In early March Fernando Arancón, director of The world orderHe noticed that his website ceased to be inaccessible. “At first the web fell and we didn’t know why,” he tells us. They soon knew the reason. The culprit was LaLigawho was ordering Mass and indiscriminate blockages of IPS of Cloudflare. They, like many other businesses based on online sites and platforms, use Cloudflare services to distribute their contents efficiently but also to protect themselves from bots attacks. Reputational damage matters, and much That, however, began to condemn them: “Every time there was an important game, the web fell”Although he points out that he did not do it for all users, logically because there were operators who did not apply those blockages so drastically. From that moment on, Arancón explains that “there are weeks in which we have four days the fallen website in the most traffic hours.” They especially notice it on weekends, but also when there are Champions. Fortunately for them the impact is somewhat less than that it might think because “we do not have many advertising income, we rely on the subscription model”, but still that impact exists. “We cannot quantify the impact,” he explained to us, because there is no easy way to do it and measure how many subscriptions have not been completed because they do not have the website available, but It is evident that the impact exists and “it is embedded in the windows in which these great matches are broadcast.” But what they received, especially at the beginning, were complaints. Their subscribers contacted them to launch messages of the type “go service, I pay for this?”, What of course worried those responsible for this medium. “At first we had to do an important exercise to explain to the audience what was happening.” That effort had its result, because “people have ended up understanding.” 30% less traffic The problem affects many more legitimate businesses. He told us about it Uxío Fraga (@Uxio_ntc), founder and CEO of Bitcoin materiala company that has created a bitcoin purse. As in the case of Arancón, Fraga explained that they began to notice the cuts from the beginning, in March: “It was very clear that something happened.” Initially they thought it was a passenger problem. “We thought it would be solved, that Cloudflare would take action,” but little by little they realized that the problem was not cloudflare, but rather of LaLiga and the operators, which not only did not maintain the IPS blocks, but that they were increasing them. For Bitcoin material, which lives from the sales of its Bitcoin wallets, the impact has been enormous. “In weekends, traffic falls 30%”stood out, and that logically affects access to a store on which they depend and in which they cannot sell their products if the web is not accessible. As in other types of business, the problem for Fraga is that there are no easy ways to solve the problem. Cloudflare has become a giant that is especially useful when avoiding attacks on service denial (DDOS) and other types of attacks made with bots. They are considering trying to Google CDN, but doing so is a technical challenge and they don’t know if that can be the solution. Meanwhile, yes, Fraga showed his concern about the situation: “That a judge has given white letter to this is an aberration“Fortunately, your user and customer community is very faithful and have not received complaints although the issue is commented, but once again the impact is there and there is little that those affected, whether companies or not, can do. They tell thunder. This well -known company develops products oriented to the NAS segment, but these days it is also noticing the impact of the problem. There are several users who have complained about the impossibility of using the products properly, and the firm itself ended up denouncing the problem and trying to explain to users what was happening. There are many users trying to inform the general public with Complaints and comments at X When these blockages are produced. In LaLiga not only do they seem to have reinforced their attacks, but they are legally threatening Cloudflare customers that share IPS with IPTV service websites that are used to watch football illegitimately. The operators, meanwhile, continue to respond to customer complaints explaining that the blockages do not depend on them, and that they are obliged to meet the requirements of justice. A justice that already He dismissed the Amparo resources presented by rootedcon and cloudflare separately and still does not raise solutions. The legal process, now in the hands of the consitional courtit can be extended remarkably. The solution to the problem for those affected is too risky: if they deactivate cloudflare on their platforms They are exposed to cyber attacks They can end up being even more harmful to their businesses, so they are usually with their hands tied. For users, yes, The solution is very simple: It is enough to use a VPN – even one free – to geolocate its IP simulated in another country and thus skip these blockages, which only affect Spanish IPS shared in Cloudflare. In Xataka | “Every time there is football, the website falls”: the collateral effects of LaLiga blockages in thousands of users
