June 2014 Summaries

Ryan Lackey, an expert in computer security, started using the internet at a young age and was drawn to its potential for individuals to stand up against large groups or nation states through mathematics. He believes hands-on experience is crucial for learning about computer security, followed by formal education or certifications. In 2014, he joined CloudFlare after his company CryptoSeal was acquired. Lackey appreciates the company's focus on solving difficult problems and its commitment to maintaining a high hiring bar. Before starting CryptoSeal, he worked on various projects such as an electronic cash system, cryptographic software for payment systems companies, and building networks in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. He finds working at CloudFlare more efficient and less stressful compared to running his own startup, allowing him to focus on product and technology while learning from others across the company.

On June 18, 2014, CloudFlare announced its acquisition of CryptoSeal, a company specializing in Trusted Computing and VPN as a service. Founded by Ryan Lackey, an esteemed engineer in the security community, CryptoSeal was funded by Y Combinator and angel investors from the security sector. The merger aims to enhance CloudFlare's mission of building a better internet by leveraging CryptoSeal's VPN technology and Trusted Computing applications for commodity servers. Ryan Lackey will join CloudFlare as a product manager, focusing on new security products that combine CryptoSeal's technology with CloudFlare's expanding network. The CryptoSeal service was retired by June 30, 2014.

On June 16, 2014, Team Italy exited the data center after racking and cabling servers in style. The country is known for many great things such as the Azzurri, Colosseum, fountains of Florence, canals of Venice, Alps, Lamborghini, pizza, pasta, Michelangelo, da Vinci, opera, fashion, and colorful gestures. Italy also houses some of the world's largest companies like Luxottica Group, Finmeccanica, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Bulgari, Barilla, Chicco, Lamborghini, Pirelli, and Ferrero. CloudFlare is proud to add Italy's latest data center to the list. The Italian Presidency has joined over 40 other national governments in using CloudFlare to keep their online presences fast and safe. With the inauguration of this new data center in Milan, Italy now has access to improved internet services. In addition to the Milan data center, CloudFlare is launching four more data centers in countries with over 200 million internet users.

On June 13, 2014, CloudFlare launched its 25th data center in Madrid, Spain, aiming to provide faster internet for the country's 34 million fútbol-loving Internet users. This comes as a response to Spain's loss in the World Cup against The Netherlands. With this addition, CloudFlare now has nine data centers in Europe, including Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Vienna, Prague, Stockholm, Warsaw, and Madrid.

On June 10th, UK domain registry Nominet introduced second-level domain namespace to the public, allowing anyone to register a .uk domain. Prior to this, only third-level domains like .co.uk and .org.uk were available. Within the first 24 hours of availability, 50,000 .uk domains were registered. Businesses and personal users with existing .co.uk addresses can also register the shorter .uk version for the next five years without fear of losing their domain to someone else. CloudFlare now fully supports .uk domains, allowing its users to set them up through their accounts in the usual way.

On June 12, 2014, CloudFlare launched Project Galileo, aimed at protecting free speech on the web using its advanced anti-DDoS resources. The project is supported by seventeen public interest organizations that help identify vulnerable websites in need of protection. Inspired by Galileo Galilei's groundbreaking discoveries and subsequent persecution for challenging established beliefs, Project Galileo seeks to ensure that politically sensitive or "heretical" websites can continue to share their ideas without fear of suppression. Interested public interest organizations can visit www.projectgalileo.org to learn more about the initiative and how they can contribute.

CloudFlare has launched Project Galileo, a program aimed at protecting free expression online by providing full enterprise-class DDoS attack protection to politically or artistically important sites that are subject to large denial of service attacks. The initiative targets not-for-profit organizations and small commercial entities engaged in news gathering, civil society, or political/artistic speech. CloudFlare is partnering with various civil society organizations to identify at-risk sites that qualify for Project Galileo.

On June 6th, World IPv6 Day is celebrated to promote awareness and adoption of IPv6 protocol. Despite its advantages, only 7% of the world's largest websites are available over IPv6. CloudFlare has been offering full IPv6 support since 2012 and more than 20% of IPv6-enabled sites use their gateway. However, many customers have not enabled it due to legacy software that assumes an IPv4 world. To address this issue, CloudFlare introduced Pseudo IPv4, a feature that adds a HTTP header with a "pseudo" IPv4 address for visitors connecting over IPv6. This enables websites to support IPv6 while their software is being upgraded to fully support it. The Pseudo IPv4 service is available to all CloudFlare customers, including those on the free plan.

On June 5, 2014, the OpenSSL team announced seven vulnerabilities affecting all versions of OpenSSL (0.9.8, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, and 1.0.2). The most severe issue is a potential on-path attack known as CCS Injection (CVE-2014-0224), with more technical details provided by Google's Adam Langley and the original problem reporter. CloudFlare has patched its servers, protecting customers from these vulnerabilities. Users of OpenSSL are advised to upgrade their software or server as soon as possible, as new versions have been released by the OpenSSL team.

On June 5, 2014, Martin J Levy discussed the progress made in IPv6 content delivery since the Internet Society's World IPv6 Day. He highlighted that CloudFlare has been actively providing IPv6 access to all its customers and has recently made it the default setting for new accounts. Around 7% of the top one million websites are accessible using IPv6, with 20% of them being CloudFlare customers. However, some complex sites have faced issues enabling IPv6 due to logfile problems caused by hardcoding IPv4 addresses in their codebase. To address this issue, CloudFlare introduced a pseudo IPv4 address that can be mapped from the real IPv6 address. The company aims to encourage more users to enable IPv6 fully and embrace the new Internet.

On June 4th, 2014, Matthew Prince announced that CloudFlare has been certified as a Level 1 service provider under the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) 2.0 after an independent third-party assessment by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). This achievement is significant for e-commerce sites and those processing credit card transactions using CloudFlare. Additionally, CloudFlare's Web Application Firewall (WAF) helps companies meet PCI requirement 6.6, protecting customer data during online purchases within the CloudFlare network. The company plans to expand its global data center network by adding four new locations in Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Medellín, Colombia; and São Paulo, Brazil.