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Verizon Blocking 4chan
An anonymous reader writes "According to 4chan's owner and administrator 'moot,' Verizon has explicitly blocked all traffic on their network from boards.4chan.org, where all of 4chan's boards are located. Moot explains that only traffic to and from port 80 is being dropped and they were able to confirm that it was intentional. 4chan's downtime for Verizon users has been in effect for at least 72 hours since Saturday, February 7."
They're talking about VZW -- The slashdot title is wrong. Durr, it's slashdot, after all.
~The roAm
Actually, Verizon is screwed. If they wish to maintain certain legal status they'll unblock 4chan and fast. Otherwise they'll become liable for any copyright infringement going on their network because they're showing that they are actively monitoring and controlling data, instead of acting as a neutral data routing service.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Moot himself said on the 4chan status blog that it's only Verizon Wireless from what they can tell.
It should be interesting to see the fallout from this. 4channers aren't exactly the paragon of maturity.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
What the summary fails to note is that this -only- affects users of Verizon Wireless, namely DROID owners.
Not mentioned in summary: this is only verizon wireless.
...
http://status.4chan.org/
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
for about the 500th time, ISPs are not, and do not want to be common carriers.
The DMCA safe harbor provision is completely different from common carrier protection and applies regardless of whether the content host monitors their content or not.
I'm a FIOS customer and I can get to 4chan just fine at the moment.
No. It will not. Most users are not in the US. Most users will happily participate in an ddos though.
Implicit in that is service to all internet hosts.
I bet if you read the terms of service - which you agreed to - you'll find that it doesn't support that assumption.
For example, from Comcast's terms of service:
Comcast reserves the right to refuse to transmit or post, and to remove or block, any information or materials, in whole or in part, that it, in its sole discretion, deems to be in violation of Sections I or II of this Policy, or otherwise harmful to Comcast's network or customers using the Service, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful so long as it violates this Policy.
You can access a specific board? I cannot. The main page will come up, but when I try to go to a specific board, it fails...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
you can be sure that somewhere in the agreement there's a section which boils down to "we reserve the right to do whatever we damned well please and are in no way obliged to do anything"
Looks like Verizon responded pretty fast via twitter: @Verizon Verizon PolicyBlog Post: 4Chan Not "Blocked" -- Protecting Our Customers & Our Network http://policyblog.verizon.com/BlogPost/697/ProtectingOurCustomersandOurNetwork.aspx
Which in no way protects them from a lawsuit.
He doesn't allow it, people just post it at such a high frequency that it's not possible to delete & ban fast enough.
"Recently, Verizon Wireless security and external experts detected attacks from an IP address associated with the 4Chan family of web sites that was disruptive to our customers and our network. To protect both, we eliminated connectivity to the IP address. At no time was 4Chan itself blocked. Ongoing network security team monitoring has now determined there is no longer an immediate threat. Connectivity to those sites is being restored later today."
Get it right, you can sue for OVER 9000! dollars.
Or 8000, in the original Japanese...
Bow-ties are cool.
171! would overflow a double.
Are you aware of *just* how many posts are on 4chan? The most active board, "random," has over 100,000 posts a day. I think the entire site averages something like 1,000,000. Per DAY. You just can't effectively police something like that with the kind of set up they have. It was never built for that volume of traffic. They'd need to make everyone register, and that'd take away half the appeal of the place.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
go somewhere else.
In the United States, home of 4chan, Verizon, and Slashdot, there are five ways to get on the Internet:
What do you recommend?
Obligatory Jon Stewart paraphrase: you do realize that, in the original quote, "they came" is actually an euphanism for "round up and kill," right?
You have my word that when the government starts rounding up and mass-murdering 4chan users, I'll speak up.
That's a trick question, congressmen never go out at night. They're too busy frequenting prostitutes and lobbyists.
I won't agree "common carrier status" is a valid argument. ISPs don't have common carrier status. But there's another protection that applies to them, that should make the DMCA notice sender think twice, before going any further than sending a notice.
The DMCA does not apply to ISPs who merely route traffic (and don't host the content on their network, or their equipment)..
Contrary to popular misconception, the DMCA does not have just ONE safe harbor, it has two separate safe harbor provisions, and each one has different requirements, and applies under different circumstances.
One of the safe harbor provisions [US Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec 512, (c)] pertains to content providers, web hosters, etc, companies that store content on behalf of their customers, and has the infamous provisions for notice and takedown requirements.
These people must arrange for an agent to receive DMCA notices, and expeditiously remove content, in order to enjoy that particular safe harbor protection.
That one is the 512(c) safe harbor.
This is not the safe harbor that ISPs should rely on.
ISPs should rely on the 512(a) safe harbor, which does not require having an agent to receive notices of infringing content, and does not require doing anything with such notices, in order to enjoy the protections of this provision.
US Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec 512, (c) ... A service provider ...."
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512 " (c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks
at Direction of Users." versus
"(a) Transitory Digital Network Communications.
shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in
subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for
infringement of copyright by reason of the provider's transmitting,
routing, or providing connections for,
The DMCA doesn't say anything about severing connectivity to computers on a network. That's just what the wronged party wants (if they try to send a notice to an ISP that a user happens to subscribe to, or that their traffic happens to pass through), the collateral damage doesn't effect them, if the ISP cuts off innocent users in the process.
The current DMCA provides some decent protections for ISPs that don't have unjust requirements like takedown procedures.
Big **AA organizations ignore this fact, and send notices anyway.
Because (A) they wished the takedown procedure applied in all cases, or they may even be trying to get the law changed to do that...
(B) They rely on the misconception; they would like ISPs to think they must disconnect the user immediately on notice.
(C) They want to minimize the number of "outs" or legal protections any future counterparty might have -- by sending the notice, regardless
(D) Scare tactic.
It's a matter of numbers.
4chan is a community. For better or worse, several hundred thousand people go there to hang out and blow off steam, screw around, debate, whatever. When that community is threatened, the members may seek retribution as is their prerogative. A common empathy may also affect them, and you get things like their campaign against Scientology. Not everyone takes part, but it's associated with that group.
In a group as large as 4chan, the chances of someone feeling annoyed or offended by basically anything is high. The greater the prodding, the greater the chance of eliciting a response from a larger cross-section of the user-base. Unlike say, your local community center, the chances are essentially guaranteed that one or more of these people will have either the technical or psychological competence to undermine some aspect of Verizon's organization either directly or surreptitiously.
There is no "4chan." There are no members. People go there, yes. But if 4chan were to vanish, those people would simply disperse into the greater internet and form smaller communities, or rebuild something similar to what 4chan was. Call 4chan a cesspool if you want, if that makes you feel better. Its diversity is as much a strength as a meaningless distraction. The fact remains that 4chan serves a purpose, and people who frequent it, for whatever reason, are essentially unpredictable in the veracity of their response, if they have one at all. Most will probably just sit back and laugh at Verizon's futile gesture. Some, of course, will not.
Thinking all 4chan-ers are the same is the same misconception as when people wonder how Slashdot simultaneously maintains diametrically opposing views. It's a fallacy to assert all "members" of a site believe the same basic tenets, and woe to any who underestimate a gathering as large as 4chan. Is Slashdot any different? Fark? Digg? Reddit? Would not the members not take kindly to Verizon arbitrarily blocking them? Would not a few, wack-jobs or not, do something in retaliation? Maybe a prank. Maybe extra junk mail. Maybe convince a major media conglomerate the CEO has suffered a massive heart attack, like they did to Apple in 2008?
You never know what will happen, and Verizon is basically inviting everyone at 4chan to do their worst. Hopefully, everyone there has better things to do.
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove