AT&T bans 4chan

from: http://stormen.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/att-blocks-4chan/

  Quote

Reports are spreading that AT&T is now blocking 4chan.org’s «/b/»-section.

 

 

Firing one of the first shots in the net neutrality war, AT&T has blocked 4chan’s /b/ image board. AT&T subscribers are unable to connect to /b/ and /r9k/ (both of which are hosted on img.4chan.org). However, subscribers can get on any of the so-called «worksafe» boards that 4chan.org offers.

 

The problem seems to be present only for wired connections only (AT&T Mobility customers are not affected). The problem is not caused by an DNS-error, as traceroutes indicates that AT&T is dropping img.4chan.org requests in the AT&T network.

 

Slashdot, Digg & Reddit are now running stories that are rapidly being upvoted about the topic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/c...o_img4chanorg/

 

As citizens of a free internet

, what do we think about this kind of censorship?

 

UPDATED 1: Confirmation comes from several Reddit users that the website has indeed been blocked in a number of areas in the US and that it is not a technical issue.

 

UPDATED 2: A mere 5 hours after the problems were first reported on Reddit, sources on /b/ say that members of Anonymous has already started planning retaliation towards AT&T – amongst other things posting personal information about AT&T executives. One might quietly wonder if the AT&T megacorp. knows what’s it up against – with 4chan often being referred to as “The Internet

Hate Machine”.

 

UPDATED 3: It turns out 15.5% of all US internet users use AT&T DSL, so this is quite a big problem. It will severly affect 4chan, both in regards of traffic and advertising volumes.

 

UPDATED 4: moot, the founder of 4chan, officially acknowledges the ban – calling for disconcerned users to «call or write customer support and corporate immediately»: http://status.4chan.org … Somehow, I get a feeling they’re gonna do a lot more than that, moot.

 

UPDATED 5: From rumors on /b/, it seems 4chan’s first retaliatory strike will be towards Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T. The Consumerist has more. There are also murmurs about the AT&T block being put into place because of supposed mass DDoS-attacks from img.4chan.org, but so far there has been no official, verifiable response from AT&T.

lol, good for at+t

I hope Anonymous tears them a new one, even after AT&T removes the ban, which I'm confident it will.

[youtubehd]xribI5BZSVU[/youtubehd]

That is the best move ever made against child pornography on the internet.

and nothing of value was lost.

on TFTTs birthday, no less

honestly fuck /b/. some funny stuff but mostly just sociopathic and scary.

that said, at+t need to let up on this. not good.

hackers on steroids

are there no other sites they block?

MOOT WAS PERSON OF THE YEAR YOU CAN'T DO THiS!

YA JUST CAN'T!!!

/b/ is the most internet thing on the internet. I hope it never dies. yes, I know it's shit.

/b/ did get worse after 100m get(was already in decline), but it has to remain.

  Quote

“

First they came for the pedophiles, and I did not speak out, because I was not a pedophile.

 

Then, they came for the pirates, and I did not speak out because I was not a pirate.

 

Then they came for anonymous, and I did not speak out because I was not anonymous.

 

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

 

„

 

 

—Pedophile Pirate Anonymous No. 148750237

banning it wont get rid of the people and their personality disorders. they will just ugly up some other forum.

this isn't just about 4chan; it's about net neutrality. do you want your isp deciding what websites you can and can't access?

i'm just saying net non-neutrality is as futile as suing napster users. the culture isnt going to go anywhere because you ban one manifestation thereof

Anybody who is for this, is a complete fucktard and should get his balls chopped out. Seriously, whatever the content there was there wasn't important.

This is corporation versus the neutrality of the intrawebs. There is a direction it should be going, and that's not it.

I mean just think a second. A fucking single second.

The only way to hurt'em is with your pockets. It is capitalism, use it wisely to your advantage, for once. But would that be for the lulz?

at&t customers need to contact customer support and complain about the issue. if they don't pledge not to censor content, then switch isp's and tell at&t why you're doing it.

this isn't really that differnt to isps refusing to carry the porn and warez newsgroups back in the mid 90s. it made access harder, but it didnt stop them existing - because no one person/company hosts the internet...

  On 7/27/2009 at 9:13 AM, analogue wings said:

this isn't really that differnt to isps refusing to carry the porn and warez newsgroups back in the mid 90s. it made access harder, but it didnt stop them existing - because no one person/company hosts the internet...

Refusing to carry something on your own servers is completely different from blocking traffic to and from servers that don't belong to you, fucking idiot.

It's a little different. ISP had their own usenet servers, so they were hosting those files.

This is an ISP blocking a certain part of the internet, like China is doing. Not stuff on their usenet servers. One is a corporation, the other is a government. In a certain way, the corporation doing it (and being able to) is worse.

  On 7/27/2009 at 9:26 AM, my usernames always really suck said:

  On 7/27/2009 at 9:13 AM, analogue wings said:

this isn't really that differnt to isps refusing to carry the porn and warez newsgroups back in the mid 90s. it made access harder, but it didnt stop them existing - because no one person/company hosts the internet...

 

Refusing to carry something on your own servers is completely different from blocking traffic to and from servers that don't belong to you, fucking idiot.

gosh, if it turned out i was comparing the effects of the blocking and not the actual technological implementation, which is irrelevant and opaque to most observers, then you'd be the fucking idiot, huh

  On 7/27/2009 at 9:40 AM, analogue wings said:

actual technological implementation, which is irrelevant

Wrong again, son.