Update 1: This is an issue with cloudflare, we are having issues with the account that hosts the site, we are contacting cloudflare support about the issue.
Update 2: we have switched s3 providers and images should be working again, older images may be missing, we will have to do a merge with the old s3 storage backup into the new provider, we plan to do this soon, but all new images will work as expected, sorry for the issues and thanks for your patience and kindness while we were working on the fix
Calling it a proxy doesn’t mean it is one.
We have no way of knowing what’s behind https://lemmynsfw.com/api/v3/image_proxy. All we have is the admins’ word that it is one (wait, no, not even that, since they’ve never told us about it to start with).
All we know is that our urls are being hijacked (and that this is causing them not to work, and that the reason the devs — which are known to be untrustworthy — tried to justify this option with doesn’t hold water) without anyone asking us first or warning us…
If I care about privacy I’ll take care of that. I’ll upload my images somewhere I trust or, better yet, control. If I want a proxy or CDN it’ll be on my terms.
Even supposing it is a proxy, does it have a cache? Or a CDN? The whole cloudflare kerfuffle seems to suggest it does. How often do they update? If I decide to remove my image from wherever I hosted it, how long will it take for the cache to reflect that?
I don’t know; lemmynsfw never told me, just like they didn’t tell me they were using this alleged proxy and hijacking my urls.
Even if we apply Hanlon’s razor and assume the lemmynsfw admins didn’t know they had this option turned on and the devs just snuck it in by default in an update, the fact that they’ve kept it turned on for days when turning it off would fix the issue for external images makes the ignorance excuse moot.
They know it’s on, they want it on, and they’ve got no intention of telling anyone or asking if we’re fine with it.
This destroys any trust we could have had on them, and makes moot any assurance on their part (if they ever made one, which they have not) that this alleged proxy is benign.
That’s literally what a proxy is. We do know it is because the url is going to the lemmynsfw server. That’s all the proxy has to do to provide privacy. From then on it can literally do whatever, as long as you’re not hitting the third party server directly.
The proxy isn’t to protect images you upload. It’s to protect other people from you. You have so little understanding here it’s laughable. Fuck off.
Well, it’s certainly doing a fantastic job then, isn’t it?
No images, no risk!
What I understand is that I look at posts with external images from before this hijacking was implemented, the images fucking load, I look at later posts going through this proxy, they don’t.
What I understand is that disabling this nonsense would immediately fix the issue, but the admins clearly have no interest in doing that.
What I understand is that after a week of the admins doing nothing to fix this, the realisation that they’re hijacking our urls, and the mutual lack of trust this has caused, this instance is dead.
There’s no point in fixing it at this point. Any reasonable user will have already migrated elsewhere.
Yeah, that’s clearly the message. They should pin it on the frontpage.