IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

CrowdSec Source Code Leak

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three prevalent themes in the discussion

  1. What counts as a “security company” and the role of open‑source/not‑for‑profit models
  2. “Any company where understanding of security practices has a direct impact on its revenue from early phases can be considered as a security company in my view.” — sandeepkd
  3. “The basic software is open source, and the list is free if you're running the tool and contributing detections back.” — itintheory
  4. “From what I have seen a large chunk of internet exists and stands on the shoulder of folks who did the volunteer work cause they were passionate about it.” — sandeepkd

  5. “What, exactly, is the definition of a 'security company' in your mind? Threat Intel companies definitely fall under that normally…” — strictnein

  6. Limitations of IP‑reputation/blocklist approaches and the need for behavioral/fingerprinting defenses

  7. “We implemented CrowdSec for bot/scraping mitigation. The architecture is sound, but it ended up having an unacceptable false positive rate for us.” — itintheory
  8. “Given the number of residential proxies I see scraping … IP address‑based blocking useful anymore… Behavioral and client fingerprint analysis … is the only way.” — EvanAnderson
  9. “They are non-stop and could have ingested all of our content many times over every day. JA4 is useless too because they have the ability to spoof…” — specialp

  10. “I have written my own honeypots to reduce the false positive rate.” — UltraSane

  11. Criticism of CrowdSec’s own security practices following the source‑code leak

  12. “yet another security oriented company that doesn’t practice what they preach.” — xyst
  13. “It wasn't the Github that was compromised, it was the access to their private repository that was compromised so somewhere down the line the security best practices are in question for sure.” — sandeepkd
  14. “The thing that works in their favor is that no one else can verify it either which absolves them from any responsibility.” — strictnein
  15. “If it’s in Debian repos I expect it to work with full functionality.” — getcrunk

🚀 Project Ideas

OpenThreatFeed

Summary

  • A federated, open‑source IP reputation service where security researchers and operators can submit observed malicious IPs, view community scores, and query via a lightweight API.
  • Core value proposition: transparent, crowd‑curated threat intel that can be self‑hosted or used as a low‑cost public API, reducing reliance on opaque commercial blocklists.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience DevOps, security engineers, SaaS providers needing IP blocking
Core Feature Submit, vote, and retrieve IP reputation scores; API for real‑time blocklist updates; optional curated premium feeds
Tech Stack Go (backend), PostgreSQL + TimescaleDB for time‑series scores, React UI, Docker/Kubernetes deployment, gRPC/REST API
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: tiered API (free up to 1M queries/mo, paid plans for higher volume and premium lists)

Notes

  • HN users praised the idea of a not‑for‑profit, community‑run aggregator that could be sustained by nominal fees (see sandeepkd’s comment about Letsencrypt‑style funding).
  • Provides a transparent alternative to CrowdSec’s paid lists, addressing false‑positive concerns raised by itintheory and others.
  • Enables self‑hosting for organizations wary of vendor lock‑in, matching the desire for independent control expressed in the thread.

BotSense

Summary

  • An open‑source bot mitigation middleware that combines IP reputation, JA4/TLS fingerprinting, and lightweight behavioral challenges (e.g., JS‑less honeypots) to reduce false positives while blocking scrapers.
  • Core value proposition: easy‑to‑drop‑in solution for sites overwhelmed by residential‑proxy bots, with tunable rules to balance security and usability.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Site owners, API providers, content platforms hit by scraping traffic
Core Feature Modular detection engine (IP rep + JA4 + behavioral); dashboard for false‑positive analysis; plug‑in for popular web servers (NGINX, Envoy, Caddy)
Tech Stack Rust (core engine), WebAssembly for optional JS challenges, Prometheus metrics, Grafana dashboards, CI/CD via GitHub Actions
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Commenters like EvanAnderson and specialp highlighted that pure IP blocking fails against residential proxies and called for fingerprinting/behavioral approaches.
  • BotSense directly addresses the false‑pain points itintheory experienced with CrowdSec’s blocklist, offering a tunable, low‑overhead alternative.
  • Open‑source nature invites community contributions of detection rules, mirroring the collaborative spirit praised in the discussion.

SecClaim Verifier

Summary

  • A service that lets organizations publish cryptographic attestations (e.g., Merkle‑tree proofs) of what data or systems were accessed during a security incident, allowing third parties to verify breach scope claims without trusting the vendor’s word.
  • Core value proposition: increases trust and accountability in breach disclosures, mitigating the “no one can verify it” problem noted in the thread.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Security teams, PR/communication officers, regulators, auditors
Core Feature Generate and host verifiable proof of accessed assets; API for verifiers to check proofs; UI for creating claims from logs
Tech Stack Rust (proof generation), IPFS/Filecoin for immutable storage, OAuth2 for auth, React admin panel, Docker deployment
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue-ready: subscription per claim (e.g., $0.10 per verified MB) + free tier for small organizations

Notes

  • The discussion questioned the honesty of breach statements (e.g., “no one else can verify it… absolves them from any responsibility”). SecClaim Verifier gives a concrete way to provide verifiable evidence, addressing strictnein’s concern about needing demonstrable proof.
  • By leveraging immutable storage and cryptographic proofs, it enables independent auditors and journalists to validate claims, fostering the transparency HN users called for.
  • Could become a trusted third‑party service akin to Letsencrypt’s role for certificates, but for breach accountability.

Read Later