This Week in NET

In this Women at Cloudflare segment for Women’s Empowerment Month, Sofia Cardita, Systems Engineer at Cloudflare, shares her journey from clinical psychology to engineering.

Sofia explains how she transitioned into tech through self-learning and hands-on building, and how AI is changing the way engineers work today. She also reflects on observability, teamwork, and finding balance as an engineer.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:12 — Sofia Cardita: background and role at Cloudflare  

00:49 — From psychology to engineering

02:02 — Self-learning and building from scratch

03:03 — What she enjoys about engineering (proudest projects)

04:18 — Observability and understanding systems

04:59 — Advice for getting started

05:07 — AI as a learning tool

05:55 — Going deeper despite AI

06:10 — Using AI in daily workflows

07:02 — Productivity: rest, focus, and balance

In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Warnessa Weaver (Senior Product Manager) and Yumna Moazzam (Senior Product Marketing Manager) to break down Cloudflare’s SASE blog takeover week and what it means for enterprise security.

Cloudflare One is evolving into an agile, composable, and programmable SASE platform, built natively on Cloudflare’s global network spanning 300+ cities. The conversation explores how organizations can modernize remote access, secure AI adoption, and replace legacy architectures that often take 18 months to deploy with migrations completed in 4–6 weeks.

The episode covers:

• Post-quantum encryption now in GA for Cloudflare One

• Deepfake defense through a new Nametag partnership

• Adaptive access with user risk scoring and signals from CrowdStrike and SentinelOne

• Programmable gateway policies using Cloudflare Workers

• DLP visibility for Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini and more

• Clipboard controls for browser-based RDP sessions

• Closing the boot-to-login security gap with the Cloudflare One client

• CASB remediation for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace

The episode also includes a run-through of other recent Cloudflare blog posts, including AI Security for Apps (now GA), slashing agent token costs by 98% with RFC 9457, Nvidia Nemotron 3 Super on Cloudflare, and a new stateful API vulnerability scanner.

Check the Cloudflare Blog:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/sase

⏱️ Timestamps

00:37 — Blog run-through: AI Security for Apps, RFC 9457 agent errors, API vulnerability scanner

02:17 — Nvidia Nemotron 3 Super on Cloudflare

03:29 — What is agile SASE and Cloudflare One?

05:44 — Composability and programmability explained

07:53 — Built on Cloudflare’s global network vs legacy vendors

09:07 — The truly programmable SASE platform

10:04 — Custom gateway policies with Cloudflare Workers

12:16 — Post-quantum encryption in Cloudflare One

13:14 — Harvest now, decrypt later

14:34 — Boot-to-login security with the Cloudflare One client

17:35 — Independent MFA in Cloudflare Access

19:13 — Deepfake defense and Nametag partnership

22:15 — User risk scoring and adaptive access

25:26 — Data security: DLP, CASB, and browser-based RDP

27:21 — Microsoft 365 Copilot visibility

29:05 — Partner stories: TachTech and Adapture

33:09 — Zero Trust onboarding with Terraform

35:25 — Key takeaways

In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Cloudflare threat intelligence experts Brian Carter and Chris Peacey to break down the 2026 Cloudflare Threat Report and what it reveals about today’s cyber threat landscape.

We discuss how threat intelligence helps organizations prioritize risks, how attackers are increasingly leveraging automation and AI tools, and why botnets, supply-chain attacks, and credential-theft campaigns continue to evolve.

The conversation explores how attackers gain initial access, how criminal ecosystems operate across infrastructure providers and services, and how AI is beginning to influence reconnaissance, social engineering, and large-scale campaigns.

We also examine geopolitical dimensions of cyber operations, the growing sophistication of phishing and identity attacks, and the role of threat intelligence in helping defenders anticipate and mitigate attacks before they escalate.

Check the full 2026 Cloudflare Threat Report

⏱️ Timestamps

00:12 — Introduction: Special 2026 Threat Report edition

00:58 — Threat Intelligence: Helping organizations prioritize defense

01:53 — Global Trends: Identity weaponization and hyper-volumetric attacks

04:44 — Record-breaking DDoS: Attack volume doubled from 2024 to 2025

05:40 — AI and cybercrime: shrinking the time from access to data theft

08:10 — Living off the Cloud: Malware hidden inside Google Calendar and OneDrive

10:43 — State-sponsored evolution: Cyber activity linked to the Ukraine war

11:28 — Persistent espionage: Chinese and Iranian state actors

13:56 — Industrialized cybercrime: Effectiveness over elegance

16:35 — The recruitment attack: Deepfakes in remote hiring processes

19:01 — Laptop farms: North Korean operators inside Western companies

21:28 — Detecting AI interviewees and “digital tics”

23:13 — Token theft: How attackers bypass MFA protections

25:40 — Human-in-the-loop phishing: Building trust before the payload

27:54 — Infrastructure rug-pulling: The “Nasty Shrew” campaign

31:52 — Advice for CISOs: Managing third-party integration risks

33:55 — Disrupting the chain: Neutralizing 400+ malicious domains in 2025

In this episode of This Week in NET (the second this week focused on building with AI), host João Tomé is joined by Steve Faulkner, Engineering Director at Cloudflare, to discuss how he rebuilt a Next.js-compatible framework in just one week using AI. The project, called vinext, began as an experiment and evolved into a working proof of concept.

We explore what AI-first development looks like in practice, how coding agents were used to rewrite and test large API surfaces, and what happens when you treat dependencies as something you can regenerate rather than maintain manually.

The results were surprising: faster local builds, smaller bundles, deployment to Workers with a single command, and a total AI token cost of roughly $1,100.

We also discuss:

• Using voice-to-code workflows (SuperWhisper + local models)

• AI reviewing code multiple times

• Whether AI-assisted rebuilds will become common

• What this means for 2026 and beyond

Mentioned blog posts:

• How we rebuilt Next.js with AI in one week

⏱️ Timestamps 

0:12 — Introduction: the latest on the Cloudflare blog (monitoring post-quantum encryption and ASPA routing; JavaScript Streams — why we deserve a better API)

3:22 — Steve’s role and Workers platform overview

4:34 — How the idea came to be

6:11 — When AI tools became “good enough”

7:13 — Tooling setup: OpenCode, Claude, parallel agents

9:03 — AI beyond coding: management and markdown workflows

10:58 — What AI-first development actually means

12:03 — Performance gains: 4x faster builds, 57% smaller bundles

14:11 — ~$100 in tokens: the real cost

15:35 — Deploying to Workers with one command

17:25 — Community feedback and early adoption

19:09 — Will AI rebuild other frameworks?

20:25 — Voice-to-code workflows (SuperWhisper, Parakeet)

23:31 — Traffic-Aware Pre-Generation (TPR) explained

25:23 — Production caution and security

26:19 — How to get started (use AI to migrate your app)

27:12 — The big takeaway: AI is changing how we build software

In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Matt Curry to break down Code Mode: a way to give AI agents access to the entire Cloudflare API (2,500+ endpoints) using two tools and roughly ~1,000 tokens of context.  

Instead of exposing thousands of individual tools (which quickly becomes expensive and brittle), Code Mode lets the model write JavaScript to search and execute against a compact API context. The result is massive compression, lower cost, and better performance.

We also include demos showing how agents can query real infrastructure, navigate multiple accounts, and build things like multiplayer experiences using Durable Objects and WebSockets.

⏱️ Timestamps 

0:53 — Intro: agents, MCP, tokens, and what Code Mode means

2:53 — Why exposing 2,500+ endpoints as tools doesn’t scale

6:49 — How Code Mode works: generate an SDK and let the model write code

9:57 — Demo: querying deployed Workers and infrastructure

14:37 — Multiplayer with Durable Objects (live demo “wow” moment)

24:32 — Compression stats: 2 million tokens → ~1,000 tokens

27:26 — Code Mode SDK v2 and wrapping your own APIs

31:52 — The Sandbox: running untrusted code safely

38:03 — What’s next: progressive disclosure and MCP evolution

Mentioned blog posts:

• Code Mode: give agents an entire API in 1,000 tokens
  
  

In this episode, host João Tomé is joined by Celso Martinho, VP of Engineering at Cloudflare, to discuss two major launches: Markdown for Agents and Moltworker (for OpenClaw) — and what they signal about the future of AI agents on the Internet.

Celso explains how Markdown for Agents was conceived, built, and shipped in just one week, why AI systems prefer markdown over HTML, and how converting a typical blog post from 16,000 HTML tokens to roughly 3,000 markdown tokens can reduce cost, improve speed, and increase accuracy for AI models. We also explore Moltworker, a proof-of-concept showing how a personal AI agent originally designed to run on a Mac Mini can instead run on Cloudflare’s global network using Workers, R2, Browser Rendering, AI Gateway, and Zero Trust.

We discuss observability for AI crawlers, new monetization models for publishers, the rapid growth of agent ecosystems, and why AI is becoming less hype and more infrastructure.

Mentioned blog posts:

• Introducing Markdown for Agents
• Introducing Moltworker: a self-hosted personal AI agent, minus the minis

⏱️ Timestamps

1:15 — Introducing Markdown for Agents

1:46 — From idea to ship in one week

2:37 — Why AI systems prefer markdown over HTML

3:30 — HTML “packaging” vs semantic content

4:39 — How Cloudflare converts HTML to markdown in real time

5:19 — Token savings: 16,000 vs 3,000 tokens

6:29 — Context windows, cost, and AI efficiency

8:21 — Tracking markdown trends in Cloudflare Radar

9:05 — Live demo: content negotiation header with curl

11:07 — AI projects in Lisbon: AI Search, PaperCrawl, and more

12:36 — Observability and new monetization models for publishers

13:56 — What is OpenClaw and why it went viral

14:54 — From Hacker News to Cloudflare in hours

17:06 — Running OpenClaw on Cloudflare instead of a Mac Mini

18:05 — Why this is a proof of concept (not a product)

20:06 — Architecture: Zero Trust, Workers, R2, Browser Rendering, AI Gateway

22:32 — Demo: AI agent records and posts a video automatically

24:53 — 10,000 GitHub stars and open source support

26:11 — AI in 2026: intensifying work, not replacing it

In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Emily Hancock, Cloudflare’s Chief Privacy Officer and Data Protection Officer, for a wide-ranging conversation about privacy in 2026 and how the role has evolved in the age of AI.

Emily explains how privacy officers shifted from GDPR compliance to broader data governance, responsible AI practices, cybersecurity collaboration, and cross-border data frameworks. We explore privacy by design, data minimization, vendor risk, government requests, warrant canaries, digital sovereignty, insider threats, and how AI is reshaping both attacker and defender capabilities.

We also discuss Cloudflare’s approach to responsible AI, how teams use internal controls to avoid misuse of customer data, and why “human in the loop” remains essential for accuracy, safety, and trust.

Check the Cloudflare Blog: blog.cloudflare.com

1:53 — Blogs roundup 

3:58 — How the CPO role has evolved since GDPR

7:04 — From GDPR to AI governance

9:46 — Privacy + cybersecurity: breaches, notifications, preparedness

14:08 — “Fire doors” and incident containment

14:56 — Privacy by design & data minimization

20:07 — Government requests, due process, and transparency

22:08 — Warrant canaries & what Cloudflare will never do

23:17 — Digital sovereignty: localization and global differences

26:25 — Data Localization Suite & Metadata Boundary

28:06 — AI and privacy: rules, training, customer protections

29:35 — Cloudflare’s AI principles

31:32 — AI sovereignty & running inference close to users

32:19 — “AI as an intern”: accuracy and human review

34:31 — Protecting personal data when using AI

36:20 — What’s coming in 2026: regulation & fragmentation

38:37 — Insider threats & Zero Trust

40:33 — Emily’s privacy wish list for 2026

In this episode, David Belson — Cloudflare’s Head of Data Insights — joins us to walk through the biggest Internet disruptions of late 2025 and early 2026.

At the start, we also highlight several new posts on the Cloudflare Blog: Moltworker, a self-hosted personal AI agent built with OpenClaw (former MoltBot and ClawdBot) and Cloudflare’s Developer Platform; Post-Quantum Matrix Homeserver, a proof-of-concept encrypted messaging server running entirely on Cloudflare Workers; Route Leak Incident (Jan 22), what happened in Miami and how routing policy safeguards are being improved; Google’s AI Advantage, why crawler separation is needed for fair competition and better protection for publishers.

We then go into the major Internet trends, including the storm-related disruption in three regions in Portugal this week. Our main focus is the government-directed nationwide shutdown in Iran. 

Then we also go over Q4 2025 disruptions: repeated weather-driven outages across Africa and the Caribbean, submarine cable failures, DNS anomalies, and the persistent risk of centralized points of failure. David also explains how Starlink’s global footprint is reshaping Radar visibility — and why the Internet remains remarkably resilient despite a turbulent quarter.

Mentioned blog posts: 

• Cable cuts, storms, and DNS: a look at Internet disruptions in Q4 2025
• Introducing Moltworker: a self-hosted personal AI agent, minus the minis
• Route leak incident on January 22, 2026
• Building a serverless, post-quantum Matrix homeserver

⏱️ Timestamps

0:30 — Weekly blog roundup (Moltworker, Route Leak, Google’s AI Advantage)

4:13 — Storm impact in Portugal: what Radar saw in Leiria, Santarém, and Coimbra

11:55 — Iran’s multi-week Internet shutdown: scale, signals, and how it unfolded

18:15 — The “National Information Network”: partial access, allowlisting, and blocked services

21:24 — Power vs. connectivity: how electricity failures show up as Internet outages

22:33 — Q4 global round-up: Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and cyclone-driven disruptions

30:32 — Technical failures: ISP issues, DNS problems, routing mistakes, and what Radar detects

33:47 — The future of Radar: Starlink visibility, provider-level metrics, and disruption heat maps

In this first 2026 edition of This Week in NET, João Tomé is joined by Patrick Day from Cloudflare’s Impact & Policy team to break down the recently released Cloudflare Impact Report — including how Cloudflare supports elections, protects journalists, advances Internet standards, and expands access to secure AI infrastructure.

At the start, we also go over some of our recent blog posts:

• Acquisitions: Astro and Human Native join the Cloudflare ecosystem.

• Technical Deep Dive: How a small DNS optimization in 1.1.1.1 exposed a decades-old ambiguity in early Internet standards.

• Global Trends: A severe government-directed Internet shutdown in Iran and BGP anomalies observed in Venezuela.

Mentioned topics:

• Cloudflare Impact Report
• The Cloudflare Blog

In this end-of-year episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Omer Yoachimik, Senior Product Manager for DDoS Protection at Cloudflare, to break down the realities of the 2025 DDoS threat landscape — and what’s coming next.

They discuss how DDoS attacks reached previously “theoretical” scales in 2025, including record-breaking 31 Tbps attacks, the rise of massive botnets like Aisuru, and how geopolitical events increasingly shape cyber activity. Omer explains why traditional scrubbing-center defenses are becoming obsolete, how Cloudflare’s autonomous, globally distributed mitigation works, and why automation and real-time intelligence are now essential.

The conversation closes with practical advice for organizations, common myths about DDoS risk, and what to expect in 2026 as attacks grow larger, faster, and more sophisticated.

DDoS threats related blog posts: https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/ddos/