Ajit Pai grilled by lawmakers on why FCC spread “myth” of DDoS attack | Hacker News Reader

Ajit Pai grilled by lawmakers on why FCC spread “myth” of DDoS attack

arstechnica.com

110 pointsBender29 comments

These grilling sessions do nothing. The person being interviewed simply gives memorized responses, feigns ignorance, or attempts to pass the blame.

Not true. It gives each of the representatives a chance to look tough and mad-as-hell-damnit on TV, and maybe produce a soundbite they can shove in their next campaign ad.

Seriously. How many times now has the leadership of Wells Fargo been brought in to get a tongue lashing by Congress? And how many times now have they continued to appear repentant and then go right back to being evil?

Sorry, but Wells Fargo isn't evil anymore. I saw their ad that says they're sorry and they're gonna behave now. All good!

It's easy to be pessimistic and jaded about this stuff, so thanks for keeping an open mind and for pointing this out. Wells Fargo started in 1852 with good intentions. They were fortunate and experienced exponential growth quickly, and simply lost sight of core values during the chaos of windfall profits stage, finally secumbing to evil sometime during the Spring of 1853. After some overdue self-reflection big changes were put in place, effective Q2 2018.

I was actually being sarcastic. To me this is all lip service.

How many executive heads rolled? Went to jail?

Yes, I was too. Facebook made has similar advertising which is basically saying: "Listen, things got fucked up, we made lot's of $$$, and we don't really admit fault. If you do happen to blame us however, we think some forgiveness is in order because things are different now and we're all in this together!"

Well done, thank you.

Fiscal or calendar?

And how many people and businesses choose to continue doing business with them?

Oh no, they've been grilled - that'll stop them from ever doing something like that again...

From TFA:

> "[T]he IG found that you made a series of misrepresentations to Congress about the event, which were corrected for the first time in the IG's Report," the Democrats wrote in their letter to Pai.

> The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia declined to prosecute anyone at the FCC even though making false statements to Congress can be punished with fines or imprisonment.

I wonder if further inquiry into this will lead to charges being pressed.

I wonder if citizens can prosecute the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia for failing to do their job?

If you live in DC it may be worth filing a small-claim to recover damages.

There might be a small combination of pills here .. something like a muscle-relaxer plus an anti-psychotic prescription drug .. together they powerfully mute the normal human response to stress, but not so much that the subject does not appear normal, and can speak clearly enough. Then the subject sits there, on camera, sworn in under oath perhaps, and glides through the session with good notes from a hired lawyer.

For an industry measured in the many-billions of dollars, per year for many years.. how many wanna-be Fortune Magazine cover cuties would do that ? lots. This is all conjecture, for the record.. think for yourself

Sounds like beta blockers. They’re used in cardiac medicine but abused by people wanting to keep calm.

This writing sounds very David Foster Wallace

"Figuring things out for ourselves is the only real freedom we have; use it"

So why is it that you can be hit and handcuffed for yelling at a police officer, but you can swindle the entire population of the USA, force sweeping policy on them against their wishes, and send a wave of lies at them to cover your retreat, and all you get is a tongue lashing? I vote execution. I'd say that he has caused damage he can never repair, and it is tantamount to treason. And imagine how many people will choose not to follow in his footsteps of fucking the public, when those steps include a last dance?

Washington needs more corporal punishment.

What's the difference between a myth and a lie?

a lie is identified as intentional deception. [0]. by definition a lie is incredibly difficult to prove...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie

Getting "grilled" doesn't affect anyone one bit whatsoever. It's just another day at the office, you're just sitting in a different room.

I thought Pai already gave a response weeks ago.

> I am deeply disappointed that the FCC’s former Chief Information Officer (CIO) [David Bray], who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people.

This information is conspicuously absent from the article. Was the statement revoked?

==This information is conspicuously absent from the article.==

Did you read the article? This part seems to answer your question:

"The FCC's lies to Congress were contained in letters Pai sent to lawmakers but were based on the assertions of former FCC CIO David Bray, the IG's report said. Pai has claimed that the IG report proves that he did nothing wrong, but House Democrats want to know exactly when Pai found out that Bray's statements about DDoS attacks were false."

Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Removing "even" from that sentence certainly changes the tone if not the intent, but your point is taken.

Did you respond to the original commenter about posting blatant dis-information, as the information requested was in the article?

No need, as you provided it.

Apologies. I read most of the article, however it freezes a few seconds in and make it impossible to scroll.

I figured it would be a quote with the others.

Glad it's explained.

Nobody believes that Pai had nothing to do with it. And it doesn't matter; Pai is still the one ultimately responsible for the actions of his agency.

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