[tor-talk] Cloudflare and BBC issues

[Rick]

The two issues seem related to me. Maybe not. I'm just gonna add some 
data points.

For me it's torrentfreak.com. Been going there for years via Tor 
following the sharing culture (movement? insurrection?). Been doing that 
since Lessig's 'Remix' days. The Cloudflare captcha has been a 
show-stopper for two weeks now. The translation from Dutch says it would 
be "easier next time with JS enabled". It should say "possible ...". 
Lousy translation, eh?
I've sent TF an email asking for comment. Even suggested they join the 
conversation here. I suspect that a large part of their hits are via Tor 
so I expect they're feeling the impact. I'm pretty sure their model is 
less about metadata and more about hits. What's interesting too is that 
they don't enable torrenting, they just cover the culture. Journalism.
The wrinkle is that I'm also an exit relay (US, 16 months, from home). I 
can waltz right into TF in the clear from this IPa (JS disabled). So it 
appears that they're not targeting exit addresses, they're targeting the 
browser itself. Apparently you can arrive any way you like, but you've 
gotta have ID.

As for the BBC, I can get to both sites (domestic and international, JS 
disabled) with no problems, Tor or not. I thought I might hit something 
like the Cloudflare thing but not so. Looks like maybe the "BBC-not" 
experience was custom built for you guys on the continent. Best of luck 
with that. (BTW: I don't use BBC so I just hit the home pages.)

Rick