AT&T vs 4chan – STEP AWAY FROM THE INTERNET BEFORE IT SPLODES

The first shot in the net neutrality war has been fired by AT&T. The digg machine and the twitter army have set out to battle injustice.

4chan is the forum website from which Anonymous, LOLcats and rickrolling originated. Yesterday At&t and a handful of other ISP’s have blackholed them. 4chan hosts some of the sickest more perverted conversations and some of the most lolzor things you can find on the interwebs. 4chan is the stomping grounds of multiple clans of hacker armies and this attack on their homefront will not be taken lightly.

“I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” -Voltaire

Encyclopedia Dramatica is cover the details of the story.

Update 6:00 a.m. 7/27
XKCD vowed to block ATT customers in retaliation.

The story gained 7000 diggs the first 7 hours
While a story on reddit made it to the top with 3000 hits, it was disappeared
Twitter sploded

From techCrunch:

4chan has been called many things, most of which aren’t particularly flattering. Some parts of the site are entirely unmoderated, leading to a wild-west, highly NSFW environment where irreverance, mischief, and lewdness thrive (I like to think of it as the Mos Eisley of the web). But that doesn’t mean the site isn’t extremely influential on web culture. Many of its exploits are famous, including taking over the Time 100 list, and it’s also where some of the Internet’s most famous memes got their start, including the Rick Roll and LOLcats. It’s also known as the main hub for Anonymous, a group that has held a very public campaign against Scientology.

In other words, AT&T has just opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms it could have possibly found. Blocking any site is an extreme breach of user trust, but the decision to block 4chan in particular just seems stupid. Expect the web equivalent of rioting if this doesn’t change soon.

Here are quotes from 4chans response page:

This censorship is not only a huge inconvenience to the users of 4chan, but a bold move showing AT&T’s true intentions: Telecom corporations’ control over internet content. Undoubtedly, this is the first shot fired in the war for net neutrality.

-ireport

Regardless of whether there was a legitimate reason for blocking /b/ and /r9k/, tonight set an important precedent. We the consumers will not tolerate any future attempts at internet censorship. The ISPs have taken notice and now rightly fear the wrath of an anon scorned.

—Anon

Tweets:

AmgKmpsR @ksg89 – “When will #ATT learn, you cannot just block the final boss of the Internet. Shit will hit the fan” #4chan #ATTCensorship so true!

ennn @jerricklim Begun, the 4chan wars have.

“4chanTheMachine: Say goodbye to the sites you love AT&T blocks 4chan first but whats next?”

One possible explanation for the ban is here according to one source, 4chan was under constant DDoS attacks which was costing at&t money. But that does not explain why the site went completely offline for most of the country from multiple ISP’s.

What is /b/?

/b/ is defined by Urban Dictionary as…

* /b/ is the guy who tells the cripple ahead of him in line to hurry up.
* /b/ is the stranger your parents warned you not to talk to.
* /b/ is the one who wrote your number on the mall’s bathroom wall.
* /b/ is the guy loitering on Park Ave, the one that’s always trying to sell you something.
* /b/ is the one who first introduced you to Goatse.
* /b/ is the only one of your group of friends to be secure in his sexuality and say anything.
* /b/ is that bat-shit crazy old man who sits on his porch and threatens to shoot the children that step on his lawn.
* /b/ is the kid that likes Inuyasha.
* /b/ is a friend that constantly asks you to try mutual masturbation with him.
* /b/ is the 10 second delay in which you contemplate walking back into the room you just accidentally saw your friends naked mom in, and asking her if you could be of assistance.
* /b/ is the guy who calls a suicide hotline to hit on the adviser
* /b/ is nuking the hard-drive next time someone knocks on his door.
* /b/ is the voice in your head that tells you that it doesn’t matter if she’s drunk.
* /b/ is the friend who constantly talks about your mom’s rack.
* /b/ is the strung out drunk guy dancing and playing air guitar alone to the music at an outdoor concert.
* /b/ is the only one who understands what the hell you are saying.
* /b/ is the uncle who has touched you several times.
* /b/ is the homeless person at the bus stop who wraps his arm around you and starts a conversation.
* /b/ is still recovering in the hospital after trying something he saw in a hentai.
* /b/ is the guy that puts an “I love dead babies” banner on the side of his car and drives past the protesters outside of clinics.
* /b/ thinks he is smarter than you, but is often wrong.
* /b/ is the friend who makes a Tupac joke when his friend’s father got shot in the eye, and laughs at the joke.
* /b/ is the attractive girl you met over the internet that makes you want to fap, until he sends you nude pictures, to your dismay.
* /b/ is wonderful.

In addition to starting a war with the crazy hackers who routinely encourage suicide as an option to emo teenagers, Central Gadget says that AT&T may also be breaking the law.

Under the FCC’s Comcast/BitTorrent ruling, Internet Service Providers may only slow or cap connection speeds. They are not allowed to block any service or protocol on the internet. Here, 4chan as a web site appears to fall under an internet service, but it is also conforming to standard web page protocols. It appears AT&T does not have the legal right to block 4chan, only to cap customers who are “abusing” their access to the internet.

Predictably, the 4chan crowd is already mobilizing both inside and outside of their online community. AT&T didn’t just open a can worms, they dove headfirst into a den of vipers, and this will be very interesting to watch play out.

The full details of their attack plan game be found here Until then everyone can agree on one thing, that this is going to get ugly.