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FCC Won't Release DDoS Logs, And Will Probably Honor Fake Comments (zdnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the staying-neutral dept.

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet on the alleged denial of service attack which blocked comments supporting net neutrality. In a ZDNet interview, FCC chief information officer David Bray said that the agency would not release the logs, in part because the logs contain private information, such as IP addresses. In unprinted remarks, he said that the logs amounted to about 1 gigabyte per hour during the alleged attack... The log files showed that non-human [and cloud-based] bots submitted a flood of comments using the FCC's API. The bot that submitted these comments sparked the massive uptick in internet traffic on the FCC by using the public API as a vehicle...

Bray's comments further corroborate a ZDNet report (and others) that showed unknown anti-net neutrality spammers were behind the posting of hundreds of thousands of the same messages to the FCC's website using people's names and addresses without their consent -- a so-called "astroturfing" technique -- in an apparent attempt to influence the results of a public solicitation for feedback on net neutrality. Speaking to reporters last week, FCC chairman Ajit Pai hinted that the agency would likely honor those astroturfed comments, nonetheless.

7 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Post Truth by GWXerog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this the post-truth world that I keep hearing about?

    1. Re:Post Truth by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The decision against NN had already been made, and the "public comments" were just political theater. So it doesn't really matter if they were DDOSed, since they would have had no effect either way.

  2. Hack Job by mbone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Speaking to reporters last week, FCC chairman Ajit Pai hinted that the agency would likely honor those astroturfed comments, nonetheless.

    Why not? He presumably paid good money for them.

    1. Re:Hack Job by Cyberpunk+Reality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sooner or later, the American public is going to stop honoring their fake democracy. Then we'll be in for some real interesting times.

      --
      Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
  3. Maybe ... by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... we could get the Russians to grab a copy of the logs for us.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. The FCC was always like this by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back when Howard Stern was their main focus they counted every form letter as a unique complaint. So those fringe religious groups would send in a million identical letters and the FCC would count one million complaints.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  5. Re:How the regulatory process works... by volkris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Commissioners are free to cite numbers in their press releases, but in terms of the actual substance and legality of regulations, the notice and comment procedure doesn't have much to do with numbers. The regulator has to address issues whether they be brought be one person or a thousand.

    You can see this in action by pulling up final rules as published in the Federal Register, which is what individuals and companies have to adhere to. In such a publication the regulator goes through addressing concerns regardless of the number of people who submitted each concern.

    For example, here's the recent final rule on Alaska subsistence hunting. Notice that the regulator broke out eighteen individual issues brought up in comments, regardless of how many people may have provided each.
    https://www.federalregister.go...

    (Yes, I'm belaboring the point to stress it)

    It's no weasel word to say that blasting redundant comments at the FCC's webpage doesn't do anything directly. Instead, that captures how US regulatory processes actually work. And heck, it serves as a reminder that Congress, not the regulator, is the place to go to push for change. If regulators were free to make their own laws based on things like website submission counts, that would be a bad thing.