I love cloudflare, but honestly I assumed they WERE the CIA/FBI not just compromised by them. It would be the perfect front company for the government.
If adamgamble's speculation were the case, I'd go to jail for things I'd have illegally signed in our SEC disclosures attesting to the sources of our revenue and any government contracts. Suffice it to say, I like not being in jail. It's really, really hard for public companies to be part of some grand conspiracy for so many different reasons. So… once we went public I kind of thought this silly speculation would end. But guess not.
Beyond that, if you think about it, it's a way better business to run Cloudflare and serve the world than serve some US intelligence entity. That's just per se true. So if that's the case why would we ever do anything that would remotely compromise the trust necessary to, you know, be Cloudflare?
Lastly, here's a funny story. Early in our history one of our investors suggested that we talk to In-Q-Tel. Here's how naive Michelle and I were: we had no idea it was the CIA's venture capital arm. So we showed up in their office on Sand Hill Road. It was weirdly austere compared with other VCs we'd visited. And lots of security cameras. The partner at some point came out and greeted us. As he was walking us back he looked back right before we crossed the threshold back to the inner offices, "You're both American citizens, right?"
"No," Michelle said. "I'm Canadian."
"Oh." the VC said. Then you can't come back here.”
"I'm not going back there without her," I said.
"Ok, well, I guess we'll have to do the meeting in the reception area," decided the In-Q-Tel VC.
We had a very cordial meeting and then left. As we were driving away Michelle said, "Those guys were weird." And that was the end of that. Never talked to In-Q-Tel again.
But maybe it's the Canadian equivalent of the CIA/FBI/NSA we're beholden to??! ;-)
> So… once we went public I kind of thought this silly speculation would end. But guess not.
In fairness, there are quite a number of public companies that turned out to be operating partially as fronts for spying agencies (AT&T is the shining example here). So simply being a public company could not be expected to serve as some kind of proof of independence.
> It's really, really hard for public companies to be part of some grand conspiracy for so many different reasons.
As difficult as it was to keep PRISM and the many other overt and covert arrangements (public, private but leaked, and private but not yet leaked) between backbones, carriers, CDNs, hosting providers, ISPs, etc., and the agencies leveraging them, out of each firm's public filings?
Because evidence is it's not difficult at all, considering the whole of the 30 years since the Internet went commercial.
Hi, kind of hijacking this conversation but as Cloudflare is unfortunately routing the majority of websites I visit I have to ask this:
Can you guarantee my Firefox browser will keep on working on 'the open internet' now Chrome moves towards "Web Environment Integrity" and Safari towards "Private Access Tokens" and Cloudflare is supporting and implementing such technologies on scale?
I intent to not participate in these DRM APIs with my Firefox browser and would like to keep browsing the internet.
Your response really shows a disconnect with the user and what was said
Not many users who encounter your service while trying to connect to a website will know _anything_ about your company, let alone knows its public or read disclosures.
Cloudflare has a public perception and sentiment problem and dismissing it as you have will lead to an inevitably negative outcome.
eastdakota|2 years ago
If adamgamble's speculation were the case, I'd go to jail for things I'd have illegally signed in our SEC disclosures attesting to the sources of our revenue and any government contracts. Suffice it to say, I like not being in jail. It's really, really hard for public companies to be part of some grand conspiracy for so many different reasons. So… once we went public I kind of thought this silly speculation would end. But guess not.
Beyond that, if you think about it, it's a way better business to run Cloudflare and serve the world than serve some US intelligence entity. That's just per se true. So if that's the case why would we ever do anything that would remotely compromise the trust necessary to, you know, be Cloudflare?
Lastly, here's a funny story. Early in our history one of our investors suggested that we talk to In-Q-Tel. Here's how naive Michelle and I were: we had no idea it was the CIA's venture capital arm. So we showed up in their office on Sand Hill Road. It was weirdly austere compared with other VCs we'd visited. And lots of security cameras. The partner at some point came out and greeted us. As he was walking us back he looked back right before we crossed the threshold back to the inner offices, "You're both American citizens, right?"
"No," Michelle said. "I'm Canadian."
"Oh." the VC said. Then you can't come back here.”
"I'm not going back there without her," I said.
"Ok, well, I guess we'll have to do the meeting in the reception area," decided the In-Q-Tel VC.
We had a very cordial meeting and then left. As we were driving away Michelle said, "Those guys were weird." And that was the end of that. Never talked to In-Q-Tel again.
But maybe it's the Canadian equivalent of the CIA/FBI/NSA we're beholden to??! ;-)
JohnFen|2 years ago
In fairness, there are quite a number of public companies that turned out to be operating partially as fronts for spying agencies (AT&T is the shining example here). So simply being a public company could not be expected to serve as some kind of proof of independence.
shapefrog|2 years ago
CIA/FBI/NSA agreements include immunity from prosecution in the US at least. Your problem would be in foreign jurisdictions only.
Terretta|2 years ago
As difficult as it was to keep PRISM and the many other overt and covert arrangements (public, private but leaked, and private but not yet leaked) between backbones, carriers, CDNs, hosting providers, ISPs, etc., and the agencies leveraging them, out of each firm's public filings?
Because evidence is it's not difficult at all, considering the whole of the 30 years since the Internet went commercial.
TechTechTech|2 years ago
Can you guarantee my Firefox browser will keep on working on 'the open internet' now Chrome moves towards "Web Environment Integrity" and Safari towards "Private Access Tokens" and Cloudflare is supporting and implementing such technologies on scale?
I intent to not participate in these DRM APIs with my Firefox browser and would like to keep browsing the internet.
DropInIn|2 years ago
Not many users who encounter your service while trying to connect to a website will know _anything_ about your company, let alone knows its public or read disclosures.
Cloudflare has a public perception and sentiment problem and dismissing it as you have will lead to an inevitably negative outcome.
adamgamble|2 years ago
adamgamble|2 years ago
charcircuit|2 years ago
yencabulator|2 years ago