[CorneringArtist]

Source: http://www.inquisitr.com/30689/censorship-comes-to-america-att-blocks-4chan-b/

The global internet censorship debate landed in the home of the free Sunday with news that AT&T has censored the popular 4chan /b/ image board.

The censorship was first reported on Reddit, where users confirmed with AT&T that the site had indeed been censored, and was not being blocked due to a technical issue. 4chan owner Moot later confirmed the news, saying that the /r9k/ was also blocked and that AT&T users should “call or write [to] customer support and [AT&T] corporate immediately.”

The censorship at this time extended only to AT&T DSL customers, with wireless (3G) customers believed to be unaffected. Erling Løken Andersen notes that 15.5% of all US internet users use AT&T DSL, meaning that /b/ is now blocked somewhere around 40-60 million people in the United States.

There is no official word from AT&T on the decision yet, and given that it’s Sunday still in the US none is likely until business hours Monday. 4chan users though aren’t particularly happy about the decision, with /b/tards currently discussing ways to fight back against the imposition of censorship.

The decision by AT&T to censor /b/ may also further spark further debate around net neutrality; love or hate 4chan, the decision by a provider to start censoring sites is the beginning of a slippery slope to unaccountable corporate imposed draconian censorship that should have no place in allegedly free democratic societies.

There is also the question of why censor /b/ now and not previously? Could a third party such as Scientology have lobbied for the decision?

Anyone think this'll spread to other ISP's? It's in America, but now /b/tards are being denied access to their shit...

[Qmx323]

HAHAH so many of them must be an hero-ing right now

[shenmecar]

Im sorry, but can someone explain?

whats /b/ and /r9k/?

[butter_sashimi]

With anger, the raging anon are making attacks on AT&T. Apparently top management's personal details are published in full, I heard. lol

[TOS'd]

/b/tards unite.

[RFlush]

OMG! Censorship doesn't happen in America, only China!!!!!!!one111!one!1

[BNR32_Coupe]

/b/ fooled oprah, time magazine, organized some global protests. im sure they'll find a way to get revenge on at&t

[BNR32_Coupe]

AT&T just lifted the ban on 4chans website.

[InvisibleSoul]

What was the reason for the ban in the first place?

[Presto]

AT&T is gonna get the wrath. That censorship is like fucking with an angry hornets nest.

[Synaptik]

/b/ has bred 80% of the world's e-warriors. this wont end well.

[twitchyzero]

4chan is the armpit of the internet..i could care less.

yeah flame on

[monkeywrench]

4chan is the internets!

[2damaxmr2]

4chan ftw

[ajax]

They released the wrath of the ANON!

[willystyle]

I'm so lost.

Wtf is 4chan? and why did this censorship occur?

[moomooCow]

AT&T is gonna get the wrath. That censorship is like fucking with an angry hornets nest.

+1

they're soooooooooo fucked hahah :haha:

[TOPEC]

for all of u that dont know what /b/ or 4chan is, just google wiki it.

[jeff_alexander]

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/ATT_Blocks_4chan#Media_Coverage

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/b/bc/Fish-small-eat-big.jpg

[StylinRed]

it wont load for me... other than the main page but it looks like a picture posting site? oO

[Meowjin]

^i was reading that page and it seems like someone edited it to redirect to the crybaby page.

[hotjoint]

whats going on?

[Mancini]

With anger, the raging anon are making attacks on AT&T. Apparently top management's personal details are published in full, I heard. lol

All of their mobile service subscribers are going to be calling the CEO to find out why they aren't eligible for an iphone update.

[Vansterdam]

pwned

[q0192837465]

and we condemn China for Green Dam

[dna82]

i can't believe some of you jackass's are comparing this to Chinese censorship.
eat a dick and read
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/4chan/

The internet was in an uproar Sunday when AT&T DSL subscribers around the country found they couldn’t reach the /b/ board on 4chan, that petri dish of mischief that’s led to many an internet meme and more than one federal criminal indictment against Anonymous members.

Did those NSA-loving suits at AT&T block the site in a craven bout of puritanism? How would Anonymous retaliate? The pieces seemed set for the greatest battle between control and chaos since Control versus Kaos.

“If you’ve been affected, I would advise you call or write customer support and corporate immediately,” 4chan founder Moot wrote on the site’s status page Sunday.

AT&T responded Monday morning with a press release confirming it had temporarily blackholed img.4chan.org. But it said the ban (which has since been lifted) was a defensive response to denial-of-service traffic hitting an AT&T subscriber, and originating from 4chan’s own network. Reached by Threat Level, AT&T declined to elaborate.

Now 4chan’s founder, Moot, has admitted that his network was sending spurious traffic, but he still faults AT&T for going too far with its response.

“They essentially dropped a nuke instead of using the fly swatter,” Moot said in an e-mail to Threat Level. “I was told by someone within the company that an engineer essentially overreacted and made a mistake in choosing how to deal with a rather trivial issue. That’s how we got to where we’re at now.”

The trouble was triggered by 4chan’s response to a denial-of-service attack that’s been targeting the site’s image board for three weeks. “We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user,” Moot wrote in an afternoon update. “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.”


Filtering is normally a passive process not prone to spewing traffic onto the net. But Moot says his filtering appliance was sending response packets to the incoming DDoS traffic. Because the DDoS traffic used spoofed internet IP addresses, the replies went to innocent computers.

“A handful of AT&T customers … complained to AT&T, and AT&T’s response was to blackhole our IPs across their entire network, as opposed to blocking traffic for just the customers who were being affected,” Moot says. “I highly doubt the traffic was higher than a few megabits total — it would have not degraded their network at all.”

We won’t question the most influential person on Earth. We’re just glad that the war was called off before it escalated beyond a single fake news report claiming AT&T’s CEO died.

In these times of heightened tension, it might be a good idea to set up a Cold War-style red phone linking Moot and the presidents of various internet providers. Just to avoid future misunderstandings.

[!LittleDragon]

and we condemn China for Green Dam

Yah, you never hear about the firewalls in Australia, Iran, Syria and other "free" countries.