November 2011 Summaries

The text describes the American tradition of shopping after Thanksgiving and how it has evolved over time. It highlights the website 2011BlackFridayAds.com, which provides information on Black Friday deals from major retailers. The site's creator, Ty Price, used CloudFlare to manage the high traffic during this period. The text also discusses Cyber Monday, the largest online shopping day in the U.S., and how businesses can ensure their websites stay up and running under heavy load using CloudFlare.

On November 24th, 2011, John Roberts from Cloudflare expressed gratitude towards their worldwide community who use their services to make websites faster and safer. They highlighted that they serve a global audience with a global network and remember this every day, not just during holidays. To make their service more accessible, Cloudflare uses the Smartling platform to offer their website in 31 languages. In the few months since starting this community translation effort, customers have translated 20,000 words in 16 languages. They recognized some of the most prolific translators and encouraged others to join by registering at translate.cloudflare.com. The same translation tool is available for other websites on Cloudflare via the Smartling app.

The text introduces a new CloudFlare app called PunchTab that allows site owners to add a free loyalty and reward program for their visitors. Visitors can earn points by regularly visiting the site, commenting, sharing on social media, or performing other custom actions. Rewards include gift cards from top brands or custom incentives created by the site owner. The app is available for free on one domain and can be easily integrated via CloudFlare.

Debugging technical website issues can be challenging due to various factors such as network connections, server issues, and Cloudflare's data centers. To troubleshoot these problems, users should first check if their server is responding by using the curl command on Mac or CURL for Windows/Linux. If there are issues with accessing cPanel or FTP, users can follow specific steps to access them while using Cloudflare. Some scripts on websites may break due to Cloudflare's beta features like Rocket Loader and Auto Minify, which can be adjusted in the settings page. To prevent site issues, ensure that your server or hosting provider has Cloudflare IP ranges allowlisted and install mod_cloudflare for Apache servers. In case of a Cloudflare issue, users should check their server status, make sure Cloudflare's IPs are not blocked, and report the problem with necessary details. Temporarily deactivating Cloudflare can help resolve issues while allowing the team to investigate further.

The United States House of Representatives is considering the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which has been criticized by companies like Google, Facebook, and Mozilla, as well as organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. CloudFlare shares these concerns but also sees a significant risk: SOPA's proposed restrictions could be used to launch a new form of denial-of-service attack that may be difficult to defend against. The current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) outlines procedures for network providers like CloudFlare when receiving copyright complaints, but there has been an increase in abusive DMCA requests from attackers. SOPA could remove the technical requirement for launching a DDoS attack and enable purely legal attacks with carefully crafted letters or forged subpoenas. While acknowledging the need for copyright protections online, new laws like SOPA must be carefully crafted to avoid creating substantial security risks.

On November 15, 2011, Damon Billian announced several updates and new features for CloudFlare. These include an improved and cheaper SSL option for domains, a WordPress plugin update to reflect new IP addresses, added IP address ranges for both IpV4 and IpV6, an updated invoice system, three SSL setting options, a new UK datacenter, and a partnership with Dome9. Upcoming features include redesigned overview pages for 'My Websites' and the CloudFlare 'Settings' page, as well as a new tier of billing service. Users are encouraged to provide suggestions for further improvements.

On November 13, 2011, Cloudflare reached a significant milestone by saving its users 2 petabytes of bandwidth. This is equivalent to the data on the entire Internet Archive in 2006 or one-quarter of the "deep internet" today. The company continues to save almost a gigabyte of data per second, making it an attractive option for those who use platforms like Amazon Web Services and Google AppEngine that charge by the byte. Cloudflare's free service not only makes websites faster but also saves users money on bandwidth costs.

On November 12, 2011, Matthew Prince received an award from Wall Street Journal for CloudFlare as the most innovative Networking & Internet Technology of 2011. The company has experienced significant growth since January 1, with traffic increasing by more than 3,200%. They have saved users over 2 petabytes of bandwidth and are planning to continue expanding in 2012. CloudFlare is currently hiring for new team members.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, discusses the company's policy against paying for reviews or offering free accounts in exchange for promotion. He compares this practice to the "payola" scandals of the 1950s when radio DJs were secretly paid by record companies to play their songs. Instead, Cloudflare offers a full-featured free account to everyone and earns trust through its product quality, leading many users to upgrade over time.

On November 10, 2011, CloudFlare's London (LHR) data center went live, with traffic being routed through it starting at 12:13 GMT. The company is now handling over 1Gbps of traffic through LHR, which previously would have been directed to Amsterdam. London was a highly requested region for support from users and hosting partners alike. This marks the fourth European data center for CloudFlare, joining Amsterdam (AMS), Paris (CDG), and Frankfurt (FRA). The company aims to make the internet fast and safe for everyone globally, with plans to expand its network further in the coming weeks.

Matthew Prince from Cloudflare discusses their constant efforts to improve speed and efficiency in their network operations. They developed KTFS (Key-Value File System), which allows quick updates across the entire network similar to BitTorrent's file distribution method. This has significantly reduced SSL certificate deployment time, making it less than a minute after issuance. Additionally, DNS update times have been decreased from five minutes to under one minute. KTFS is expected to enhance other processes and support Cloudflare's growth in providing a faster, safer internet experience for users.

Cloudflare has made significant improvements to its SSL service, making it now automatically included with every paid account at no additional cost. This development simplifies the process of getting an SSL certificate properly installed on web servers and eliminates the need for users to pick subdomains or wait for vetting emails. The new "flexible" SSL mode encrypts traffic from visitors to Cloudflare's network, protecting them from common types of eavesdropping and attacks. Paid Cloudflare users are automatically set up with this feature, allowing them to enable SSL on their sites easily.