Avicennasis - Apply directly to the forehead!

It now appears that after the massive call to arms against AT&T, that they have lifted the blockade of censorship.

- At present time the story appears to be that someone was spoofing the IP of img.4chan.org and DDoSing an AT&T costumer. That customer complained and AT&T shut down access to the site. Despite the attacks not actually originating at 4chan, AT&T claims it appeared that way to them. Whether that is the truth is currently unknown. No response has been given as to why ATAT would blatantly lie to its customers through their customer service representative base or fail to contact the owner or administration.

The following is lifted directly from theOfficial AT&T Press Release:

"Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers."

But, alas, as the National Coalition Against Censorship points out:

"DDOS attacks are a frequent occurrence, however, and AT&T has not previously blocked access to sites in response. Besides, such an attack occupies a tiny fraction of the total bandwidth through the AT&T network and is unlikely to affect it very much. As a result, an inevitable suspicion arises that it was img.4chan.org’s content that made the corporation act in this case."

The larger issue here is the possibility that a corporation can block or censor websites at will. Can AT&T do that legally? According to Central Gadget it cannot:

"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."

Send this to every organization you can think of!

To Whom It May Concern:

It has recently come to my attention that AT&T is now blocking a large community of internet users from certain sites. AT&T has denied this as of my writing this, but several reports are streaming in from all over the internet, and AT&T users who have called tech support have reportedly been told that AT&T is, in fact, blocking a few popular message boards on 4chan.org. A website that, I believe, was ranked as the 4th most popular website on the internet. AT&T thus far has been unable to provide any valid justification as to why they suddenly started to block certain sections of 4chan.

This sudden filter on AT&T traffic seems to be no less than their attempt to censor portions of the internet that have been deemed unfit for their customers. The actions of AT&T have removed control from the customers to determine what webpages they can or cannot view. This is a blatant violation of Net Neutrality. AT&T has taken it upon themselves to police the internet on behalf of their customers, who have no say at all in the matter. The choice is simply to let AT&T decide what is best for you to visit on the web, or switch to another provider. The latter may not even be an option for customers in areas where AT&T has no competitors for Internet service.

AT&T needs to be advised that the customer will assume their own rights in regards to the type and content of the internet. They cannot be allowed to block even one site. If they are allowed to continue this filtration of web traffic, it is only a matter of time before more websites fall victim to this censorship if nothing is done.

I trust that you will agree with me, and hopefully will be able to assist in maintaining the freedom of the internet. We do not need the "Great Firewall of America."

Below I have listed a few popular websites that have done stories on this issue.

Signed, (Your Name Here)


http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/26/att-blocks-4chan-this-is-going-to-get-ugly/
http://www.centralgadget.com/att-blocking-access-to-portions-of-4chan-2336/
http://consumerist.com/5323430/att-reportedly-blocks-wildly-popular-and-deeply-offensive-website
http://stormen.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/att-blocks-4chan/
http://digg.com/tech_news/AT_T_blocks_4chan/
http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/boycott-at-t-internet-services

Make sure to add your name and comments as well.

Also, emails to send this to:

FCC
General information, comments & inquiries: fccinfo@fcc.gov
Chairman Julius Genachowski: Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Robert McDowell: Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov

Associated Press
For general questions and comments; info@ap.org

Electronic Frontier Foundation
For questions, requests, or misc. queries: information@eff.org


savetheinternet.com
No email, but feel free to use the Contact form.

CNN
here is the Contact form.

National Coalition Against Censorship
Email: ncac@ncac.org


Also, here is a good copy to send to your local Congressman:

Yesterday, AT&T violated the principle of net neutrality, completely blocking access to img.4chan.org. This action is in contradiction to the spirit of a country such as ours, where access to information is seen not as a commodity, but as our right as American citizens. I am personally appalled that a company that specifically stated in the merger agreement submitted to the FCC that allowed it to become the largest ISP in the country that it would not do anything like this has reneged on its commitment to its customers and to the nation, six months after the expiration of that clause. The timing on this couldn't be better. AT&T has decided to see exactly where its limits are now that it is no longer bound by that agreement.

In January 2007, a bill was introduced that would have made this action illegal. Our president was one of the co-sponsors of that bill, and the Democratic Party in general was the impetus behind it. I hope you will bring this egregious violation of the rights of 15% of the internet-using American public to the attention of your fellow Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee members as soon as possible, and (whether through modification of the bill introduced two years ago or through the authorship of a new bill) attempt to safeguard my right, the right of the rest of your constituents, and the right of every American citizen to unfettered internet access, free from the censorship that could eventually lead to an Orwellian megacorporation controlling what we can and cannot see. If our elected government has seen fit not to violate net neutrality, the corporations we pay for internet access surely have no right. Please do everything in your power to remind them of this.

Thank you for your time.

Unfortunately, since AT&T is now taken to blocking users from websites, I have decided to help them. Anyone attempting to view this website from an AT&T IP address will be redirected to here and will not be able to view any other page. I will remove this when (if) AT&T removes the blocks that they have in effect. IF AT&T Censors the Internet, the Internet censors AT&T.

"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

Details of the block:
-Most AT&T DSL (largest ISP in the US, 15.5% of US Internet users) customers ARE
-AT&T Mobility (Cell Phones) ARE NOT AFFECTED (yet).
-It IS NOT a DNS issue. Affected people have tried OpenDNS with no success.
-It IS very visible on a traceroute. It drops within the AT&T network.
-It DOES NOT affect AT&Ts Tier 1 backbone (major bandwidth backbone in US).
-It DOES NOT affect other servers on 4chan.
-People HAVE called customer service (allegedly) and confirmed a block, but agents have denied further info.
-The web site http://img.4chan.org. has been blackholed by AT&T.
-ip route 207.126.64.181 255.255.255.255 192.0.2.1 tag 666 = Blackholed ip route 207.126.64.182 255.255.255.255

If you traceroute to 4chan and it keeps "***" forever, you're fucked. Pull open a terminal (on whatever OS you use) and type:

traceroute img.4chan.org

Their edge routers appear to have an ACL that sends anything requesting stuff from img.4chan.org's entire IP block to null0, the routers discard interface.

A normal traceroute should be a little slow at a few points but eventually get there within a minute. Alternatively, if you use Linux you can use traceroute-nanog to do some better tests.

Some sites that have had the word spread to them:

• Twitter
  
• Google News Search
  
• Examiner
  
• Inquisitr
  
• TechCrunch
  
• Techdirt
  
• MashAble
  
• Reddit
  
• Digg
  
• xkcd fora
  
• CentralGadget
  
• Los Angeles Metblogs
  
• CNN iReport
  
• Daily Kos
  
• NowPublic
  
• Something Awful
  
• Daily Show (Jon Stewart) Forums
  
• Merit Network INC.
  
• Squidman
  
• ireport
  
• Sankaku Complex
  
• Consumerist
  
• Mashable
  
• StumbleUpon
  
• Slashdot
  
• WikiNews (still in review phase)
  
• Technolorgy
  

Here as well is some useful AT&T Contact info:
Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO
randall.stephenson@att.com (business)
rs2982@att.com (personal, phone email
One AT&T Plaza
208 South Akard Street
Dallas, TX 75202
United States
210-351-5401 (direct to his secretary)
+1-210-821-4105 (headquarters, press 3, ask for Mr. Stephenson's office)
fax: 210-351-3553


AT&T Executive Customer Service
MaryMichelle Timbang
AT&T Wireless, HQ - Office of the President
Executive Customer Service
MT6973@att.com


AT&T Residential Service
Customer Service Available weekdays from 7 am to 9 pm and Saturday from 8 am to 5 pm.


Service Center:
1-800-288-2020

Disconnect or transfer service:
1-800-288-2020

"Tier-2" Tech Support:
1-877-SBC-DSL5




That is all for now. I will try to keep this updated as needed.