This weekend problems produced again for many Internet users that failed to access the websites they visit normally. The reason in many cases was the blockade of Cloudflare IPS that several operators carried out due to LaLiga’s demands.
Users reaches. As we explain, the war between these two entities comes from afar, and the worst thing is that they are making paid for sinners. However, some of those righteous are preparing to take action on the matter.
Affected in action. Román Ramírez (@patowc), an expert in cybersecurity and organizer of the RootedCon event, published a message on X (formerly Twitter) last Friday encouraging those affected to contact him. The objective, to ensure that those who had suffered the problems offer evidence of it to be able to collect them and gather enough evidence.
Legal actions in sight. Javier A. Maestre (@javieramastre), which exercises (among other things) as a lawyer for RootedCon, recently explained the legal details of these actions and is part of that effort of Ramírez to clarify what is happening. Both are convinced that LaLiga is in a clear illicit, and that the legal arguments of that organism are not valid.
Freedom of expression. For Ramírez, fundamental rights such as freedom of expression are being violated, “which should not be above economic interests.” Meanwhile, Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, published a message in X accusing Cloudflare of being “perfect complicit” of criminals who, for example, publish child pornography on the Internet. In that message, says Ramírez, Thebes himself explicitly admits that he is causing damage to third parties, something that theoretically should not be able to do LaLiga if he complied with the law.
Shared IPS. The fundamental problem is, as we have already mentioned, that LaLiga requests IP addresses to avoid illegal broadcasts of IPTV football matches. The problem is that in many cases these IPS belong to Cloudflare, but those IPS are shared and if you tomb the IP, you tomb all web sites and services that depend on said IP.
Cloudflare does not collaborate in LaLiga. According to LaLiga, Cloudflare does not collaborate at the closure of the IPTV service of the offenders. However, Ramírez explains that what LaLiga demands is to have “total access to her backend.” Cloudflare knows, of course, the web sites and services that “hang” from the same shared IP, but one of its premises is to hide that information – for that the protcolo ECH is served – as well as protect that information and its customers precisely to avoid cyber attacks and BLOCKS.
The ideal solution. Cloudflare could thus leave only the website or server that is committing the alleged infraction, but that should be dictated by a judge. The current laws allow LaLiga to send a weekly IPS list to block, and from there the operators must block them or would be exposed to the breach of the judicial mandate. Ideally, a judge, knowing IP address and domain or even the SNI (Server Name Indication), demanded the closure of that exclusive service. Thus Cloudflare could disable that access at the request of the judge and not of the head of the property rights of the issuance, which is the one who demands that indiscriminate block and that affects legitimate websites and websites.
Evidence. Those affected who want to provide tests can do so by contacting Román Ramírez via X (@patowc), and writing to the email address info@rootedcon.com. The objective is to collect as many evidence as you can in the next few days to see how hundreds and even thousands of legitimate websites are inaccessible during soccer matches.
And possible demand. With all those data, Ramírez and Maestre hope to build an expert case and report with which to execute a potential demand to LaLiga. The ultimate goal is to raise a complaint with which to apply precautionary measures and that these IPS blocks are suspended.
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