Cloudfare verification

[#1]

Today a single tick Cloudflare verification and the session resumed.
I'm using the same Firefox on the same PC & with the same VM Public IP.

[#2]

So an off PN network connection, which for some unclear reason profiles as potential bot activity.

This is a good baseline marker from which to start profiling the issues.

”Same as before” should not be taken as suggesting all was well before - this has hints of being new measures to deter undesirable activity.

@James_B has there been any change in the service’s defensive measures which might explain the reported behaviours?  It’s no great intrusion, but it has stimulated interest around what’s happening and why.

[#3]

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@7up wrote:

Do we need this on an ISP forum? - Seriously?

If Plusnet cannot rig this forum to recognise that a forum visitor is on a plusnet IP address then we have real problems.

Cloudfare takes ages to verify and pretty much screws up the browsing experience just like cookie alerts on every website. It's tedious and frankly ruining the internet. Cloudfare goes down and the web vanishes - as happened a few months back.

Please can this be scrapped?

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Trouble is...

I don't know why you are having to verify via Cloudflare - so far I haven't encountered this on the forum - however, possibly you should be careful what you wish for.

You say: "Cloudflare goes down and the web vanishes". However, in my direct experience, the reason Cloudflare is brought in is to prevent a website vanishing, due to overloading by AI Bots. In the last couple of years I saw this actually happen to a website - they could only continue operating after getting Cloudflare in.

(Is there a lack of awareness of what is going on these days?)

[#4]

There haven't been any recent changes that I'm aware of, @Townman 

Last platform version change was on 28 May.

I'll check in with the vendor.

James

Edit: We're checking the Cloudflare-side handling to determine whether any adjustment is needed. If anyone affected can send me a PM with the Cloudflare Ray ID and approximate time it will be much appreciated.

[#5]

Do those impacted by this issue have any recollection of when this started?

[#6]

@Townman 

IIRC, it was within the last week for me.

No identifying of motorcycles etc.-  just the checkbox.

[#7]

So, later than the start of July ... not from late in June?

[#8]

I can't be certain about that, but I'd say definitely less than 2 weeks ago.

[#9]

I heard about the Cloudflare changes to their CDN to block AI training tools about two weeks ago.

I just asked Google about these changes, and this confirms 1st July 2026 when the new filtering was rolled out ,

this is what it said -

Cloudflare last altered their CDN's bot management and AI crawl control rules on July 1, 2026. They announced a massive policy shift that categorizes bot traffic into three types: Search, Agent, and Training. [1, 2]

For all new domains and default configurations, Cloudflare now allows search bots but automatically blocks AI training and agent crawlers on any page displaying ads, taking effect on September 15, 2026. This update forces "mixed-use crawlers" (bots that harvest data for both general search and AI model training) to explicitly request permission. [1, 2, 3]

The phased implementation works exactly like this:

Active Now (Since July 1)

• Granular Dashboard Controls: All Cloudflare users—including those on the Free tier—gained immediate access to the new dashboard settings. You can manually toggle blocks for Search, Agent, and Training bots yourself right now. [1, 2]
• Commercial Monetization Feature: The updated version of the Pay Per Crawl / Pay Per Use system launched immediately on July 1, allowing you to establish paid access agreements with transparent AI companies. [1, 2]

Pending Implementation (September 15)

• Default Block Activation: The automatic blocking of Training and Agent bots on ad-supported pages does not activate until September 15.
• Affected Accounts: This impending default block will automatically apply to all new domains, new customers, and existing free-tier accounts that have not manually adjusted their preferences before the deadline. [, 2, 3]

[#10]

I don't recall having the cloudflare banner appear on this community website.

I do still see it on these sites -

        https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/ 

        https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/dynmap 

[#11]

I'm wondering whether @7up is having problems because of using an out of date browser ?

Until recently, I was running an old version of Firefox and would frequently see Cloudflare banners all over the place.  The Firefox version was locked to the out of date Linux distro I was running, so I didn't get updates. 

Eventually the out of date Firefox this was causing so many problems with sites like OpenVPN, that I uninstalled Firefox, then replaced it with a new installation from the Firefox website which now auto-updates to the current version.  Now Cloudflare CDN checks are handled transparently, and I rarely see them now, and they never hang at the banner as they did before.

Note that Cloudflare collaborated with the browser providers to assist with making the new filtering less prominent.

I asked Google for a summary, and it told me this -

Yes, you are likely thinking of a major initiative announced on June 22, 2026, where Cloudflare collaborated with Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. [1]

They created a new privacy standard called Private Access Control Tokens (PACT). The primary goal of PACT is to make internet filtering vastly less prominent—and eventually eliminate CAPTCHAs and Turnstile check pages completely for regular users. [1]

How PACT Works to Reduce Filtering Visibility

Instead of interrupting your browsing session with a "Verify you are human" screen, the protocol works silently in the background: [1, 2]

• Anonymous Proof of Personhood: Platforms with a high certainty of your identity (like your browser or operating system) can issue an anonymous token. [1]
• Silent Browser Pass: When you visit a Cloudflare-protected site, your browser (Chrome, Edge, or Firefox) automatically passes this token forward as instant proof that you are a legitimate human user. [1, 2]
• Frictionless Security: This separates regular human traffic from aggressive AI scraping bots invisibly, removing the need for invasive cookie tracking or visible interactive tests. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Why Now?

As autonomous AI agents begin to outnumber humans online, Cloudflare and browser providers created PACT to ensure security measures don't ruin the browsing experience for real people. It allows websites to lock out data-scraping bots completely while letting human visitors pass through without ever realizing a filter was applied. [1, 2, 3, 4]

[#12]

Add to the above, my research suggests that the vendor providing this service switched their URL resolution to Cloudflare on 26th June.  Hence as likely as not the reason for the request from @James_B a few posts back.

I suggest that it would be helpful if those encountering the issue described their environment, including browser vendor, build and patch levels, OS platform, how connected to the network and any blocking / interference software being run.