The RE: 4chan email that is going around AT&T HQ
15 comments
A slight inaccuracy, 4chan is moderated, even the "unmoderated" parts. Linky: http://www.4chan.org/rules
As far as I know, the 4chan /b/ (random) board is only moderated to the extend they're minimally required by law such us banning underage users (as it's an adult board) and removing child porn.
You are almost correct but it's not entirely without rules, 4chans /b/ people keep saying "bring back snacks" where snacks are referring to the ban on:
* "Post ending in x"
* Gay porn
* People seeking attention but not "putting out"
Refence but keep in mind the common sense thing is to not click encyclopedia dramatica links if are at work or want to avoid knowing useless things: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Bring_Back_Snacks
For the record I don't actually visit 4chan, I just happen to know this out of sheer morbid fascination.
* "Post ending in x"
* Gay porn
* People seeking attention but not "putting out"
Refence but keep in mind the common sense thing is to not click encyclopedia dramatica links if are at work or want to avoid knowing useless things: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Bring_Back_Snacks
For the record I don't actually visit 4chan, I just happen to know this out of sheer morbid fascination.
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So they sent out a press release to their own employees instead of bothering to write an email?
If you work at any big company you'd know it's often standard practice to send out press releases and market statements internally to inform staff of what's happening.
standard practice seems to be to first toss the PR to employees so that they're informed beforehand, and to check to make sure no mistakes were included. then, to the public.
I work at AT&T Labs, and yes we generally get informed via an email with an attached press release.
a tangent: May I ask what AT&T Labs does?
R&D in alot of different areas. Probably more famous when we were Bell Labs and came up with things like the transistor, coaxial cable, Unix, C++, Radar, Radio Astronomy (Echo of the Big Bang) etc but more recently research has been focussed on communications and networks.
My team reports up to the CSO for AT&T and are prototyping different tools and solutions that ICDS (The AT&T CDN) can offer their clients, we are building an application he can use for his virtual security conference at the end of the year. We also work closely with the Mobility Security Research team, they actually have a fully functional test cell site in the building which is kinda cool.
Most of the stuff my team does is not externally visible, but we did build this little site to start showing some of the decades of content AT&T has (Though its not primarily what we do). http://techchannel.att.com/ I like the Tech Icon series, good interviews with Bill Cheswick and Cliff Stoll.
My team reports up to the CSO for AT&T and are prototyping different tools and solutions that ICDS (The AT&T CDN) can offer their clients, we are building an application he can use for his virtual security conference at the end of the year. We also work closely with the Mobility Security Research team, they actually have a fully functional test cell site in the building which is kinda cool.
Most of the stuff my team does is not externally visible, but we did build this little site to start showing some of the decades of content AT&T has (Though its not primarily what we do). http://techchannel.att.com/ I like the Tech Icon series, good interviews with Bill Cheswick and Cliff Stoll.
There should always be 2 sides to any story. Whenever something happens between a large player and a smaller guy, the masses start to make accusations.
Yes large corporations need to be faster at making public statements, but they also need to act cautiously.
Yes large corporations need to be faster at making public statements, but they also need to act cautiously.
I wouldn't say 4chan is the "smaller guy".
---begin--- AT&T: 4Chan Blocked Over DDoS, Not Content Jordan Golson | Monday, July 27, 2009 | 10:22 AM PT | 3 comments AT&T has finally issued a statement about the company’s unannounced blocking of certain parts of forum site 4Chan. A number of parties blamed AT&T for “censoring” the Internet, presuming that the company had blocked access because of the content on 4Chan, which can range from classless to tasteless to everything in between. In fact, AT&T said it blocked one section of the site to control a distributed-denial-of-service attack that was affecting an unnamed AT&T customer. 4Chan is, for lack of a better term, the “Wild West” of the Internet. It is an unedited, unmoderated message board that is surprisingly influential on the Net. 4Chan users have been credited with starting lolcats and RickRolling. Last year, a 4Chan user allegedly hacked into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo Mail account and posted the password on 4Chan. The site, especially its /b/ page, is an interesting place — very, very “not safe for work.”
According to a statement from the phone giant: 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. 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.
The story got legs on Reddit, where many commentators scorched AT&T, saying the company “censors the Internet,” and 4Chan fans formed bulletin boards to organize “retaliation” against AT&T. TechCrunch wrote that blocking a web site without notification is an “extreme breach of user trust.” Of course, the blocking evidently wasn’t over 4Chan’s content, which AT&T assures me it would never do, but instead over network protocols that were affecting other customers.
Net neutrality is all well and good, but when one particular server is negatively impacting other users, AT&T is obligated to respond. Not everyone jumped on the blame AT&T bandwagon, however. Late last night, Shon Elliott from unWired Broadband wrote on the North American Network Operators Group mailing list: There have been a lot of customers on our network who were complaining about ACK scan reports coming from 207.126.64.181. We had no choice but to block that single IP until the attacks let up. It was a decision I made with the gentleman that owns the colo facility currently hosts 4chan [sic]. There was no other way around it. I’m sure AT&T is probably blocking it for the same reason. 4chan has been under attack for over 3 weeks, the attacks filling up an entire GigE. If you want to blame anyone, blame the script kiddies who pull this kind of stunt.
"The above newsclip is distributed to educate and inform. This does not imply accuracy nor endorsement of the views by AT&T." ---end---
My response:
AT&T did a good thing (stopping a DDoS attack), but they need to be more on top of their “twitter relations,” people claimed to have called in to AT&T and received the response that the site was blocked due to content. Now that is may normally the case, so the support person on the phone was probably just hazarding a guess, but once the story caught on fire AT&T’s twitter account should have tweeted that taking down 4chan had nothing to do with content. Or at LEAST that they could say they were investigating.
I know it was the weekend, but the story went pretty far, and AT&T is already getting blamed for Google Voice being blocked on the iPhone, so they don't need anymore bad press. If a corporation is taking down a website over the weekend they need to be ready to explain to the public why, otherwise they are just asking for disaster.