Slashdot Mirror
A Bot Is Flooding the FCC's Website With Fake Anti-net Neutrality Comments (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A bot is thought to be behind the posting of thousands of messages to the FCC's website, in an apparent attempt to influence the results of a public solicitation for feedback on net neutrality. A sizable portion of those comments are fake, and are repeating the same manufactured response again and again, ZDNet reports. So much so that more than 58,000 identical comments have been posted since the feedback doors were opened, now representing over one-in-ten comments on the FCC's feedback docket. The comment reads as following: "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."
ZDNet claims that all other comments follow the same pattern: the bot appears to cycle through names in an alphabetical order, leaving the person's name, and postal address and zip code. And some -- if not all -- of these comments are fake, the publication adds, claiming that it reached out to the people and many of them confirmed that they had not left any comments on the website.
ZDNet claims that all other comments follow the same pattern: the bot appears to cycle through names in an alphabetical order, leaving the person's name, and postal address and zip code. And some -- if not all -- of these comments are fake, the publication adds, claiming that it reached out to the people and many of them confirmed that they had not left any comments on the website.
https://it.slashdot.org/story/...
So... did slashdot just provide "proof"?!
"The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the internet to flourish for more than 20 years."
That was my comment, and I can assure you I am entirely real person.
-Anonymous Coward
Watch Ajit Pai use that as enough excuse to "give the people what they want" and destroy net neutrality, regardless if it only accounts for 10% of the posts.
Who am I kidding, he doesn't care to explain himself...
As much as I wish ISPs and their shills would be this transparent, this seems like a false flag to me. ISPs exert enough influence that they don't need to fabricate a grassroots effort, let alone one that's so clearly astroturf. OTOH, I can believe some script kiddy thinking this would somehow appear damaging to ISPs.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This is not helpful. The bot posting will give the FCC a reason to ignore most messages and claim that most complaints came from bots.
I suppose it's possible that someone is trying to invalidate any legitimate responses from the public on this subject by doing this.
I also suppose it's possible that some well-meaning idiot is doing it thinking they're helping the cause of Net Neutrality.
Either way they need to knock it the hell off. Stop attempting to subvert the will of the people.
Trumpies and their Russian cohorts at it again.
Let's see who comes out of the woodwork in this Slashdot thread!
somehow Facebook got attached to the FCC's site
And politicians will use the bot coverage (or call it "trending") to do what they planned on doing at the beginning.
expect a pro-NN bot spewage to hit the FCC soon-ish.
I urge the Federal Communications Commission to continue their sensible regulation of the internet known as Title II.
A similar technique was used by 'The Future of Television Coalition'. You 'signed' a petition on their website and they blasted a form letter comment to the FCC's #UnlockTheBox docket in support of giving pay television companies all the control they desire.
Funny that it always seems to be the right-wingers pulling stunts like this. Not surprising though. What do you expect from a philosophy (conservatism) that places absolute individualistic self-interest above everything else, including morality and ethics.
end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet
It is arguably overreach -- to take over such a massive thing unenvisioned by Congress. However, if that is the botwrangler's concern (it isn't) this is not helpful to your argument.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Amateurish. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Caution: Contents under pressure
The wild west aspect didn't make the net flourish, it was the fact it was for nerds. Once the plebs got into the mix everything got screwed up, one aspect of which is they are dumb and desperate enough to be taken advantage of, leading to a need for regulations like net neutrality to ensure nerds (the people who the internet was built by/for) don't end up in some bureaucratic mess with ISPs demanding an extra cost for every service used (or worse, hosted.)
of how to win friends and influence people.
Not.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The attempt seems pitifully inept. To me, it seems designed to grab attention, which makes me suspicious that something else is going on. Distraction from some other part of the process, or for something completely unrelated?
Of course, it could just be a script kiddie or some other idiot. Hanlon's razor may apply here: "any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
MOAR dragon tits on Game of Thrones!
"Helping" the country. You mean like making promises to obstruct all legislation and failing to duly appoint Supreme Court justices? Yeah, sounds like the DNC is the only problem here. Keks.
The POTUS will do the destruction on his own with his minions. He is the king of making accusations without any evidence. I see it as an attempt to distract the people. This shouldn't be about political parties. It's about what is right for the people, not the corporate overlords that our government officials pander to.
Look, we had an election a few months ago. We also have an entire political party, the DNC, pretending the election wasn't valid.
I would argue that an election is a better representation of the will of the people than an online forum is. If the people that oppose what the FCC is doing won't accept results of an actual election, that hasn't shown any actual evidence of fraud despite how many times they claim it, why should those in charge of the FCC now listen to random comments from bots?
The DNC, and its supporters, are in for real disappointment until they grow up and actually help the country instead of attempting to destroy it because of who won the election.
Look, we had an election a few months ago. We also have an entire political party, the DNC, pretending the election wasn't valid.
I would argue that an election is a better representation of the will of the people than an online forum is. If the people that oppose what the FCC is doing won't accept results of an actual election, that hasn't shown any actual evidence of fraud despite how many times they claim it, why should those in charge of the FCC now listen to random comments from bots?
The DNC, and its supporters, are in for real disappointment until they grow up and actually help the country instead of attempting to destroy it because of who won the election.
http://www.gofccyourself.com/ ?
Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Look, we had an election a few months ago. We also have an entire political party, the DNC, pretending the election wasn't valid.
I would argue that an election is a better representation of the will of the people than an online forum is. If the people that oppose what the FCC is doing won't accept results of an actual election, that hasn't shown any actual evidence of fraud despite how many times they claim it, why should those in charge of the FCC now listen to random comments from bots?
The DNC, and its supporters, are in for real disappointment until they grow up and actually help the country instead of attempting to destroy it because of who won the election.
Well they said it was a *Distributed* DOS attack...
What's more distributed than all the devices of a certain broadband provider, and who would have the list of names and addresses associated with those routers?
Keeps repeating himself, word for word, over and over again
Faggot? Dunno about that, but definitely autist. Did you escape your nanny?
There's no way some random hacker felt that passionately *against* the concept of net neutrality...right? I mean, the only people who support it are luddite ultra-conservatives. Someone must have been paid handsomely for this. (I'm looking at you, Verizon.)
Look, we had an election a few months ago. We also have an entire political party, the DNC, pretending the election wasn't valid.
Keeps repeating himself, word for word, over and over again
I would argue that an election is a better representation of the will of the people than an online forum is. If the people that oppose what the FCC is doing won't accept results of an actual election, that hasn't shown any actual evidence of fraud despite how many times they claim it, why should those in charge of the FCC now listen to random comments from bots?
Faggot? Dunno about that, but definitely autist. Did you escape your nanny?
The DNC, and its supporters, are in for real disappointment until they grow up and actually help the country instead of attempting to destroy it because of who won the election.
Russian troll bot
Democracy in action, Fuck Yeah!! About time the corporations with a vested interest in the outcome can properly voice their concerns to squeeze out the humans.
Although his server farm runs on endless power from lakes of boiling sulfur, we could probably take out his Comcast fiber.
Probably some Russian or Chinese hired to illegitimize the rest of us. No one wants their internet throttled or even have their ISP with the capability to monitor that intimately to do so in the first place.
There was a web site, that told people exactly what to post, including how to copy and paste.
Russian troll bot
Nah, more likely 4chan /b/tard.
Why are they not using CAPTCHA or similar bot spotting measures ?, the days of just accepting a naked form post are long gone, even your lowly Wordpress installation has the option for comments thanks to bots, you would think the GOV would know this.
Whenever I read these articles it gets me thinking about when water wells are poisoned. Even after they are cleaned up there is always suspicion about how safe is it to drink the water. Even a rumor casts doubts, it then becomes nobody uses it unless other options have been exhausted (i.e. you will die in a matter of hours unless you drink this water now).
Besides issues of Net Neutrality, what about telecommunications and broadcasters? If they don't follow FCC regs, will there be consequences? What about companies that sell radios? Is there someone competent they meet Part 90, 95, 15 (and other applicable Parts)? All these items from cellphone jammers to wireless video transmitters that operate in same freq band as aircraft transponders, are we confident FCC will properly deal with these mischief makers?
mfwright@batnet.com
by little bitches. George Soros and MediaMeddles are the new script kiddies.
I guess its beyond our gov to actually setup a bayesian filter. If only there was some technology for filtering comments...
https://www.google.com/#q=comment+spam+protection
And someone creates a bot to counter that bot.
And so it begun, the Battle of the Bots.
"American Commitment" is hosting a pre-filled form.
http://action.americancommitment.org/ctas/advocacy-251-repeal-obamas-internet-regulations/letter
We just had another post claiming that the DDOS and use of bots against the FCC was fake.
... does not a "DDOS" entail.
But many pro Net Neutrality commenters are also the same. This is because websites direct people on what to say or have an automated system that does it for them. They just have to put in their name and email and the website provides the rest. It's completely plausible that some anti-net-neutrality organizations are using the same tactic and technology.
I made two comments that several groups were forwarding peoples' concerns to the FCC form and that I didn't think that there was a real DDos. I take those back - apparently there may be according to those submissions. Whoever is doing that is obviously tampering with the public comment system and should be prosecuted.