but a friend's suggestion of a "firewall in the cloud" led to the name Cloudflare. The business plan won the prestigious Harvard Business School Business Plan Competition in 2009, providing them with early validation and momentum. The trio then moved to California to build out the first prototype.

Cloudflare officially launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September 2010, and its growth since has been nothing short of meteoric.

Evolution into a Behemoth

Cloudflare's evolution from a startup to an internet giant can be attributed to several key factors:

• A Compelling Freemium Model: From the outset, Cloudflare offered a generous free tier of its services. This allowed website owners of all sizes, from individual bloggers to small businesses, to access powerful security and performance tools that were previously only available to large enterprises. This strategy led to massive user adoption and built a vast network.

• Expansion of Services: Cloudflare began with a focus on its Content Delivery Network (CDN) for speed and its Web Application Firewall (WAF) for security. Over the years, it has relentlessly expanded its product suite to include:

  • DDoS Mitigation: Becoming a world leader in protecting websites from crippling denial-of-service attacks.

  • DNS Services: Offering one of the fastest and most privacy-focused public DNS resolvers (1.1.1.1).

  • Serverless Computing: With Cloudflare Workers, they allow developers to run code directly on their edge network, close to the user, which has opened up new possibilities for application development.

  • Zero Trust Security: With Cloudflare for Teams, they have moved into the corporate security space, offering solutions to secure a company's internal applications and employee access in a remote-first world.

• Going Public: Cloudflare's growth and market position culminated in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on September 13, 2019. The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "NET," a nod to its foundational role in the internet's infrastructure. The IPO was a major success and provided the capital for further global expansion and product development.

The People Behind the Development

The driving force behind Cloudflare's success has been its three co-founders:

• Matthew Prince (CEO): With a background in computer science and law, Prince has been the public face of Cloudflare and its chief strategist. His vision has guided the company's expansion from a simple security service to a comprehensive internet infrastructure platform.

• Michelle Zatlyn (President & COO): Zatlyn's business acumen, honed at Harvard Business School, has been instrumental in Cloudflare's commercial success. She has overseen the company's operations, go-to-market strategy, and has been a key figure in building its global presence.

• Lee Holloway (Lead Engineer): Holloway was the technical genius behind the initial Cloudflare prototype. He built the core architecture that allowed the company to scale its services to millions of users.

While these three were the founders, the company's growth into a behemoth has been supported by a large and growing team of engineers, security experts, and business professionals.

Geographical Location

Cloudflare is a truly global company, both in its operations and its physical presence.

• Headquarters: The company's official headquarters is located in San Francisco, California, USA.

• Global Offices: To support its vast network and global customer base, Cloudflare has established offices in numerous cities around the world, including:

  • North America: Austin, Champaign, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and more in the US.

  • Europe: London, Lisbon, Munich, and Paris.

  • Asia-Pacific: Singapore, Sydney (Australia), Tokyo, Beijing, and Bengaluru.

This distributed presence allows Cloudflare to maintain its global network of data centers, which are the backbone of its services, ensuring low-latency content delivery and security for users everywhere.

The State of Play

It's early August and so far this year I've made FOUR posts compared to over NINETY on my Mathematics blogging platform. The reason is that I enjoy creating posts on the latter blog whereas blogging on the former is depressing. There's nothing positive or optimistic to report upon. What were my four posts this year about? Let's reflect:

ORGAN DONATION: I made a post on this topic because I was suddenly struck by the absurdity of trusting the medical mafia to decide when organs should be harvested from a living person. Yes, the person from whom organs are extracted must be ALIVE, though deemed to be "brain dead", whatever that means. That I should only have really woken up to this scam at the age of 76 is a sad reflection on how asleep I've been all my life. Organ harvesting is an industry and even the organs of elderly people can still be valuable. There is a clear financial incentive to declare a person brain dead whether they are young or old. If Covid taught us anything, it's that the medical mafia is quite happy to kill people en masse for profit.

The majority of humanity still trust blindly in the decrees of their medical overlords. Many of those who don't had hoped that Robert Kennedy would expose the evils of the medical cartel but he is looking more and more like "controlled opposition" whose purpose is to channel and corral the righteous indignation of the dissidents. Outside the USA, there are not even any such false messiahs to offer false hope. There is only consensus and conformity. In the end, there'll be cosmetic changes but nothing will really change. The medical monolith will remain. That's depressing and that's why I usually post very little on medical topics unless they relate to me personally (and in that case I used my Staying Healthy blog). One way or another the medical mafia will be willingly assist in the coming cull of humanity and most humans will willingly line up for it. The elderly, like myself, are will be especially targetted and so extra vigilance will be required to stay alive.

THE RAD GROUP: this post focused initally on just one organisation but it's only one of many that Israel has used to infiltrate the infrastructure of the United States in particular and the world in general. No country cannot move against them even if it wanted to. Generally they don't because their political leaders who are seemingly in charge are too compromised or gutless to take any action. The "kill switch" is ready for those countries, like Spain recently, who displease Israel even in relatively minor ways. The likelihood is slight that in the future any country will seriously try to root out Israeli penetration of its critical infrastructure. 

WHAT'S GOING ON? In this post I pondered the effect that Trump's reelection would have on the so-called multipolar world order. In the multipolar world order scenario, the United States would withdraw into its own zone of influence (North and South America) and allow the other "poles" to emerge and dominate their own zones of influence. Alternatively, is the old WASP elite asserting itself and ensuring that the world remains unipolar with the United States as the undisputed pole. It's too early to say but I suspect that either way Israel will thrive as the rest of the world withers and dies. The killbots and murder drones will take over and they will be directed as the GOYIM.

ZOG: the acronym stands for Zionist Controlled Government and the post affirms that it would seem the USA remains such a government after the reelection of Trump. The acronym applies to many other countries, even those that apparently condemn Zionism and its current focus: Israel. Worldwide, the push is on to equate opposition to the Israeli government in particular and to Zionism in general with hostility to Jews, even though many Jews themselves are critical of both. In the twentieth century, the Zionist dream became a reality and Israel has been a plague on the world ever since.

An Internet search shows ZOG to be a friendly dragon and any attempt to use it in the sense of the previously mentioned acronym is firmly labelled "hate speech". What sort of twisted brain believes that the Zionists have take over the governments of the world? Such thoughts, if expressed openly, will not gain you points in the coming social credit scoring system. I pity the younger generation who will grow up under such a system and I'm glad that I will be exiting soon enough. However, it won't bother them all that much because to them ZOG will be the friendly dragon and they will not have deviant thoughts of any kind. To I have anything to add. No.

Organ Donation

Organ donation. Growing up, it was one of those things that I never much thought about. It seemed like the right thing to do. After all, if you were "brain dead" then why not donate your organs to someone who needed them. But what does it mean to be "brain dead" and who decides if you are "brain dead". 

For years the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of harvesting the organs of prisoners on death row. Now organ harvesting has a different ring to it than organ donation. Given the value of a still beating heart and other organs from a living person, the probability is that organ harvesting is a world-wide phenomenon. Here is a disturbing tweet that I came across:

There is NO such thing as brainstem death.

You can’t take a transplantable organ from a cadaver.

You must be ALIVE.

The best donors? ventilated, heart still beating.

This is NOT donation.

This is harvesting.

Babies in the UK are now tested for 60+ genetic conditions at birth.

Those labelled terminal or even with  “life-limiting” conditions are declared donors! 

When you call 999, NORS -National organ retrieval service - already circling like vultures…Air ambulance…team on standby.

Paramedics will hit you with 1mg adrenaline every 3 mins via intraosseous gun (PARAMEDIC-2/3).

To save you? They may think so, but the studies reveal 2.7% benefit 97.3% death!!

It will finish you.

It destroys the brain.

Declares you “brainstem dead.”

Organs prepped. Team moves in.

But they can retrieve without that declaration calling it circulatory death!! 

Matt Hancock’s signature is all over the UK plan to become the global leaders of organ supply and for the entire Commonwealth and beyond.

Donors mainly ‘White’ 

Everyone’s an organ donor now.

Even if you opt out, your family will be subjected to the trained emotive rhetoric and shown coercive videos at your deathbed… “they will help so many….”🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑

This is eugenics.

This is state-sponsored execution.

This is profit per organ.

And they call it “care.”

Given that the medical mafia were happily murdering people for profit in hospitals during Covid, it's not surprising that they would not shy away from murdering people for their organs. I'm reminded of that movie "Extreme Measures" from 1996 starring Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant with the chilling "NOT ALL SURGERY IS INTENDED TO CURE".

There's no worry that hospitals will be interested in harvesting my old organs but then again this article claims that old people's organs are still valuable. The idea of taking someone's organs and transplanting them into another person is creepy but then again I don't need any organs (as yet), It's up to each individual to sign up as an organ donor but, if more people read the above tweet, their likelihood of doing so would be much reduced.

I just recently watched an old 1978 movie called "Coma" that deals with organ harvesting. It was available on Rumble.

The RAD Group

To quote from Brendon O'Connell yet again:

Israeli companies control ALL critical infrastructure world-wide. 

Until you understand that, you will never understand.

In this context, he makes particular mention of the RAD group and in this post I'd like to delve into this organisation. I'll use Google's Deep Research to generate a report based on the following prompt:

What can you tell me about the RAD group and its connection with the deceased Zohar Zisapel?

I'm certainly did NOT mention the group's suspected control of critical infrastructure worldwide given Gemini's response to my ZOG enquiry. Here is a link to the report on Google Docs. I'll include some quotes from the report below:

Born in Tel Aviv on February 15, 1949, Zohar Zisapel was one of three children to Polish immigrant parents who operated a shoe store on Herzl Street, a significant commercial artery in the city at the time. His academic journey led him to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he earned both a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in electrical engineering. Furthering his education, he later obtained an MBA from Tel Aviv University. To help finance his studies, Zisapel worked in his spare time supplying lighting to Tel Aviv discos.

My comment: he was thus only slightly older than me.  

Following his undergraduate studies at the Technion, Zisapel served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). His professional career then led him to the Electronic Research Department of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, where he steadily rose through the ranks to become its head. His significant contributions in this role were recognized with the prestigious Israel Defense Prize in 1979, a testament to his early technical acumen and leadership capabilities.

My comment: this clearly links him to Talpiot program and Unit 8200 (or their equivalents back in the day.

The installed base of RAD's products exceeds 15,000,000 units. Key customers include over 150 telecommunications carriers and service providers, as well as numerous public transportation systems, power utilities, government agencies, homeland security organizations, and educational institutions.

 My comment: this gives some idea of the extent of the company's global penetration.

Zohar Zisapel is widely and fittingly known by the moniker "Father of Israel's high-tech industry". This title reflects his profound and foundational impact on the development and growth of Israel's high-tech sector. His and Yehuda's "extensive contribution to Israel's high-tech industry" was consistently recognized through numerous prestigious awards, including the "Captains of the Industry" award presented by then-President Reuven Rivlin. This recognition is a direct consequence of his broader engagement, not just his company's success, cementing his role as an ecosystem builder.

My comment: he is clearly a much revered figure in his country of birth. 

To quote yet again from the report:

... the group's extensive global reach and substantial installed base of products reflect the successful execution of the strategic principles he helped establish, demonstrating the robustness and foresight of his initial designs.

Zisapel's setting up of multiple loosely affliliated companies helped dilute the impression that RAD was a behemoth like Google, Microsoft or Apple. In fact, how many people have actually heard of the RAD Group and its founder? Whereas Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and others have become household names, this is certainly not the case for Zohar Zisapel.

This report that Gemini Deep Research created does nothing to directly support the contention that "Israeli companies control ALL critical infrastructure world-wide" but it's clear that RAD and other Israeli companies with their "extensive global reach" can exert that sort of control should they wish to do so. As Bibi says "cyber is the real domain of power" and the question is to what extent can the systems that these companies control be compromised by hackers. We hear about Chinese and Russian hackers but seldom Israeli hackers. The inevitable backdoors and compromised security built into the hardware and software installed world-wide by these Israeli companies are likely to be best known to personnel within Israel's Unit 8200.

Unit 8200 serves the interests of Israel and its personnel will do whatever they are instructed to do by "the people at the top". If that includes sabotaging a country's infrastructure because its Government has attracted Israel's displeasure then so be it. This media article describes the Israeli irritation at Spain's cancellation of a weapon's deal:

Israel’s Foreign Ministry harshly criticized the Spanish government Thursday for canceling a controversial €6.6 million deal involving the purchase of 15 million bullets from an Israeli company.

“Israel strongly condemns the Spanish government’s decision to unilaterally break a contract signed with the company IMI Systems,” a spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry told Spanish daily El País.

“The Spanish government is sacrificing security considerations for political purposes and continues to be on the wrong side of history against the Jewish state that is defending itself from terrorist attacks on seven fronts,” the spokesperson added.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Thursday ordered Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska to unilaterally terminate the arms agreement with the Israeli firm.

Critics, both within and outside the government, saw the deal as contradicting Spain’s vocal condemnation of Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, where the death toll has reportedly surpassed 50,000.

Spain has been among the most outspoken European critics of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, and has enforced an embargo on arms trade with Israel since 2023.

Cancellation of the munitions contract has caused political turmoil within Sánchez’s coalition in recent days, after Spanish media reported the deal was moving forward despite the government’s announcement to the contrary.

“The important thing today is that it is finally rescinded, and that the government of Spain does not do business with a genocidal government, as in this case it is the one massacring the Palestinian people,” said Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz, who heads junior coalition partner Sumar, in announcing the contract’s cancellation Thursday.

A massive power outage hit Spain shortly after this statement was issued. Coincidence? I'd say not and, even though the amount of money involved was "small change" by weapon sale's standards, a clear point was made that Spain and most other countries around the world took instant note of. It was a reminder to not piss Bibi off.