OT: Question for computer experts

[RocketDawg]

For the past few days, I've gotten a message that says "DDOS protection by Cloudflare", something about 'checking the browser'. After a couple of seconds it goes ahead and loads whatever site I'm going to, but I was wondering what's going on. I just updaged to a new version of iOS to 10.11.6 a few days ago too, which might be related, and that included a new version of Safari (10.1).

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Cloudflare is sort of a hosting provider proxy. When you connect to a website, normally your computer looks up the IP address for the website and then goes to it. Cloudflare sits in the middle, meaning that when you look up the website, you connect to Cloudflare. They send your browser a short math problem to solve and check the answer. If it's correct, they connect you to the actual website you're going to and all is well. Doing this slows down distributed denial of service attacks since any attacker would all have to solve the challenge before trying to connect again. It also means Cloudflare's servers are handling the attack.

Not trying to advertise for them, just explaining what they do in a nutshell.

 

[RocketDawg]

Cloudflare is sort of a hosting provider proxy. When you connect to a website, normally your computer looks up the IP address for the website and then goes to it. Cloudflare sits in the middle, meaning that when you look up the website, you connect to Cloudflare. They send your browser a short math problem to solve and check the answer. If it's correct, they connect you to the actual website you're going to and all is well. Doing this slows down distributed denial of service attacks since any attacker would all have to solve the challenge before trying to connect again. It also means Cloudflare's servers are handling the attack.

Not trying to advertise for them, just explaining what they do in a nutshell.

So ... is that a good thing? Thanks.

 

[57stratdawg]

 

[MSUDawg25]

It's a service to protect the sites against attacks. Sometimes it causes a delay and you get that page. Especially if the site is under heavy traffic. Why you are seeing an uptick in them recently, I have no idea. Now that you mention it, seems like I have seen it more often than usual in the last couple of days. Maybe it's time to go outside.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

No. They've hacked your CompuServe account by now and will destroy your internets.

 

[SwampDawg]

I feel your pain Rocket. I have gotten so paranoid about hackers when I get something like Cloudflare popping up or an invitation to update something I go bonkers. Is this a good thing? Is it a virus? Is it the boys in Brazil?