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Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service
g0dsp33d writes "Fake Steve Jobs, the alter-alias of Newsweek's Dan Lyons, is calling disgruntled AT&T users to protest comments from AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega that smart phone (specifically iPhone) usage is responsible for their network issues and his plan to end unlimited data plans. The post, dubbed 'Operation Chokehold,' wants AT&T customers to use as much data service as they can on Friday, December 18th at noon. While Fake Steve Jobs is notable for its satire, many Twitter and Facebook users seem to be rallying to its cry. It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS."
I hope it "suceeds."
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I'm sorry, but this is just sort of childish. The GP is right -- under normal circumstances, it is almost impossible to hit any potential caps, and the people that this will affect aren't keeping up their end of the contractual obligation anyway, so terms can be nullified for them -- ie, they shouldn't be entitled to "unlimited" bandwidth for the same price if they're going to cheat.
Look at it like this -- back in the dialup days, if I were to pay for "unlimited" internet access, that would be with the understanding that I would connect one modem to one phone line and tie up one interface. What if I were to channel bond two or more modems, dial in, combine the bandwidth and in the processes suck up half a modem bank at the ISP? Sure, I'm paying for "unlimited" internet access, but what about the people who are also paying just as much as I am but who cannot take advantage of the service because I'm monopolizing the pipe? I actually got kicked from an ISP in high school for doing something similar, which is why I use this as an example.
I'm not an iPhone user, and I'm not on AT&T either way. I have a BlackBerry Storm on Verizon, and I pay for "unlimited data." I don't use it much, but occasionally I do. Paying for "unlimited" to me means that if I average 100-200M per billing cycle, but occasionally have heavy usage, such as a few days somewhere without my laptop, and end up pulling a gig during a billing period, then I don't get charged overages that I otherwise might have, had I purchased, for example, a 500Mbit per cycle plan thinking that I'm never going to go over it. I'm not tethering my phone to my laptop and using it as a cellular modem to run cvsup of the entire FreeBSD source tree and laughing all the way to the bank.
Just because we're technically capable of doing out-of-band things that 95% of users of the same product (such as iphone or blackberry) aren't even aware that they can do doesn't mean that it's OK to do them then bitch when our special fun time gets cut off. As a system admin at a web hosting company, I've put the smack down on more than enough users who thought that "unlimited bandwidth" meant "I can stream hi-def video at 50Mbit/sec all day every day and to hell with anyone else on that segment of the network" to know that if I were to take the side of "the masses" on this issue, it would by hypocritical. And publicly advertising a mass attempt to bring down the network to prove some sort of point just makes my skin crawl, and I'm not an AT&T employee who's probably thinking of calling out sick on Friday just to not have to deal with the crap if this gets off the ground.
Seriously, just WTF.
Oh wait, there *is* a better word. Frigtards.
FTFY :)