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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.
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg19609.html
The president of unWired (a much more reputable ISP) has also blocked the same server. A DDoS was apparently attacking said server which wast travelling over both lines. According to this post, the block was due solely to stop the DDoS.
As of 1am CST, it looks like the block is beginning to be lifted : http://encyclopediadramatica.com/AT%26T_Blocks_4chan#THIS_JUST_IN I can confirm access to img.4chan.org open from the Austin/South Texas area now, whereas it wasn't about an hour ago.
- Aetheral Research -
This is going to be beyond epic. There's going to be movies made about this a hundred years from now. (It'll be a comedy/tragedy either way, or more probably both)
[End Of Line]
The question is whether 4chan is the real problem or the reaction to 4chan is. /b/ is what it is and has been for quite a while. And the American Southern culture also has roots that go back at least 300 years. So in a battle for legitimacy, which one should take precedence over the other?
We can talk about freedom of speech and such, but /b/ is home to content that is occasionally over the line illegal. On the other hand, only those who would actually seek it out would even know about it, so it doesn't make sense to "protect" the fair citizens of Hillbilly Valley by blocking the site.
Raymond Bradbury wrote about this in his seminal work Farenheit 451. Once we start allowing the minority to exert power over the majority in the name of fairness and protection, we lose a critical pillar of our society. Censorship is the first step, but later it will be outright censure.
Let's let that which is illegal stay illegal, and give everyone the benefit of full access, even if they don't want it. But I'm not from the South, so my cultural background doesn't lead me to the conclusion that censorship is better than freedom.
This is about Net Neutrality.
Sure Anonymous is angry about being blocked by 15.5% of internet users, but this is only the first step. Most responses to this blockage are directed toward fighting net neutrality, NOT Anon attacking AT&T because their site was blocked.
Anonymous is trying to fight this peacefully, they're not going to be DDoSing any DNS servers, backbone routers, or the like. They're going to be calling Customer Reps and complaining.
This is a Net Neutrality issue, not a Internet Hate Machine issue.
Thanks,
Smark
http://www.spectralcoding.com/
The block is gone. It was for 4chans own good. They have been DDoSed for weeks. AT&T just stopped access for a short bit. Settle the heck down.
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
There are smarter ways to disable 4chan, like this one
I guarantee they're going to pull an "operation squirrel." That's where you cut tons of fibre with a dull tool so it looks chewed but you do so much that they know it was on purpose. People do that more than you think.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Someone broke rule 1 and rule 2 here. Slashdot post ending in 69 does rule 34 on timothy NAO!! Ahma chargin my slashdot layzars! CmdrTaco is now a meme. Ummm. Over 9000?
Honestly, was the phrase "and nothing of value was lost" ever more appropriate?
I'm preheating the microwave now to prep some popcorn.
Preheating the Microwave? Do you use tinfoil or lightbulbs?
So to stop a DDoS attack on a server, they remove any and all access to that server? Am I the only one seeing the irony here?
The post you responded to is misleading. According to this: http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2523/1248672053880.png, this was an ACK attack, which causes problems not only for the directly attacked host, but for other users as well.
Ordinarily, a TCP connection is set up when you send a SYN packet to a website, such as 4chan, and then 4chan responds with a ACK, and then you respond again with a SYN-ACK.
Here is how an ACK attack works. I, the attacker, will send a SYN packet to 4chan, but I am pretending to be you, or your IP address. 4chan then sends an ACK packet to you, excepting a SYN-ACK in response. However, you did not initiate the connection, so you send a RST back to 4chan (or nothing at all, depending on your firewall settings).
Then I do it again. And again. I effectively flood both you and 4chan with meaningless traffic. Your traffic problems are even worse, because if you have a firewall blocking the RST packets, then 4chan will send you 4 ACK packets (depending on configuration) for every SYN packet I send them.
In this case, AT&T and other ISPs decided that the simplest solution to ending this DOS against their users was to block packets to and from 4chan (or a specific part of 4chan).
Based on what I've been reading about this situation today (was away all of Saturday and most of today) it sounds to me like perhaps someone made what they thought was an insignificant decision to block access to a site they figured nobody really cared about anyway, overstepping their authority I'm sure, and started the shitstorm of the year. Now someone's supervisor has heard about it (probably 3rd hand) and after ripping that person a new asshole, has made them start backing off the blocks. Wouldn't be surprised if someone at AT&T gets fired just to throw some meat to the wolves in the hopes this will all go away. BTW nice ham-fisted attempt to stem the tide of a DDoS botnet, dumbasses.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Uranium rods, like any sane person.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In other news: AT&T pokes bees nest while wearing meat suit in hungry tiger cage.
or else!
There are ways to block DOS attacks other than killing all legitimate website traffic. Alternative scenarios: Skynet? Something went wrong in the Black Mesa Research Facility? Bored at work pranksters in the AT&T central office? Secret CIA plot?
LeoPolus Web Design: http://www.leopolus.com
LOL
Knuckleheads DDoS 4chan. /b/ and /r9k/.
AT&T reacts with blocking
AT&T removes block.
Some other knuckleheads launch a new bigger attack across all of 4chan.
Blame goes to AT&T.
Knuckleheads sit back and watch.
Priceless.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
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.
Yeah, gee, you wouldn't want to destroy the credibility of an esteemed site like 4chan, which up till now has been held in such high regard...
According to http://status.4chan.org/
"Cogent Communications has joined the club-they're now blocking all of 4chan. I can't even access the site at this point. We're working on it..."
So the site isn't down, in the sense that the servers are still running, and its not a DDOS attack but simply a denial of service by the ISPs/Backbones needed to access it. Net Neutrality anyone?...
If, as appears to be the case, AT&T are actively censoring a site won't this in effect remove their common carrier status so leaving them open to being liable to be prosecuted for any questionable material of any nature which is carried on their network (either to an end user on their network, from a server on their network or traffic routed over their network to/from non-AT&T network end points)...
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
I can confirm that img.4chan.org and www.4chan.org are unreachable from my home DSL (AT&T/Yahoo in Northern California). Everything works fine once I have routed 207.126.64.0/24 through OpenVPN over a non-AT&T network.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The issue was reported on Reddit.com 16 hours ago. At no time, apparently, was access to img.4chan.org slow. Also, at present the IP address 207.126.64.181 connects directly to 4chan.org, as it should.
So, AT&T, is not blocking img.4chan.org, the company is only blocking some of its users. Check 4chan status. Quote: "UPDATE: Some coverage on TechCrunch, Digg, reddit, and Google News. Also, note that AT&T has yet to contact us."
"It's come to our attention that AT&T is filtering/blocking img.4chan.org (/b/ & /r9k/) for many of their customers. There is no remedy at this time.
If you've been affected, I would advise you call or write customer support and corporate immediately.
UPDATE: Some coverage on TechCrunch, Digg, reddit, and Google News. Also, note that AT&T has yet to contact us.
by moot @ 6:41 PM "
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
Surely if you believe that you have freedom,
Somewhere in between the unwarranted wiretaps and the indefinite detentions without trials, I decided to stop taking that belief for granted.
you don't need to be anonymous when you speak your mind?
My country was literally founded by people anonymously speaking their minds. I would be very wary of anyone who claims we don't need that right anymore.
You were doing so great until this bit. Or I hadn't realised that one of the biggest ISPs in the USA lacked the capability to do something as simple as filtering out unwanted ACKs.
That discussion appears to address 2 separate problems, both in infeasible ways:
1. Rejecting unsolicited ACKs - "SYN+ACK -> (check if your network requested it) -> (if yes) -> then -> ALLOW -> else (REJECT)":
It doesn't really expand on a method of doing this, but usually you would use connection tracking, whereby you remember the state of all connections running through the router. This is a pretty resource intensive setup and is nigh on unworkable in networks with asymmetric or non-deterministic routing. I.e. it isn't something that I would expect an ISP as big as AT&T to be able to implement, especially at the drop of a hat. Sure, it's easy enough to do on your home network, but it just ain't going to work at the ISP level without some *serious* effort.
2. Prevention of SYN floods by proxying the connection initialisation:
The method described here will lead to you being able to connect to *any* server, even if it isn't accepting connections. Only once the connection is fully established will the real server be contacted, whereupon you may well discover that the server doesn't accept connections on that port, or doesn't even exist. If my ISP pulled that kind of stunt, I'd be finding a new ISP as soon as possible and I would be advising my customers to do the same because messing with network traffic like that is going to cause all sorts of "weird shit" problems, cause software to use incorrect error messages when reporting failures and generally make debugging network issues absolute hell.
Both of the above methods also suffer from the exact same problem that SYN cookies were invented to prevent - namely, there is a device on the network which has to remember the status of all the pending connections which may have been started by spoofed packets. Sure, your firewall is protecting the real server from seeing these spoofed packets, but the firewall itself will collapse under the load of tracking millions of half-open connections from an attacker.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
YES. But I'm guessing this is not the whole story:
... 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."
But 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.
moot has posted the details on status.4chan.org.
Basically he confirms all the speculation that AT&T blocked 4chan because of ACK bouncebacks from a DDOS. Real /b/tards probably already had off-network proxies at the ready to deal with it.
Also, being on AT&T and unable to access 4chan doesn't necessarily mean that it's been blocked. 4chan is up and down all the time, because they're under constant DDOS attacks, at pretty much all times, from various sources. It seems that DDOSing 4chan is a basic holding pattern for botnets that aren't otherwise occupied.
Here's what happened:
For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack. 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.
In response, AT&T filtered all traffic to and from our img.4chan.org IPs (which serve /b/ & /r9k/) for their entire network, instead of only the affected customers. AT&T did not contact us prior to implementing the block. Here is their statement regarding the matter.
In the end, this wasn't a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T's part. Whoever pulled the trigger on blackholing the site probably didn't anticipate [nor intend] the consequences of doing so.
We're glad to see this short-lived debacle has prompted renewed interest and debate over net neutrality and internet censorshipâ"two very important issues that don't get nearly enough attentionâ"so perhaps this was all just a blessing in disguise.
Aside from that, I'll also add that there is some big news due later this week. Keep an eye on the News page, Twitter, and global message for updates.
As always, I can be reached at moot@4chan.org.
---
PS: If any companies would like to hook us up with some better hardware, feel free! The architecture we've got powering this large and influential beast is really quite embarrassing. ( ._.)
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
Can you imagine being in charge of AT&T's security? I bet they are now having to monitor every post on /b/ for threats against AT&T.
Job description: "Reading posts about testicles and lolcats. Looking at pictures of naked women."
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