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Censoring 4Chan

by Marshall Brain | July 26, 2009

3 Comments | Add Comment

 

We talked about 4chan when they hacked Time magazine’s “most influencial person” voting:

Moot is the world’s most influential person according to Time Magazine

Now it seems that 4chan has done something to piss off AT&T, and AT&T has censored them:

AT&T Reportedly Blocks 4chan. This Is Going To Get Ugly.

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.

It should be interesting to watch this unfold.

[Update 7/27, 8:50AM: It appears that AT&T backed down:

S---storm Averted? AT&T Restores Access To 4chan (Which Is Now Under DDoS Attack):

An update on the situation as of 8 AM Eastern Time: access to 4chan has apparently been restored, with AT&T reportedly confirming the hours-long block of portions of the site, “following the practices of their policy department.”

AT&T did confirm the blockade, but did not state a reason for their actions:

AT&T Blocking Access to Portions of 4chan

AT&T has confirmed that they are “currently blocking portions of the internet site 4chan.org”, but states that they are “following the practices of their policy department.”

The message in this video starts 55 seconds in, referring to the "Great Internet Firewall" and the need to prevent it:

It now appears that 4chan is under its own DDOS attack, overloading the servers and making it difficult to access the site. See Distributed Denial of Service Attacks for details. Currently (7/27 8:50AM) the site is completely unavailable:

http://www.4chan.org

It could be that there are so many people craving information about this incident that the site cannot handle the legitimate load. ]

 

3 Comments

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  • ace says:
    July 28, 2009 at 12:37 am

    And once again, it NEVER fails with the incessant lying, as lying is a way of life for these hacker creeps. I salute AT&T for blocking viruses, trojans and nasty spider scripts, as that is what the REAL truth is as to WHY AT&T has flashed the middle finger [blocked] to 4 Chan. Why should AT&T waste time and energy in dealing with viruses, trojans and uncontrollable script programs emanating from the 4 Chan site?

    I don’t condone censorship and I certainly don’t condone lies “in the name of lulz”. The only thing 4 Chan has proven again and again, is that they are infantile and violent. A bunch of two year olds who go on tirades. And just like an out of control two year old, they need some REAL hard slaps from the school of hard knocks.

    Any consequences or denial of internet access to AT&T customers due to NAZI actions emanating from 4 Chan [or any other hacker creeps for that matter], I pray that they are caught, rounded up, prosecuted beyond the extent of the law, thrown in a windowless cell and locked up forever until the day they die.

    I commend AT&T for taking the step forward and I sincerely hope that other ISP’S follow suit ASAP. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Hackers cause destruction, chaos, waste everyones time and energy. Normal people on the net are SICK AND TIRED of these two year old tantrum antics that 4 Chan displays on a daily basis. These hacker creeps really and truly need to GROW THE F*** UP.

    Reply
  • The L says:
    July 28, 2009 at 9:59 am

    I agree that 4chan is responsible for some pretty twisted stuff, but the majority of /b/tards are just kids goofing around on the Internet. Most of them have no clue how hacking works, and are only there for laughs (or as they say, “for the lulz”). I would honestly be surprised if even half of 4chan was really as messed up as a casual glance at /b/ indicates. And repeated warnings from moot, the founder of 4chan, have made it clear that he does not condone any use of his site to hack into government sites, make bomb threats (serious or otherwise), etc. As nasty as /b/ is to outsiders, they’re even worse to users who disregard the site’s rules.

    Anyone who’s visited 4chan in the past few months, however, knows that 4chan has endured near-constant harassment from rival site AnonTalk.com including spam floods, site hacks and other bizarrely overreactive attacks.

    This time, AnonTalk went too far and actually used the 4chan servers to initiate attacks on AT&T. Maybe they “asked for it” because of their devil-may-care attitude, but I can guarantee you 4chan is not behind the attacks. Moot and the other mods wouldn’t stand for it.

    Reply
  • kind anon says:
    August 6, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    Anontalk.com is better than fortune.org

    join the armigedin agasint anoonimouses!

    http://ri.ms/8j <– anontalk is clean, and pederasty is not shameful – join and discuss at anontalk.com

    Reply

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