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AT&T Blocks 4chan

dirtpoorchris

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AT&T blocks 4chan Erling Løken Andersen

Firing one of the first shots in the net neutrality war, AT&T has blocked 4chan’s /b/ image board. AT&T subscribers are unable to connect to /b/ and /r9k/ (both of which are hosted on img.4chan.org). However, subscribers can get on any of the so-called «worksafe» boards that 4chan.org offers.

First they came for the child porn peddlers. And I didn't speak up, for I wasn't a peddler. Then they came for the Racists. And I didn't speak up, for I wasn't a racist.

4chan-censorsed.jpg
 
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4chan was being hit by a ddos attack that was being carried out over AT&T lines. They took steps to protect their network from spiking bandwidth
 
Correction - it appears that the DDOS was comming from 4chan

Source [Ars Technica | AT&T: 4chan block due to DDoS attack coming from 4chan IPs]

This weekend did not go well for AT&T. The broadband provider began blocking access to parts of 4chan on Sunday (img.4chan.org, which of course includes /b/) thanks to what AT&T says was a denial of service attack coming from that domain. AT&T was uncommunicative with customers at the onset of the 4chan blockage, leaving many users questioning whether the telecom was trying to censor 4chan. AT&T's official silence on the matter also led some 4chan denizens to launch attacks against the company.

The block began in the early evening Sunday and went on through the night, with numerous users (including some of our own staff members) confirming that they were unable to access 4chan's image servers. Why? According to an Anonymous posting on 4chan itself, it seems as if there were hundreds of thousands of connections being made from the IP address of the image server (888,979 at the time of that posting, to be exact).

This information has now been confirmed by AT&T itself, and, as of Monday morning, AT&T's block has been lifted. "Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic," AT&T spokesperson Brad Mays told Ars.

"Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers."

In fact, AT&T wasn't the only ISP affected—it just had the unfortunate luck of being the largest and highest profile. Others, including unWired, also had to temporarily block 4chan because of what unWired described to Broadband Reports as "relentless ACK scan reports." Despite several reports claiming that Cogent was also involved in the attack and subsequent blockage, though, the ISP told Ars that these claims are false. "Cogent has not blocked 4chan and are unsure where this originated," Cogent's Marketing Communications Manager Travis Wachter said.
 
I have the feeling that somewhere, somehow, a lot of AT&T execs are going to be looking at a lot of photos of spread human anuses this coming week.
 
This is a digger comment.

dustinbolton----

Technology exists to filter spoofed responses without blocking all traffic to/from an IP. Every major ISP uses these abilities. AT&T chose to block the entire IP for some reason in this case rather than filter out the responses aimed at them like other ISPs do.

If every ISP/backbone simply blocked all traffic to a destination every time an attack occurred then the internet would be a mess.

Why am I being buried?

He has a very good point. I think we are seeing an internet censorship test. A reaction gauge so to speak.
 
Our original understanding was that the DDoS attack in question had been launched against /b/, which made it seem purely retarded that AT&T would respond by blocking them.
 
This is a digger comment.



He has a very good point. I think we are seeing an internet censorship test. A reaction gauge so to speak.

What do you make of unWired's actions? Part of a conspiracy?

Others, including unWired, also had to temporarily block 4chan because of what unWired described to Broadband Reports as "relentless ACK scan reports.
 
Something I've never understood about the net neutrality debate: What motive does a company like AT&T have for blocking a website like 4chan? Is it just retaliation for this specific cyberattack? Or does AT&T actually stand to gain somehow?

I don't see what any ISP could possibly gain from blocking any website...except for maybe the websites of its competitors.
 
Oh look, it's perfectly innocent

Source [4chan | 4chan Status]

Monday, July 27, 2009

Here's what happened:

For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack. We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user.

Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers.

In response, AT&T filtered all traffic to and from our img.4chan.org IPs (which serve /b/ & /r9k/) for their entire network, instead of only the affected customers. AT&T did not contact us prior to implementing the block. Here is their statement regarding the matter.

In the end, this wasn't a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T's part. Whoever pulled the trigger on blackholing the site probably didn't anticipate [nor intend] the consequences of doing so.

We're glad to see this short-lived debacle has prompted renewed interest and debate over net neutrality and internet censorship—two very important issues that don't get nearly enough attention—so perhaps this was all just a blessing in disguise.

Aside from that, I'll also add that there is some big news due later this week. Keep an eye on the News page, Twitter, and global message for updates.

As always, I can be reached at moot@4chan.org.

Shocking, isn't it?
 
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4channers can all die of bloody hemorrhoids.
 
4channers can all die of bloody hemorrhoids.
****, kiss my ****ing ass and eat my **** you ****ing sick dumb**** mother****er. **** YOU.

[/end btard]
 
****, kiss my ****ing ass and eat my **** you ****ing sick dumb**** mother****er. **** YOU.

[/end btard]

I've run into far too many 4chan idiots on the web. 99% of 4channers are not only lame ass ragers, they suck at it too. Thanks for showing my point.

4Chan is the retarded step child of the Somethingawful goons.
 
I've run into far too many 4chan idiots on the web. 99% of 4channers are not only lame ass ragers, they suck at it too. Thanks for showing my point.

4Chan is the retarded step child of the Somethingawful goons.

SomethingAwful > 4Chan

FYAD.
 
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