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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.
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.
LOL! This is what happens when you contract out your "anti-net-neutrality-posting-bot" to the lowest Indian bidder on Upwork.
Do you have ESP?
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.
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
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.