Today, like the past few days, we have had some downtime. Apparently some script kids are enjoying themselves by targeting our server (and others). Sorry for the inconvenience.
Most of these ‘attacks’ are targeted at the database, but some are more ddos-like and can be mitigated by using a CDN. Some other Lemmy servers are using Cloudflare, so we know that works. Therefore we have chosen Cloudflare as CDN / DDOS protection platform for now. We will look into other options, but we needed something to be implemented asap.
For the other attacks, we are using them to investigate and implement measures like rate limiting etc.
It’s an interesting question but the knee jerk reaction towards decentralization isn’t always a silver bullet. Bitcoin always screamed that concept while ignoring the role of clearinghouses. Decentralization can actually compound the issue. Not to dispel the solution but good to keep these things in mind.
It isn’t a silver bullet but in this case it is particularly suitable. I mean, the architecture of CDN is decentralised, but all these servers are controlled by ONE company. So why not leave the whole task to an independent network?