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FCC Emails Show Agency Spread Lies To Bolster Dubious DDoS Attack Claims: Gizmodo (gizmodo.com)
As the FCC was grappling with accusations of a fake cyberattack last spring, it intentionally misled several news organizations, choosing to feed journalists false information, while at the same time discouraging them from challenging the agency's official story, news outlet Gizmodo reported Tuesday. From the report: Internal emails reviewed by Gizmodo lay bare the agency's efforts to counter rife speculation that senior officials manufactured a cyberattack, allegedly to explain away technical problems plaguing the FCC's comment system amid its high-profile collection of public comments on a controversial and since-passed proposal to overturn federal net neutrality rules.
The FCC has been unwilling or unable to produce any evidence an attack occurred -- not to the reporters who've requested and even sued over it, and not to U.S. lawmakers who've demanded to see it. Instead, the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily duped reporters, chiefly by spreading word of an earlier cyberattack that its own security staff say never happened.
The FCC has been unwilling or unable to produce any evidence an attack occurred -- not to the reporters who've requested and even sued over it, and not to U.S. lawmakers who've demanded to see it. Instead, the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily duped reporters, chiefly by spreading word of an earlier cyberattack that its own security staff say never happened.
This was an administration openly elected to inflict cruelty on those that expected anything meaningful from shared governance.
Fake information to support absurd lies is kind of their "thing".
Outrage SHOULD be expected, but we're being trained to turn off all our mental alarms against everything important we used to care about.
At covering up fraudulent activity. Ajit Pai and his regime is a group of criminals who are funded via ISP and telecom providers to give them precisely what they want, no matter how much it affects his constituents OR the world at large.
Give it a rest. It's a public comment system that was bogged down because tons of people were using it. It was never a "vote" and only your arguments were relevant, not your name. So no, it didn't matter if "John Smith" had their "identity stolen" by the million other John Smiths out there. See also: your name isn't as unique as you think.
Anyhow, most people just used the box to write "NO NO NO NO" and they were basically planning on ignoring comments anyhow, so this only made it easier. Maybe if you had raised some kind of legal argument, they would've addressed it, but how many people could even formulate one?
So we have more impotent rage over this comment nonsense instead of focusing on the fact that we have to get more support in Congress or they're going to sell us out to the ISPs. Gosh, I'm really surprised that the politicians couldn't figure out why the comment box was overloaded. No, the more we focus on this sort of petty, trivial nonsense, the more they get away with screwing us because we're not explaining that a lack of Net Neutrality allows a handful of corporations decide what the rest of us are allowed to do online.
But yes, let's focus on the trivial crap about a comment box. That's surely more important than our freedom.
... is right out of the government itself.
Is all that hate on Putin because they're really jealous?
the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily duped reporters
In other words, the Fox tabloid was complicit in this sham. What a surprise. This is the same group who is furiously backpedaling when they put out a picture of a Philadelphia Eagle's player kneeling, but used the picture for a story about players kneeling for the anthem. The player is a Christian and was doing a pre-game prayer. He even called them out for their propaganda.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Once again, msmash, you're doing it wrong. The person saying the thing goes before the colon, and what they're saying goes after.
"I'm as mad as Hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" -- Network (1976)
Like, with a cloth?
The Trump administration and their Pravda - Fox News - spread stupid and easily disproven lies to advance their agenda. And me here without my heart pills handy...Damn!
And those were provided by their own operatives, so they can't pretend they didn't know about them.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If those responsible do not lose their jobs, pay fines, and/or go to prison, it simply does not matter. Accountability means that their are consequences.
Just imagine the number of other government organizations using misinformation, or false claims, to push their agenda.
Democracy will fall apart because people will no longer have the ability to be informed.
This is why you don't create a large, powerful central government.
Gg
Media outlets keep reporting on this cover-up, but nothing will happen until congress starts an investigation on it. Now is really a good time for that, since congress is looking to overturn the network neutrality regulation and there are already investigations going on into FCC staffer behavior.
It seems to me that the issue is more a combination of incompetence and wishful thinking than it is an FCC conspiracy.
John Oliver asks his viewers to go to the FCC site and post comments supporting net neutrality. To a less-competent sysadmin, that surge of traffic may look like a DDoS. He mentions the possibility and it percolates up to guys like Pai. Pai is thrilled that there is a malicious, technical explanation for this event, because it allows him to dismiss the notion that a significant proportion of people may support net neutrality. Public support for NN doesn't fit within Pai's pre-constructed worldview, so he's more comfortable not facing that possibility.
Bots abuse the FCC comment API to manufacture millions of fake comments against NN. At the time the attack was ongoing, I happened to be looking at the FCC page, trying to make a comment of my own, and I watched the automated comments pouring in. They were coming in at multiple comments per second, all with identical text, and in alphabetical order by the name of the commentor. It was blindingly obvious that someone had just set up a script that created comments from a database of names and addresses. But Pai refuses to investigate, insisting that all of those comments are obviously legitimate. Of course all those comments are real, because they support his pre-constructed worldview. It just makes sense to him.
And after all the incompetence and confirmation bias, after publicly stating a bunch of things that turned out to be bullshit, they don't want to investigate, they don't want anyone else to investigate, and they don't want to provide any information. Because the results will make them look either partisan or stupid. And we'll tolerate a certain amount of either of those things, but there's a chance this would go too far.
Alright Trump train! Choo choo! Keep rolling over our rights and civil liberties! Choo choo! Let's blame Obama and the leftists for this. Choo choo! White nationalism! Breitbart. Fix news. Choo choo!
We all know that the very first thing that Cyber warriors bring to bear is to fill all database with fake comments using other peoples names. The writing is on the wall. It says FCC too intellectually challenged to know what is happening, whenever the DC lobbyists shiny money blinds their eyes and the fluffy dollar bill pillows muffle all the voiced complaints. Its a wonder that any work gets done there anymore, with all that silence going on.
Tom Wheeler was a telcom lobbyist before becoming FCC head. Ajit Pai was a telcom lobbyist before becoming FCC head. Under the former, the agency worked for the consumer (to the chagrin of Wheeler's previous employers). Under the latter, it's a crooked clown show. The majority of its work force will be the same. How do they manage going home after a day of not doing the job they are paid for and stealing wages from the public as their employer while doing worse than nothing in return?
Seriously, is there even one appointee that Trump made that is even halfway honest and above-board? Or are they all really corrupt and/or incompetent and/or have their own secret agenda that has nothing to do with protecting and serving the United States?
Where is Alex Jones when you really need him?
> Interesting that you would claim we need to get more support in Congress then lambast the only method by which that is possible to accomplish.
And what about that weird ritual we know as VOTING?
You can also vote in these things called primary elections, too. If you are popular enough, you can run in the primary, too! You can also call or mail Congress, preferably the latter. I think that serious, well-reasoned arguments about how the shoe will end up on the other foot. For the holdout conservatives, that's probably "do you really want a world where Google and Facebook control what you see online?"
Grousing about a damned internet comment form with no security having random nonsense stuffed into it and whatnot is simply not an effective argument, it's utterly meaningless, and anyone who understands even the tiniest bit of the FCC's processes will tune you out as a blathering idiot, just as you would tune out someone who tried to argue to you with that gif showing Hillary spitting into a glass and claiming thereby that she's clearly a lizard.
This was an administration openly elected to inflict cruelty on those that expected anything meaningful from shared governance.
Uh... not it wasn't. Grow up.
Fake information to support absurd lies is kind of their "thing".
This is not specific to the current administration, and in fact there's a move afoot to remove, or "drain", the current situation, or "swamp", of people who abuse the system. Especially of people who abuse the system for political gain.
Outrage SHOULD be expected, but we're being trained to turn off all our mental alarms against everything important we used to care about.
And of this I agree. This is a serious breach of trust in government, and while I've generally been giving Ajit Pai a pass because of TDS, this is where we can reasonably be outraged and call for his removal.
1) First order of business: Is this report true? There need to be an unambiguous case of intentionally misleading the public, exposed by the E-mails and with no reasonable other explanation.
(I somehow doubt that this is the case, since it's so obviously easy to uncover, but it would be nice to get some consensus analysis, and maybe an admission and apology from some people at the FCC.)
2) Secondly, who actually did the lying? It's entirely possible that this was done at a low level and not reported to Ajit Pai. It's entirely possible that this was done by appointees from another administration/FCC chairman, and so on.
It's also possible that Ajit Pai knew and condoned it, but let's find out the facts.
3) Thirdly, assuming we have actual people and actual infractions (possibly including Pai), what steps can we take in response?
FCC policy is not the biggest issue on everyone's minds right now, immigration is. Using this to bring down the president is a non-starter, and backing anyone who is also against the president's immigration plan is a planned failure.
With that in mind, what concrete steps can we take in order to yank the FCC's leash?
I've never felt that Change.org petitions are worth anything, but with enough support they do get a response from the WH.
Is that the logical next step?
Someone with access to voter records to include names, addresses, email addresses. This is a good hypothesis. Ajit Pai is a prime suspect as a former AT&T man.
...were the 'good guys'.
Anymore, they're just like any other fucking group of organized thugs.