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The Internal Report Proving the FCC Made Up a Cyberattack (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: An investigation carried out by Federal Communication Commission's own inspector general officially refutes controversial claims that a cyberattack was responsible for disrupting the FCC's comment system in May 2017, at the height of the agency's efforts to kill off net neutrality. The investigation also uncovered that FCC officials had provided congressional lawmakers with misleading information regarding conversations between an FCC employee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's cybercrime task force. A report from the inspector general's office (OIG) released Tuesday afternoon states that the comment system's downtime was likely caused by a combination of "system design issues" and a massive surge in traffic caused when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver directed millions of TV viewers to flood the FCC's website with pro-net neutrality comments.

Investigators were unable to "substantiate the allegations of multiple DDoS attacks" alleged by then-FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray, the report says. "At best, the published reports were the result of a rush to judgment and the failure to conduct analyses needed to identify the true cause of the disruption to system availability." [Here's an excerpt from the report:] "While we identified a small amount of anomalous activity and could not entirely rule out the possibility of individual DoS attempts during the period from May 7 through May 9, 2017, we do not believe this activity resulted in any measurable degradation of system availability given the minuscule scale of the anomalous activity relative to the contemporaneous voluminous viral traffic."
Yesterday, before the report was released, FCC chairman Ajit Pai came clean on the fact that the hack of its comment system last year actually took place. Pai blamed the former chief information officer and the Obama administration for providing "inaccurate information about the incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people."

8 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. False flag fake news propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't trust the government anymore. They abuse the trust we're forced to give them.

    1. Re: False flag fake news propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And ironically you are modded -1 by the blind patriots. It's like America doesn't even want freedom anymore.

    2. Re:False flag fake news propaganda by Sique · · Score: 5, Insightful
      You are not forced to trust the government. That's why we have checks and balances. That's why a free press is essential to a working democracy. That's why you are entitled to challenge in court every governmental decision affecting you.

      No, it's your very task as a citizen not to trust your government, but to keep yourself informed and ready to challenge anything that you don't like, by speaking out, by voting and by going to court, if all else fails. A government is made by humans, and like any humans, it can err, it follows an agenda, open or hidden, and it will be blind to some serious effects of its decisions.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  2. Is anyone surprised? by weilawei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Hey, let's just say we got DDOSed. No one will ever know afterward! We're the government!"

    I'm not surprised, and they have a dangerous mentality as government officials in committing a fraud on the American people.

  3. run for the border by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, at least now we know why anchor baby Ajit Pai decided to "come clean" about the hoax yesterday. He knew the proverbial jig was up and he figured he'd do a partial reveal before he was exposed.

    It's become the signature move of this degenerate administration: get out ahead of the bad news and try to blunt the damage.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Is this going to change how anyone votes by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    in either the Mid Term or the next Presidential election? For all the bad press the Trump Admin has gotten (killing NN, the Helsinki debacle, opening trying to start a war with Iran, NK almost immediately going back to missile research after getting us to acknowledge Kim's govt as legitimate, raising inflation/interest rates being used to counter act economic over inflation brought on by those tax cuts for the rich, economic hits from the tariffs, etc, etc) Trump's poll numbers haven't budged an inch.

    I''m starting to get some real fatigue here. Like it does't matter what the hell anyone does because no matter what comes out of this Administration or their party it doesn't change how people vote. At the end of the day if folks are still going to show up and vote for an anti-NN administration then all the dirty laundry in the world is irrelevant. At best it might be of historic interest in a thousand years when archeologists write papers on what the heck went wrong.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Is this going to change how anyone votes by Gonoff · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The left and right do the exact same thing.

      This would be meaningful if the USA actually had a left. It has a "center", a "Center-Right" (Democrat), a "Far Right" (Republican) and an "Alt-Right".

      Lefties may do the same as righties - but there are few lefties in the USA - perhaps 1 called Bernie Sanders?

      --
      I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
  5. Hey Ajit, some advice... by ToTheStars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If one person you meet has bad information, well, that's that. If you think that "my office, Congress, and the American people" are all misinformed...maybe the problem is you.