Today, like the past few days, we have had some downtime. Apparently some script kids are enjoying themselves by targeting our server (and others). Sorry for the inconvenience.
Most of these ‘attacks’ are targeted at the database, but some are more ddos-like and can be mitigated by using a CDN. Some other Lemmy servers are using Cloudflare, so we know that works. Therefore we have chosen Cloudflare as CDN / DDOS protection platform for now. We will look into other options, but we needed something to be implemented asap.
For the other attacks, we are using them to investigate and implement measures like rate limiting etc.
Well, it’s not without evidence, we have plenty of that through the years. Unfortunately, we also don’t have any real alternatives either, so the choice is take the DDoS or get Cloudflare. Not much of a choice.
There are alternatives. Akamai has a similar product. It’s not free, but it works. Also doesn’t require all traffic to go through them all the time, you can repoint your traffic at them on the fly and have them mitigate by scrubbing the unwanted traffic until the attack ends and then switch back, and this can be automated. My ISP at work uses this as they have large swaths of public IP address space to protect for vulnerable members.
Honestly, if anything, Cloudflare uses their power too little. Where they allow just about anyone to use their services unless they get a complaint from the government. You can read here about how they don’t shut down websites from their services unless they are breaking the law. I would assume that abusing market power is something like disallowing services because they criticize Cloudflare or some other arbitrary reason. I think that a good example of abusing your market share is Amazon where they forced merchants to keep their prices on other stores higher. But don’t take my word for it, you can read all about it here.