AT&T Makes Friends With 4Chan

said by John McClane:

probably not a cent. its too sweet of a deal for them.

said by John McClane:

no. 4chan (especially /b/) is far below the likes of social networking sites.

said by a333:

LOL!!!! I love /b/ !!!

said by Corydon:

I'd say that the underlying assumption, that we need some kind of net neutrality, is sound regardless of the reasons for the temporary "ban".

Last night, AT&T demonstrated that they can block access to a particular site and that, under certain circumstances (whatever those may be), they are willing to block access to certain sites.

In this case, apparently 4chan was blocked because it was the target of an ongoing DDOS attack. Well what kind of message does that send to attackers? That if they make life hard enough for a big enough ISP, they actually do have the power to shut down access to their targeted site?

That's a recipe to guarantee that these attacks continue and, if anything, get worse. Who do the script kiddies target next? The RNC? The White House? AT&T just set a bad precedent.

said by John McClane:

the point is is that they proved they have the means to do it and are willing to do it. net neutrality takes that job away from them.

said by John McClane:

AT&T is my dumb pipe, i wish that they would stay that way.

said by John McClane:

it does not matter why they blocked it. the point is is that they proved they have the means to do it and are willing to do it. net neutrality takes that job away from them.

said by ThrowDemsOut:

And it didn't stop DailyKos from jumping to the wrong conclusions and going off on a rant:
»www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/···-tonight

said by cameronsfx:

I don't know the truth so perhaps AT&T should publish it with facts to support it.

said by pnh102:

There is legal precedent that would allow for AT&T to be punished for blocking any website. I would refer to the case of one DSL provider blocking access to VOIP providers a few years back (the details escape me).

Furthermore, I would imagine that AT&T probably does not want to play the role of content police. Blocking access to certain parts of certain websites would most likely result in AT&T losing "common carrier" status with regard to its Internet network.

said by pnh102:

How much did 4chan.org pay AT&T for this publicity?

said by adisor19:

This was really close AT&T.. almost too close according to a lot of pple.

Adi

said by Kearnstd:

ahh 4chan, a bunch of attention grabbing script kiddie noise makers.

i went there once to see what the big deal was, i wanted my 12 keystrokes and one click back.

said by Morac:

Love em or hate em they are still a force to be reckoned with.

A handful ants can be stepped on. Tens of thousands of ants can overrun a city.

said by Kearnstd:

ahh 4chan, a bunch of attention grabbing script kiddie noise makers.

i went there once to see what the big deal was, i wanted my 12 keystrokes and one click back.

said by Kearnstd:

ahh 4chan, a bunch of attention grabbing script kiddie noise makers.

i went there once to see what the big deal was, i wanted my 12 keystrokes and one click back.

said by link above
The problem is the DDoS attacks. Not AT&T. 4chan's users constantly instigate
this. Chris Poole needs to do more than just sit back and watch. He needs to
start collecting this information and turning it in to the authorities, because
all of this is convered under domestic terrorism as a cyber-crime. I'm betting
there's reasons why he hasn't. He's afraid to get into trouble himself on some
of the content that's posted to /b/... whether it's there 5 seconds or 5 minutes.

Now 4chan’s founder, Moot, has admitted the whole thing was kind of his fault.

“For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack,” Moot wrote in an afternoon update. “We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user. … Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers.”

said by fatness:

»www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/4chan/

said by ThrowDemsOut:

This part of his statement brings in to question whether the jerks at 4Chan didn't engineer the mess themselves for the publicity:

said by fatness:

»www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/4chan/

said by fonzbear2000:

I'm surprised that BBR is even mentioning their name because there probably are members under the age of 18 that read this site.