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Democrats Ask FBI To Probe Reported FCC Cyberattack (thehill.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the denial-of-service dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A group of Democratic senators is asking the FBI to investigate an alleged cyberattack on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website earlier this month. In a letter to acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe sent Wednesday, the senators asked the bureau to "investigate the source" of the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. "Any cyberattack on a federal network is very serious," Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Al Franken (Minn.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Ed Markey (Mass.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) wrote. "This particular attack may have denied the American people the opportunity to contribute to what is supposed to be a fair and transparent process, which in turn may call into question the integrity of the FCC's rulemaking proceedings," they wrote. In the Wednesday letter to McCabe, the senators asked to be briefed by the FBI on the matter by June 23. "We ask that the FBI prioritize this matter and investigate the source of this attack," they wrote. On May 8, the FCC claimed that it was a victim of "multiple" DDoS attacks. The alleged attacks occurred after comedian John Oliver spurred millions of Americans to file comments with the FCC in favor of net neutrality. "Many had attributed the website's slowdown to the volume of comments produced by Oliver's segment, but the FCC instead blamed malicious actors days later," reports The Hill.

19 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't this precious? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 1

    It's adorable they think Comcast isn't going to get their way.

    1. Re: Isn't this precious? by gtall · · Score: 1

      The FCC doesn't have many investigatory powers. I am not sure the FBI is the right agency to do an investigation. It strikes me that the U.S. doesn't yet have the right cyber-security agencies set up, but there are congressional hearings on the subject.

      Right now, the FBI must be held suspect. Before this administration, I wouldn't have worried. In my opinion, it needs to be severed from the Executive Branch, maybe it belongs in the Judiciary Branch. It also needs better funding and abilities for cyber-crime as that seems to be a growth segment.

      Oh, and el Presidente Tweetie should not be allowed to appoint the next FBI director, even if Congress has to sit on it like they did for Obama's last Supreme Court nominee. Tweetie will be sure to extract ill-founded promises of sycophantic behavior from a new FBI head that he appoints. He won't be able to stop himself regardless of what his lawyers advise.

    2. Re: Isn't this precious? by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 2

      The FBI may not have the best skills at cyber forensics, but they clearly have the legal authorities to investigate a crime such as what the FCC alleged. They do also have access to other expertise beyond that of their agents, as well.

      As to whether I'd trust them to do it? The FBI has a certain tribal mentality, and doesn't take kindly to being told not to investigate, or worse to quash an ongoing investigation for political reasons. There's a reason that Assistant Director Mark Felt became Deep Throat - it had nothing to do with his political affiliation, and everything to do with his taking offense at the Nixon patsy of a Director telling them to call off their investigation. That said, I don't know that I disagree with your suggestion that the FBI needs to made more independent of the executive branch. I might even go so far as to suggest the independence of the rest of the DoJ should be considered.

  2. FCC cries wolf by Revek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Help! All those citizens with opinions are attacking us with their words.

    1. Re:FCC cries wolf by rmdingler · · Score: 2

      Help! All those citizens with opinions are attacking us with their words.

      Which, so far, folks are still able to do. It's not, however, guaranteed to continue forever.

      The movement away from any sense of decorum in the news reporting business is particularly disturbing, and all sides of the political spectrum are to blame. When every negative news story can be discounted as a partisan attack, and the Party faithful on both sides of the aisle fall in lockstep with their representative news coverage(s), the rational voice of the few left still rooting for the good of the nation falls unheard, amidst the cacophonous cry of "Foul Play".

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    2. Re:FCC cries wolf by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      When every negative news story can be discounted as a partisan attack,

      You can discount anything and everything as a partisan attack but the reality is that some issues like net neutrality are totally non-partisan. What this means is that someone is deceiving their audience.

      the Party faithful

      Anyone that puts their faith in any group or organization with financial incentives will be proven a fool in time.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re:FCC cries wolf by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Even better without neutrality access to feedback can be blocked entirely, say if someone is trying to expand neutrality rights or has a pro-neutrality webpage. ISP can even lock users into specific pro company policy sites and deny access to others. Don't like that? Well without competition over high speed access you can just go to cellular or one choice of dsl, all of which likely have the same limitations.

  3. Remember the Stratfor hack? by dbIII · · Score: 3, Informative

    Remember the Stratfor hack?
    If you are hacked the FBI are the ones to ask, especially the question "was it one of your informants doing the hacking" and "did you know about the hack"?

  4. More grandstanding by swb · · Score: 2

    The FBI will release a statement indicating that "evidence suggests" a DDoS attack but with no actionable evidence indicating who was behind it or what the motives were and that no further investigation is possible.

    Really, nothing will change except that these Senators will be have talking points for a press conference or their next speech to voters about their affirmative stance on network neutrality.

  5. FCC may actually be pointing at a wolf by DeplorableCodeMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that there was a huge stream of anti-NN comments, many of which came in the names of people who are actually dead, something is off. But hey, let's dismiss their claims without any investigation because we can study the text and provenance of those comments without even looking at a database dump. We're awesome like that!

  6. Automated Astroturf Campaign by andydread · · Score: 1

    It as an automated astroturf campain that left thousands of comments by dead people and people whos IDs were stolen in favor or getting rid of net neutrality rules. that's probably what gave the impression of a ddos.

    1. Re:Automated Astroturf Campaign by laughingskeptic · · Score: 2

      Completely agree. Adding that the posts likely came from the DCI Group ( https://www.dcigroup.com/ ) and that this was amateur hour on their part for not factoring in how hard they were hitting the FCC server.

  7. Re:More disturbing by dmiller1984 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why are people getting their news from John Oliver? If he is so concerned about the US then why, even after being married to a former US solider, is he still under green card residency? Nothing say you care about a country more that having a status of "I kinda want to live there, make money there, raise my kid there, but I can cut and run if it all becomes too much for me to deal with."

    It can take months or years to get US citizenship from a green card. A friend of mine had his green card for 8 years before he finally got citizenship. I'm not saying that is Oliver's situation, but it can take a while.

  8. Insurance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We don't have that.

    And Oliver is way more trustworthy than getting all your news from Putin.

    1. Re:Insurance. by NetNed · · Score: 1

      Yes, because any news that doesn't fit your narrative comes from "Putin". You have added "so much" to the conversation.

  9. Re:I'm proud to be White by PoopJuggler · · Score: 1

    It would be better if you were proud of an actual personal achievement, rather than just standing on your genetic makeup which you got for free for doing nothing.

  10. Re:More disturbing by Altrag · · Score: 1

    Problem is, getting your news from "official" sources like Fox or CNN these days is, under your metaphor, more like just eating shit straight from the toilet and calling it food.

    Its true that John Oliver and similar "news"-centric comedians tend to be moderate erring to the left, so I'm sure they come off as kind of grating if you're a hard right-winger but that's on you and you're free to go back to getting your "news" from Breitbart rants and Fox and Friends like the president does.

  11. Re:More disturbing by NetNed · · Score: 1

    I've heard straight up bullshit on his show that he uses to get a laugh. This isn't a left or right issue. If you consider him a "source" for political news coverage you are a fucking moron.

  12. Re:More disturbing by NetNed · · Score: 1

    Is your friend a celebrity with a tv show on HBO? If not your friends issues are not even comparable. If Oliver wanted citizenship he'd have it by now. Do people not research anything any more?