This Wednesday, the 18th, Brazilian users regained access to Twitter/X. This overturns the order from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had mandated the social network’s blockage in the country. Internet providers, responsible for the block, claim that an update to the platform made the restriction harder to enforce.
Elon Musk's Twitter/X started using a service that acts as a "shield" to protect its servers. According to internet providers, one of the companies hired for this protection is Cloudflare, which also provides services to large Brazilian companies, including banks.
By rerouting Twitter/X traffic through new paths, the service creates barriers to blocking access to the social network, even with the court order, say representatives of the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (Abrint).
“X began using new software that no longer relies on the social network's IPs but rather Cloudflare's IPs,” said Basílio Rodríguez Perez, a member of Abrint, to the newspaper *O Globo*. "It's not a simple thing to block. They made a change to make the block much harder."
Additionally, Twitter/X will now use dynamic IPs, meaning that **it is no longer possible to block X**. As the IP addresses constantly change, traditional blocking methods will no longer work, providing an extra layer of protection against future restrictions.
Challenges in blocking Twitter/X
Basílio Rodríguez Perez emphasizes that it’s “nearly impossible” to block Cloudflare without restricting “a number of legitimate and necessary services” that also use the service. Since the Twitter/X registration change occurred, providers have been in contact with the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to figure out how to block the network, as the registered IP now belongs to Cloudflare.
Reverse proxy, the bane of internet providers
The mechanism used by the company is called a reverse proxy, commonly employed to enhance the security of apps and websites.
“A reverse proxy, like the one offered by Cloudflare, acts as an intermediary managing internet traffic between users and a website’s server,” explains Pedro Diógenes, Technical Director for Latin America at the tech company CLM, to *O Globo*.
It not only improves the security and speed of the website but also allows the real IP of the server to be masked, showing only the proxy's IP instead.
By using a reverse proxy, like the ones offered by Cloudflare, Twitter/X managed to "mask" the real IP of its server, Diógenes explains. He says the service is legitimately used by large companies to protect their original servers from direct attacks. “In other words, it’s like an invisible barrier that protects the infrastructure without impacting the user experience,” the expert adds.
Source: x.com/allanldsantos/status/1836474659027726785 nostr.fmt.wiz.biz