Slashdot Mirror
FCC Should Prove DDoS Attacks Stopped Net Neutrality Comments (networkworld.com)
New submitter Michelle Davidson writes: After John Oliver urged viewers of HBO's Last Week Tonight to fight again for net neutrality and post comments in support of it, people hit a wall — the FCC's site essentially crashed. Originally, it was believed that the number of people trying to access the site caused the problem, but then the FCC released a statement saying "multiple" DDoS attacks -- occurring at the same time Oliver sent viewers to the site -- caused the site to crash: "These were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host. These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC." The group Fight for the Future doesn't buy it, though, and wants proof. It says the FCC should release the logs: "The FCC should immediately release its logs to an independent security analyst or major news outlet to verify exactly what happened last night. The public deserves to know, and the FCC has a responsibility to maintain a functioning website and ensure that every member of the public who wants to submit a comment about net neutrality has the ability to do so. Anything less is a subversion of our democracy." No word yet from the FCC on whether it will release its logs, leading the interwebs to speculate about whether it was actually an attack to prevent commenting or if the FCC is ill-prepared to handle large amounts of traffic and blamed DDoS attacks to cover their inabilities. People are even questioning whether the FCC's tech team knows what a DDoS attack is.
Which is more telling; lots of people trying to post comments for net neutrality or some organizations trying to block those people from posting those comments?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Just one step away from "Russians".
Doesn't help much and by the time there is proof one way or another it will all be over either way.
Frankly I'm convinced it is a DDoS for one reason. If it wasn''t, Pai might be stupid enough to claim it was, but there are people are him who would convince him that making the claim it was not a smart thing to do. Hell, rumor has it Verizon is running an electro astroturfing campaign. Creating bots that that create false accounts and submit antiNN comments. Maybe their bots ran wild and created the DDoS.
Keep in mind this is not a referendum, even if the FCC receives negative comments totaling 99% of the US population, they can just blow it off.
When MS and the DoJ reached a settlement more then a decade ago. Before the judge could approve the settlement, they had to do something similar. They received a ton of comments that went something like "Microsoft sucks break it up.". The judge took a few substantive comments and tweaked the settlement a bit and approved it.
I think a better effort would be to make sure that people get a way to confirm their comments actually were submitted and reflect their actual comments. Just think of what would happen if Comcast were caught forging comments!
Something else they can do is get the comment period extended to compensate for the difficulties. Just like when there is a problem with a polling place in an election, a judge can extend the times the polls are open. The FCC, after all, does not have to abide by the comments, but they do, by law, have to receive the comments and listen to them.
A lot of people trying to access a resource at the same time.
We know this phenomenon as "slashdotting". And funny enough, it hasn't really happened a lot in the more recent past, maybe the FCC should get up to speed. Even though unlikely, it might suddenly get hit by a lot of traffic because suddenly a lot of people might get interested in that "net neutrality" thing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ahem, it's known as the right to petition.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So you equate Democracy is Oligarchy? Because I can tell you for certain that Oligarchy doesn't care about anything but what Oligarchy can use to fulfill its dream to fully enslave all of humanity. Democracy however cares about hearing every voice and interpreting the meaning of the voice and then acting upon the majority's harmony.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Dudes - Adjit pai has your back on this! Calm down and relax!
Alternative facts not withstanding - who needs any sort of oversight or regulation of the Internet? It routes around total authoritarian control.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I just posted in the other thread that this is all al little too convenient for the FCC.
Why are Slashdotters so convinced it's just a normal overload?
In any case, this is a good call, because I suspect if this goes uncontested that we will see a lot more arguments like this in the future from other organizations.
"Sorry you couldn't practice democracy, a dog ate our network".
The FCC should be given vast regulatory power over the Internet; the FCC's tech team doesn't know what a DDoS attack is.
Anything less is a subversion of our democracy.
No, it's not. Democracy doesn't give a shit about comment forms on a website.
If Democracy doesn't give a shit, then perhaps they should stop hosting comment forms on their websites.
I am not a specialist but looking at the comments it seems that a bot has been posting the same text *against net neutrality* (starting with "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation..."). It looks like a bot because the messages appear to come from people that posted in alphabetical order of their first name/last name combination: Brittany Mccain, Brittany Proctor, Brittany Sharp, etc. in the view sorted by date posted. https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/searc...
Just incredible how this administration is basically trying to re-write history...
Whether or not it was a DDoS attack, the thing is, this already happened in the past, for the exact same reason. So regardless if there was a DDoS attack or not, the website would've come down the same way:
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
That link there? It's from 2014, despite looking exactly like past weekend. That was the moment when this matter should've been settled. No need for clowns with extremely punchable faces like Ajit Pai to try to reverse it in any way, if public comment even mattered. The public opinion has been heard on this, they are already ignoring whatever comments were made in the past. People don't need to be doubtful whether public comment is being heard or not... it clearly isn't.
Question is exactly the same, the fears are exactly the same of 2014, net neutrality did not change since then nor it's reasons to exist.
The companies along their greed to make more money on costumers also didn't change... if anything, it only grew.
Now they also have a whole lot more politicians in their pockets, people who are willing to go against public comments because they have their heads stuck in their asses. Remember people, it was only 3 years ago that the public outcry for net neutrality happened. All this administration is doing is reversing what people conquered. This would be unacceptable in any decent democracy, but here we are held prisioners by an administration that refuses to listen.
Fight for the Future has all the reasons to be suspicious about this, because pretty much anyone can claim that a website crash was not because of unpredicted access numbers but rather some coordinated attack of some form. But ultimately, the violation has already happened. When you have an administration that is this willing to bend over for corporations wishes, it doesn't matter if they revert something or not, they'll find a way to bend laws and turn a blind eye to violations. Net neutrality has ended as soon as Ajit Pai got the chair. Whether net neutrality crashes or not, I guarantee we'll be seeing problematic behaviours arising plenty soon.
It's not so much what's on paper, but rather the signals politicians send with stuff like these.
I'd be surprised if that many even cared about net neutrality. You ask 100 people on the street how many would even know what it means?
And a comment form on a website does a lousy job of providing any reasonable sampling of the majority. Nor does democracy actually typically yield good results. It's a good thing the US is a representational republic and not a democracy.
Distributed - Was all the traffic originating from one location?
... by inciting the activity he gives a very public central focal point to those seeking retribution for the perceived offense.
Denial - Was the resource denied to its user base?
of - (i got nothing)
Service - The thing.
Unfortunately, the line between activism and vandalism is going to be drawn by a court somewhere. Oliver did an awesome thing in an awful way
One question to ask yourself is, "is this any different from a hacker running a denial script?" Playing devil's advocate here, but where does your right to free speech end and my right to use a government service provided by my tax dollars begin? If this army of activists continued in perpetuity, would it still be free speech?
On the plus side, maybe the government will use this as impetus to design better website infrastructure. Can't handle 100s of thousands of posts per minute? In this day of Facebook, Twitter, and Google? Weaksauce.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Perhaps some abstract concept of 'Democracy'(probably represented by a topless marble statue, as abstract classical concepts always seem to be) doesn't; but isn't it fairly silly to say that "Democracy doesn't give a shit about the comment forms on a website" when that website and comment forms exist because of the public comment section of the structure of the FCC rulemaking process; as determined in accordance with the FCC's congressional authorization?
What exactly does 'democracy giving a shit' look like?
Joseph Goebbels would nod in the affirmative.
The FCC was once a pretty good organization, and mostly managed to enact and enforce regulations that were in the best interests of the public good. But with Ajit Pai's kowtowing to Trump and to the corporate interests he serves, and now this, it seems the FCC is just another utterly corrupt organ in a thoroughly cancer-riddled body politic. Sad.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The government doesn't prove anything it says why start with this.
I don't think he meant for the FCC comment system to die. I think he meant for people to go to the FCC's comment system and fill it with a bunch of echo chamber chanting that would be ignored, as the FCC ignores copy/paste comments (and it should).
And a comment form on a website does a lousy job of providing any reasonable sampling of the majority. Nor does democracy actually typically yield good results. It's a good thing the US is a representational republic and not a democracy.
Just look at Trumps multiple survey's. That...oh wait he actually claims they were rigged because people didn't give the answers he wanted.
Why does it matter? Would the government be embarrassed if the website couldn't handle the traffic? Would they not want to admit that there was a massive barrage of comments from citizens opposed to their policies? Or are they just waiting a few days to blame it on the evil Russians?
Even if every single HBO subscriber wrote a comment to the FCC, the government wouldn't read more than a few (if they bother to read ANY) and certainly wouldn't do anything in response. We might get a new head of the FCC in a few years, but the career bureaucrats aren't elected and won't be up for re-appointment. They don't care what you think because they have no reason to care.
It's probable the FCC did it to themselves just to keep comments from net neutrality supporters getting posted.
They really should. God knows nobody actually reads them. I think those comment forms are kind of like the "close door" button on elevators. It's there to make people feel like they're doing something, but it's not actually connected to anything.
And which of those has this administration, as a whole, been showing lately?
During the 2012 election there was some news articles about Republicans trying to shake off the "old, rich, white-guy" persona since they had once again lost to - in their minds - the devil incarnate. Fast forward 4 years and they've doubled down on the persona. The FCC under Pai so far has been faithfully serving the partisan agenda, favoring big business over the little guy and public interests.
These dumb fucks don't know how the internet works and they want to regulate it????
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
For quite some time general Western media shows of Putin's prowess are such convincing that I came to a conclusion that if he wanted to he could make pigs fly or DDoS attack on anything just by farting aloud. When the tasks are less demanding he can go at it without a fart.
l
Doesn't help much and by the time there is proof one way or another it will all be over either way.
Frankly I'm convinced it is a DDoS for one reason. If it wasn''t, Pai might be stupid enough to claim it was, but there are people are him who would convince him that making the claim it was not a smart thing to do. Hell, rumor has it Verizon is running an electro astroturfing campaign. Creating bots that that create false accounts and submit antiNN comments. Maybe their bots ran wild and created the DDoS.
Keep in mind this is not a referendum, even if the FCC receives negative comments totaling 99% of the US population, they can just blow it off.
When MS and the DoJ reached a settlement more then a decade ago. Before the judge could approve the settlement, they had to do something similar. They received a ton of comments that went something like "Microsoft sucks break it up.". The judge took a few substantive comments and tweaked the settlement a bit and approved it.
I think a better effort would be to make sure that people get a way to confirm their comments actually were submitted and reflect their actual comments. Just think of what would happen if Comcast were caught forging comments!
Something else they can do is get the comment period extended to compensate for the difficulties. Just like when there is a problem with a polling place in an election, a judge can extend the times the polls are open. The FCC, after all, does not have to abide by the comments, but they do, by law, have to receive the comments and listen to them.
Yeah, when I read those article about the DDoS I thought to myself that it was just a bit too convenient after John Oliver's show and "direction" to have folks comment. A convenient "scapegoat" if you will: i.e. Sorry, can't receive comments at this time, we've been DDoS'ed!
not sure why troll you are totally correct here. people can still reach the fcc via mail,phone in person. just because a website goes down doesnt mean democracy is doomed
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
They really should. God knows nobody actually reads them. I think those comment forms are kind of like the "close door" button on elevators. It's there to make people feel like they're doing something, but it's not actually connected to anything.
We're not talking about whitehouse.gov here.
Many government agencies, the FCC among them, are required by law to seek public comment on regulatory changes, and to actually read and consider all of the comments submitted. No, the decisionmakers don't actually read every one of the tens of thousands of comments submitted, but staffers do, and they create summaries that identify all of the points raised by the commenters, and how many raised them, and the decisionmakers do read those and take the public opinions presented into account. They're required to, by law, and believe it or not most federal employees actually do try to do their jobs in good faith.
Now, it's certainly possible that Pai was given strict instructions by Trump about what he is to do here, and that he'll make a show of examining the public response and then ignore it... but the comments are on the public record, and that will be obvious. Opponents of the administration will be free to make lots of political hay from it, and if they can interest Congress, a Congressional investigation could go after Pai.
None of this guarantees that the wrong thing won't happen, but it's absolutely false to say that these comments don't matter.
FWIW, here's what I submitted:
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Now I'm curious - what are some examples of democracy delivering substantially worse results than a republic? I've heard lots of fear-mongering over the dangers of democracy, but can't think of many actual examples.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
mod parent up
It gets even better when you realize the DDoS attack came from IoT devices all approved and certified by the FCC :)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The "close door" button on the elevators I use works just dine. The undeniable evidence? When someone already in the elevator presses it, they can indeed get the doors closed before I can get from the "up" button two elevators over. Yeah, it works. And they don't want me to ride with them. It's THEIR damned elevator, and I am not welcome. I don't look like them, and they remember the last time they let someone different on.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Indonesia or Pakistan's blasphemy laws, for starters. Check on Ahok being jailed for 2 years because of mobocracy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This indignation is precious in light of how people bent over backwards to rationalize the failings of the healthcare.gov site.
I think people here are not understanding exactly what this "comment" page is. It's not just a forum, like /., that anyone can post to anonymously. You have to enter name, address, phone number and email address, and the comments are made public. It's an "official" comment, for some values of "official". Of course you can likely fake most or all of the info you put in, but it's not quite as lame as being an online troll. And the process for getting there is somewhat obtuse, so having Last Week Tonight's link to get there (gofccyourself.com) is a great help.
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
The irony of net neutrality is that without it, Verizon can stop you accessing the FCC website to complain about the lack of Net Neutrality.
You're distracted, Trump sacks Comey shortly after Comey asked for a subpoena of Flynns in connection to large payments from Turkey and Russia that were not disclosed. So lots of people are doing lah lah lah look over here.
Kushner corp just tried to raise $150 million from Chinese investors in exchange for investor visas.... why would a billionaire need money? And where/what is this project that costs a magic $1 billion? Oooh, so many things happening, lets not look at the money trail to his orangeness.
This, right here, is how you know whether or not they care about maintaining the appearance of acting in good faith.
If they don't extend the comment period and delay everything behind it, then you know for sure that they aren't for real, and the whole thing was a complete unmitigated sham. The most optimistic and idealistic person looking at things in the very best, most naive light, will say they are definitely for-sure crooks who give zero fucks about what America wants.
If they extend the comment period, then the worst you can say is that they are at least trying to maintain the illusory pretense of accountability.
This one little thing is going to reveal a lot about how they want to be seen. One way's best case scenario looks worse than the other's worst-case scenario. It's a no-brainer if appearance matters at all.
The canonical argument against direct democracy is that the rabble might be swayed to elect a demagogue. /snark
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's not hard to buy a DDOS. Why not do it for political reasons? Any foreign or domestic group could do this.
It was a huge mistake to weaponize the free and open internet because so much of our society and democracy works on it. Our democracy is in an existential crisis as it becomes easy for a few people to censor the political process.
It has become completely normalized that your vote doesn't matter.
It is becoming normalized that your vote won't even be counted.
It is becoming normalized that people can stop you from voting.
If that doesn't work, take it to your local government. If that doesn't work, start an ISP that promises to abide by net neutrality or wait for someone else to. I'm sure since there is a clear majority on your side that you will ultimately get what you want.
I know if my provider starts slowing down my experience that they will no longer be my provider.
I guess people could write their comments down on some paper, put it in an envelope with a stamp on it and mail it to the FCC. Sure, the latency is higher, but the bandwidth is still well above the eyeball processing power of the destination node.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
What exactly does 'democracy giving a shit' look like?
Likely this guy.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That the DDoS was a result of everyone on the planet showing their utter displeasure might be another matter, but this was still a DDoS, as the originating amount of bandwidth was distributed across the globe, and it resulted in a denial of service.
Anyone else trying to pull any other fucking definition out of their ass is a goddamned moron.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. We took up some democratic ideals, but we are a representative Republic, more than a 'democracy'. All democracy means is all citizens are empowered to participate in governance. It doesnt really encapsulate how our government runs, only who can participate.
Good-bye
Use the Freedom of Information Act. Just do it. Don't ask for free something non-standard that a small group wants. Pay for it.
Keep in mind this is not a referendum
And thus it is pretty much useless. A politician will ignore unfavorable results, but proclaim positive feedback as a mandate.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Contact one of the three or more congresscritters representing you in Washington D.C. Ask them to obtain the FCC logs. There is a period in the days business when they can make arbitrary remarks that are entered into the Federal Record. Have them take this time to comment and enter the logs "as read". Now they will be part of the official Federal Record and you can easily get access to them, as can news organizations etc.
What a fantastic story.
I find it very funny and strange. Even ironic.
(I'm sure some of you are going to tear what I say into bits and pieces in an attempt to make a counter-point on each one. Go for it. Let's have a debate.)
Those among the "anti-fascists" and "the resistance", as they like to keep calling themselves, advocated non-violent protest. When they find that doesn't seem to stop from their interests getting shot down in Congress in an extremely fair manner, they then advocate violence.
Americans are not "down-trodden" by *any* means, not even those that suffer police brutality or lack of clean tap water when we all have the ability to obtain clean water from bottles or perhaps centers where clean water is being distributed. We all still have rights. At least for *most* of us, you're able to sue your police department through due process instead of getting shut away for life by default.
Our presidential elections are still being held every 4 years. We still have our congressional elections. Those aren't being taken away.
Spare me the BS of being "the resistance". 51% voted for Clinton, 48% for Trump. That's pretty darn close to 50/50. There is nothing to resist! Your voices are loud enough!
Those on the far left and right in the American political spectrum need to calm down.
It's a metaphor.
"...the FCC has a responsibility to maintain a functioning website and ensure that every member of the public who wants to submit a comment about net neutrality has the ability to do so. Anything less is a subversion of our democracy." I think this has to be double-checked. If I recall, a website going down is no excuse for not communicating with the government or regulated entities because you still have the option of using Snail Mail. Be careful to back up claims of subversion of democracy.
A politician will ignore unfavorable results, but proclaim positive feedback as a mandate.
I would recommend not reelecting politicians who ignore results or misinform people, I know radical thought, but maybe it will catch on if people get interested in keeping their democracy.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
John Oliver MUST be charged as the DDOS mastermind! Obviously, Last Week Tonight was the command and control. We cannot allow our democracy to be undermined by the dullard and uninformed population! LOCK HIM UP!
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
I agree that we are a representative Republic rather than a true Democracy. In fact offhand I can't think of any nation-state scale "democracies" in modern times.
And for your classic "two wolves and a sheep" quote - that's exactly the sort of "common-sense" hyperbole we hear a lot of - but what substantial evidence is there that it's rooted in fact? Or for that matter that it's any worse, even in theory, than the current de-facto alternative of "a few wolves and a whole herd of sheep having mutton for dinner".
The current right for us sheep to vote for the wolf of our choice does indeed give us some voice in the system - but it's hard to see how you can honestly claim it takes up any democratic ideals at all. At best it takes up enough veneer to keep the populace placated.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.