Apparently AT&T has started blocking 4chan | Hacker News Reader

Apparently AT&T has started blocking 4chan

zip.4chan.org

120 pointsvaksel73 comments

Latest theory seems to be that AT&T is doing this because there is constant on-going DDoS of img.4chan.org via AT&T's network. If this is true, then AT&T is presumably implementing a temporary block to help 4chan.org avoid this DDoS (and save itself from the flood of DDoS traffic).

(Citing the ongoing discussion in /x/ here: http://zip.4chan.org/x/res/2338751.html#2339847 and this thread on DSLReports: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22770292-)

The full DSLReports thread is at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22769947 . In a later post apeface, an AT&T employee, wrote:

"Well, I didn't see 207.126.64.182 or 207.126.64.181 in any block lists in the uverse routers , but that isn't to say they aren't blocked on the backbone someplace. We obviously aren't blocking the entire site or any particular link due to content because I can still access everything else but the links using the IP's above. If we where going to block a site, it wouldn't normally just be bits and parts, it would be all of it."

EDIT: apeface confirms AT&T has img.4chan.org blocked at the backbone.

Fortunately most people aren't jumping to any conclusions [/sarcasm].

Lending more credence to this line of thought: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg19609.html

First, they came for 4chan. But I didn't go to 4chan.

"The canary in the coal mine just died!"

"That's OK, I hate canaries anyway"

I'm pretty sure they are capable of defending themselves. Wouldn't want to be an AT&T exec right now. Not saying its justified, but their past behavior speaks to what probably will happen.

4chan is unprofitable/barely profitable (depends on the month). The only way they can legally defend themselves is through the generosity of a third-party (EFF).

Or just hack AT&T into oblivion.

when people say 4chan, they don't mean 4chan the company, they mean the thousands of people with skills to make your life a living hell.

Indeed. They usually mean ... * cue dramatic music * ... Anonymous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29

Though I'm not sure if I would go so far as to say "the thousands of people with skills to make your life a living hell", I would probably have said "the thousands of people with the time to make your life a living hell". I don't think many of them are that skilled.

Also, because of their antics, they have the ability to generate a large amount of press. This is probably more important than any actual damage they could do.

How would someone, for example make MJ's dad's life a living hell via 4chan?

"Or just hack AT&T into oblivion."

I'm sure that it has already begun. ;)

"Not saying its justified, but their past behavior speaks to what probably will happen."

You mean that a moderate number of folks in goofy outfits will gather near AT&T headquaters? Scary indeed.

Then they laugh at you. Oh, wait...

Context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

    First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a communist;
    Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a socialist;
    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a trade unionist;
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a Jew;
    Then they came for me--
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/94pf2/att_is_now...

Actually, there is now a fairly plausible rumor (that I can't source unfortunately) that 4chan was banned due to the sheer amount of traffic passing through AT&T from zombies trying to DDoS 4chan.

Hanlon's Razor wins again?

Here's where I read it: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg19609.html

Is it really censorship though? This guy thinks it was probably ACK scan reports: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg19609.html

As I always say when I see censorship, this will just force more people to use Tor. One day the entire 'net will be encrypted and obfuscated, and tracking down the actual criminals will be impossible. (It's inevitable, of course, but you'd think ISPs and governments wouldn't want to force ordinary people to use tools like Tor just to chat with their friends on a message board. The more commonplace it becomes, the more bonehead criminals will be using it. And that makes stopping real crime much harder.)

When will people learn that whole point of the Internet is to make censorship impossible?

What can we do to help accelerate this?

I'd like to see everything encrypted and opaque to carriers all the time. How do we get there?

The I2P project (http://www.i2p2.de/) is working on creating an entirely anonymous, encrypted internet that layers on top of the regular internet. It's open source and welcomes contributions from talented hackers.

Why wouldn't ISPs then just block all traffic they couldn't read?

That would include all https traffic

Just like how everyone on the Internet uses PGP, right? Oh wait...

Just like how all the ISPs are silently dropping e-mails that contain content that they don't agree with, right? Oh wait...

This was the sort of thing I used to say before I realized that the crypto-anarchist manifesto was written in 1992 and none of the stuff it predicted has happened.

I'd like to see how 4chan responds. They are not the type to take things like this lightly.

I don't even visit 4chan, but as an AT&T customer this pisses me off. What other websites are they going to protect me from?

Not sure what other option I have sadly. My local cable monopoly has a ridiculously low bandwidth cap with overage fees that make it pretty much unusable.

Isn't there some way we can use common carrier/net neutrality rules on this?

For a content hoster, they have the safe harbor protection unless they try to pre-emptively filter content, in which case they're liable for anything that they host. I'm not sure if there's a similar provision that applies to ISPs, but that'd be golden.

You know, in Chile there is now a cable provider that promotes its lack of caps on p2p. It actually plays it up. http://www.bandaancha2.cl/

Goes to show capitalism works.

Submitter: It's a bad idea to link to a 4chan thread for this story, which are by their nature extremely transitory. Your link is already 404'd.

It is 404'd because it is being blocked. That is the whole point.

I don't think so. I can see more recent threads on 4chan, no problem. I think the thread has just expired.

Any guesses as to what is the reason ?

If linking to copyrighted or objectionable content is in there somewhere I'd suggest that AT&T block google, that way we'll get some solid case law about this.

Possibly the FCC will step in. Also, after this how will AT&T claim common carrier status ?

AT&T has a history of doing stuff like this, apparently. See links below. But you're right, I don't know how they could possibly remain a common carrier.

What I do know is that sometime next week I was thinking about going and switching from Verizon and getting an iPhone. Now, I'm not so sure.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/08/pearl-jam-censore...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9759184-7.html

> I don't know how they could possibly remain a common carrier.

They are not. It's a common urban legend that common carrier status applies to ISPs.

If they aren't common carriers then doesn't that mean they are responsible for everything that goes over their networks?

There are many other safe harbors in the law; several in the DMCA itself.

I was thinking of the 'safe harbor' provisions of the DMCA, though I guess that really only applies to copyright?

Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Perhaps ATT just corrupted their DNS servers or something.

According to the thread on reddit, AT&T had been contacted and said that the site was in fact blocked:

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/94pf2/att_is_now...

They of course don't say who called AT&T, so who knows.

The skepticism in your comment is apparent, but I thought I'd add:

The source is unnamed.

The source may very well be telling the truth. I've contacted customer service at AT&T U-Verse. I've never had fewer than three transfers and the person I end up with, while almost always being very polite and sounding as though they're smiling through the telephone ... generally has no idea what's going on.

The conversation could have gone like this:

Caller: It looks like 4chan is being blocked. I can't access it from my (DSL/U-Verse) connection. [... after a few minutes of sorting out what 4chan is ...]

Rep: I can't seem to access that web page, it says it's blocked.

[...click...comment...]

Just a guess :o)

Isn't the whole thing:

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity...but don't rule out malice"

That's the Heinlein variation.

"Hanlon" is a corruption of "Heinlein", I believe.

I have a connection to someone fairly high up there. I gave him/her a synopsis of the situation, and how it isn't a good idea to mess with 4chan.

While I love 4chan and Anon, taking on the likes of AT&T - a hundred-billion-dollar corporation with ties to the NSA - might be just a little different than humiliating, say, Adam Goldstein. Government or the en masse consuming public are the only ones with any say here.

On another note - anyone remember the good old days when claiming AT&T had NSA ties would be dismissed as a conspiracy theory? Oh, how innocent we were ...

My guess is they won't try and take on the company directly. After all, you can't DDoS AT&T. But they can definitely make life pretty crappy for the people running AT&T with endless pranks, and they can raise a royal stink in the news.

What I don't get is why bother? The /b/tards are just going to make some other place their home.

I have DSL through AT&T, yet img.4chan.org/b/imgboard.html does not appear to be blocked for me. Perhaps there is some other problem at work here?

For those of you on AT&T's network who want to test this, turn off images in your browser and access

http://img.4chan.org/b/imgboard.html

This is a very NSFW website. Only part of it is said to be blocked. 4chan.org should still be accessible. It is slow, at least for me, so wait for a few minutes before reporting it as blocked.

/b/ is 4chan, sure there are other portions of it, but 99% of content happens on /b/

Thats quite an ignorant statement.

/b/ has become... ridiculous, most older anon's avoid it completely. /b/ is mostly full of children trying to jump on the bandwagon.

30%

You can always access http://status.4chan.org/ and get no NSFW content, but still see if it is up or down.

Or, just do a traceroute to img.4chan.org

I'm on AT&T and it seems to work fine.

I'm on AT&T (U-Verse), though not a 4chan user (I actually don't even know how to test that the /b/ board is working or not, though I'd be interested in trying).

A few months ago I couldn't access drudgereport.com and a few others sites reliably for several days. It worked via vpn from work, and on the neighbor's Comcast connection, but those of us in my area on U-Verse were getting server connection resets.

I don't attribute it to network filtering (Hanlon's razor as mentioned in another comment ... and I work for a large telecom ... sometimes the tubes need to be snaked).

Though we ruled out DNS -- I use OpenDNS and we tested the Comcast connections set up to use OpenDNS which worked fine. There was at least one other person outside of my home state that experienced the same problem on U-Verse as well.

There are instructions for visiting 4chan upthread, it's extremely NSFW. http://status.4chan.org/ is a SFW status blog which will check if sites are 'up' from your browser, "img" is the server that hosts /b/ (and /r9k/ as well I believe).

If this is true, I'm going to cancel my service. We have a few other options in Madison. Not that I frequent 4chan but that's besides the point. I don't agree with them blocking any sites.

According to their official blog, it is true: http://status.4chan.org/index.html#1567027617431107851

Seems very slow via a Level 3 uplink. (is that normal?) Probably something else going on here but I suppose overreacting is more fun?

Reading some of the threads, people are suggesting that they go out and cut AT&T fiber (hopefully people are too lazy to do this).

But in all seriousness, if this does turn out to be an attempt at filtering, does anyone have recommendations on things that could be done by non-AT&T customers to help convince AT&T that this is a bad idea?

A lot of the comments on the wider internet are of the tone "oh I wonder what 4chan will do, AT&T have messed up this time" - but isn't that missing the point - that AT&T have censored a site? I didn't know that was the done thing, ever (in the US). I mean people are free to go to other ISPs, but it does seem a bit odd...

Anyone have a list of IP blocks owned/used by AT&T?

I'd like to make a script that can be embedded on webpages that notifies users that their ISP has begun censoring their internet connections, along with instructions on how to complain to AT&T.

Well, free municipal wifi network of Praha 9 blocks 4chan too (so I can't see the page either). :-)

I can still access 4chan even though I have AT&T as ISP provider. Why?

I was able to access 4chan.org from my iPhone (in Fl)?

Apparently the wireless division is functionally separate from the land-based division.

It's only /b/ which is on img.4chan.org/b/ (different IP address)

Works on my iPhone as well.

Apple legal is behind this. Someone on 4chan made fun of Apple. Apple then called ATT and threatened to take away their iPhones.

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