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AT&T Blocks Part of 4chan
holdenkarau writes "Several news sources (Mashable, The Inquistr, etc.) are reporting that AT&T is blocking img.4chan.org in the southern United States. That server is used for the infamous /b/ board (the home of anonymous). TechCrunch calls the decision to block 4chan 'stupid,' noting that they may have 'opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms.' The Inquisitr suggests that 'The global internet censorship debate landed in the home of the free.' moot (who runs 4chan) asks users to call AT&T, while some others suggest more drastic action (like cutting AT&T fiber)." Update: 07/27 09:23 GMT by T : Readers' comments below suggest that a) the purpose of the block was to curtail the effects of a serious DDoS attack and b) that the block has now been lifted, at least for some regions.
But, we've already sharpened the pitchforks and lit the torches.
What are we supposed to do now?
while some others suggest more drastic action (like cutting AT&T fiber)
And eliminate ANY kind of access for themselves, and others who could care less about their problems.. Just as smart as having riots, burning down the grocery stores and then having no place to buy food.. Destruction as a form of protest only hurts themselves and other innocents.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
I'd just like to point you to a few links explicitly discouraging users from taking illegal actions against this:
ED Article Excerpts:
"1. DON'T FUCK WITH THE LAW- We want to first make use of the rights we have, censorship is violating our rights."
"Acting like an idiot and trying to DDoS them will only end with you being persecuted (and/or prosecuted), and your actions being used as a justification."
"This battle is one we have to fight legally..."
"DO NOT RAGE ON THESE PHONE NUMBERS, SIMPLY COMPLAIN ABOUT THE ISSUE!"
Insurgen Article
Excepts:
"Acting like a retard and trying to DDoS them will only end in them going [A QUOTE]"
"Don't try to DDoS or do ANYTHING illegal or legally ambiguous to AT&T. This is a corporation with more resources, manpower, and preparation than anything you script kiddies have ever dealt with. You will be caught and prosecuted. Go through legal channels and reverse this using legitimate means."
Those are just the ones in the windows I have open.
Obviously there is no way to force someone not to do something, but the intentions are to solve this without any "damages".
Thanks,
Smark
SpectralCoding
That's clearly an attempt to draw an analogy, so it really isn't as offtopic as it sounds. And yes, in the case of repeated rape of the same girl by the same person, you might. It's called protective custody.
In this case, though, AT&T almost certainly isn't doing it to protect 4chan's server. I'm sure they couldn't care less about that. They do, however, care about the huge zombie botnet on their network that is probably racking up huge bandwidth bills for them with their upstream providers.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If they REALLY cared about what a zombie botfarm AT&T has become, they'd start cutting the users that allowed their machines to turn into spam- and DDoSbots. Instead they block access to a server. And not to protect this server, because of the very nature of the attack, AT&T bears the same if not the higher load of the DDoS.
They don't give a shit about hosting a zombie botnet. If they did, they'd cut their users, but that in turn would cause angry phone calls to their support center and a lot of canceled contracts. Instead, they block a server to all their customers, along the "can't see it, so it's no problem" theory.
The zombies still exist. And prepare for the next server to attack. *pondering*... Hmmm.... If I wanted to disallow AT&T users into a server, could I order a DDoS attack? I mean, if it was AOLlers it would be a no-brainer...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you don't care about the opinion of people who have too much time on their hands, no life and you're the one who just took away the only thing that gave their life something resembling meaning, you have no call center.
Be aware who you're dealing with: People who have time to make you waste time. Time of your employees you have to pay by the hour. That costs money, and a load thereof. Don't underestimate the power of people with more time than you. Especially if being an expensive nuisance doesn't take too much skill.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unfortunately the very nature of communications is a war of control. If it's not wrestling the control from governments, it's about controlling users.
AT&T are well known for blanket bans, especially when it comes from reverse NDR attacks. The idea of having low cost human infrastructure working on one of the worlds largest commercial networks is one of the silliest ideas around.
The only people with any sort of expertise seem to be pushed out with redundancies, etc, by the upper management, and all you're left with is lackies getting paid enough to keep them working, but not enough to make them excel and executives that care more about golf. This pretty much makes any real network security or decent policy impossible.
While I don't like what's happening, I can understand it. It's all about the cheapest near sighted avenue. The accountants and executives only see short term benefits of actions like this. They're unaware that the impact both on brand and network performance is far more of a negative impact to revenue than any single DDoS can have.
Pretty much AT&T need to clean their act, network and image up or they'll end up in an irrecoverable position.
You have never been punished for exercising your freedom to speak by someone with more money or political clout than you have making you pay for disagreeing with them I see. Being able to be anonymous is basic to free speech.
There is such a thing as orgasm during non-consensual sex. It can be very traumatic and confusing for the victim causing them to question themselves. It has been particularly damaging for children who were abused to have had their first orgasms the result of forced sex. Your implying that sexual stimulation indicates volition is very incorrect. Might as well say that the release of endorphins following physical pain indicates that the injured chose to be hurt.
The study you linked to about increased chance of pregnancy under rape is innaccurately characterised by yourself as saying "twice as likely". The article you linked to [b]doesn't[/b] say that rape increases the chance of conception (by any amount). It discusses the controversy over some research on the subject. Research, incidentally, that has many factors uncovered. It compares conception rates from casual, consensual sex with rape and it is very far from conclusive. For example, it makes the assumption that a woman is more likely to engage in casual sex when she is most likely to conceive. What is the basis for this assumption? It could just as likely be possible that women are less likely to do so - after all, human beings are one of the few species that uses sex as a means for a female to attract a male even when the female is not fertile. What makes more sense than to see if someone is a good partner first, with less risk.
And yes, though highly unusual and doubtless under-reported, there are cases of female sexual abuse of males (no, not for payment).
Finally, regarding the beating up of AT&T employees, should you not be going after the senior execs rather than the phone monkeys? Or do you just go for easy targets?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Well that makes no sense. AT&T should be taking no action unless somebody from 4chan calls them up and asks them to block the perceived source of the DDoS..
Sounds like you don't understand what's going on - please educate yourself.
4chan is being SYN flooded, various ISPs were getting a lot of collateral traffic from the resulting ACKs going back to spoofed IPs. Since those ISPs had nothing to do with either the attacker or 4chan, there was nothing they could do but pull the plug on the source of the collateral ACKs (4chan). i.e. the ISPs who blocked 4chan weren't trying to protect 4chan from an attack, they were protecting their own networks from the fallout.
Sadly, like you, the vast majority of users are clueless and won't investigate to see what is only going on. I'm sure there will be a kneejerk reaction against AT&T and the other ISPs who tried to protect themselves and everyone will make out that they are the bad guys.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
So the problem isn't AT&T, and the problem isn't really even the users (or more likely zombie bots) who are DDoSing AT&T, the real problem is the networks that are allowing the spoofed packets out. Because if you receive an IP packet from an end user with a source address that's not from your network, you should assume that it came from a new legitimate routing path and forward it right up. Because it's normal for your end users to set up crazy routing without even having an AS.
A big problem on the internets is ISPs that are run by idiots or assholes who don't understand (or care about) basic TCP/IP etiquette. It's not just spoofed packets, it's also spoofed BGP announcements. And freely allowing outbound port 25 access.
(I noticed recently when I was setting up and testing SMTP auth on my own mail server that AT&T apparently now blocks outbound port 25 for dynamic IP users, hooray for them. It still works from my AT&T static IP, though.)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }