New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Cloudflare incorrectly banned me – can anyone help?
Ask HN: Cloudflare incorrectly banned me – can anyone help?
5 by throwaway72220 | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, The TLDR; 10 days ago I was banned from Cloudflare allegedly for "phishing". I have never phished, nor used Cloudflare to proxy illegal content. I am a long time HN user but I created a throwaway account to avoid being linked to my employer. 10 days ago I got an email saying my account was suspended for "phishing". I contacted Cloudflare support immediately and within 60 seconds I got a reply saying my account was permanently banned with no further information. I think this was an automated response. I followed up explaining my account had never been used for "phishing" and it hosted a number of small businesses and would they reinstate it. I never got a reply. My downfall must been related to Cloudflare Workers. I used it to create some apps including proxies that modified mainstream news websites. They acted as uBlock + Stylish for locked down computers where I could not install browser extensions. I did not share these with anyone, but I did not secure them with HTTP auth. I didn't think anyone could guess the xyz.abc.workers.dev URLs to access the proxies but automated software must have detected them and flagged them as phishing sites. I was too clever for my own good, but I was not malicious, I did not abuse the Cloudflare platform and I never phished. I just created an application for my own personal use. I do not think any Clouldflare engineer looking at my Worker code would think it was malicious in any way. My account had current billing details and I was a paying customer in the past. Lessons learnt: Don't be clever and security is ALWAYS important. I would like to continue using Cloudflare. I worry I will be banned from their other services. If I was blocked at an IP level, it would be far more devastating than being permanently blocked by Google. If anyone can help me, even just to clear my name, I would very grateful to you.
5 by throwaway72220 | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, The TLDR; 10 days ago I was banned from Cloudflare allegedly for "phishing". I have never phished, nor used Cloudflare to proxy illegal content. I am a long time HN user but I created a throwaway account to avoid being linked to my employer. 10 days ago I got an email saying my account was suspended for "phishing". I contacted Cloudflare support immediately and within 60 seconds I got a reply saying my account was permanently banned with no further information. I think this was an automated response. I followed up explaining my account had never been used for "phishing" and it hosted a number of small businesses and would they reinstate it. I never got a reply. My downfall must been related to Cloudflare Workers. I used it to create some apps including proxies that modified mainstream news websites. They acted as uBlock + Stylish for locked down computers where I could not install browser extensions. I did not share these with anyone, but I did not secure them with HTTP auth. I didn't think anyone could guess the xyz.abc.workers.dev URLs to access the proxies but automated software must have detected them and flagged them as phishing sites. I was too clever for my own good, but I was not malicious, I did not abuse the Cloudflare platform and I never phished. I just created an application for my own personal use. I do not think any Clouldflare engineer looking at my Worker code would think it was malicious in any way. My account had current billing details and I was a paying customer in the past. Lessons learnt: Don't be clever and security is ALWAYS important. I would like to continue using Cloudflare. I worry I will be banned from their other services. If I was blocked at an IP level, it would be far more devastating than being permanently blocked by Google. If anyone can help me, even just to clear my name, I would very grateful to you.
No comments