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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.
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.