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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.
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.
There are smarter ways to disable 4chan, like this one
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
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).
I don't think AT&T would care too much of the opinion of a group of 15 year olds.
Only a complete moron would sell an entertainment pipeline into American homes and not care about the opinion of a group of 15 year olds! So, yeah, you're probably right.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
Destruction as a form of protest only hurts themselves and other innocents.
"Other innocents"?
You've never actually visited /b/, have you?
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