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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."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.