Story Topics: 4chan - Verizon Communications

The Next Web — 4-chan has reportedly been blocked on Verizon Wireless devices. In a statement on the official 4-chan status blog, the site’s enigmatic founder ‘moot’ claimed, “we’ve received confirmation from Verizon’s Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are ‘explicitly blocked.’” While it does not appear that the block ...More has extended to Verizon’s FIOS or Home Broadband services, moot also claimed that Verizon users from these services had been complaining about intermittent outages over the past few weeks. At this time, Verizon Wireless is claiming that “some 4-chan sites were disrupting our network.” If they were disrupting your network before, Verizon, then you’re really going to enjoy what’s going to happen next. The last time a similar block was thrown up against 4-chan, by AT&T in July 2009 , it sparked a 4-chan firestorm. Some users responded to the block by blocking AT&T IP ranges and/or redirecting them to pages explaining why they had been denied service. Others boycotted AT&T as an ISP and switched their service to other providers. Fortunately for AT&T, moot called off the hounds before more than one report that the AT&T CEO had died was released. While Verizon’s Twitter feed apologized for the down time as soon as they possibly could, it will be interesting to see whether or not this will be enough to hold off a similar reaction. Verizon’s best bet to avoid an interruption in traffic for their subscribers would be to apologize to moot personally. While the users of 4-chan don’t forget, a sincere apology to the site’s admin (who has a dedicated following) would likely keep the situation from getting too far out of hand. Protip: don’t bite the hand of a crazy man. ...Less

ReadWriteWeb — According to 4chan's Twitter account and status update blog, they have been "explicitly blocked" by the Verizon Network. If you're unfamiliar with 4chan and why an ISP/wireless company would block it, read more about it on Wikipedia . The high-traffic image board of mostly anonymous users was created by Christopher Poole in 2003 and has been the subject ...More of a fair amount of negative media and legal attention over the past 7 years. But why would Verizon choose to block the site now? Does this put Verizon on par with foreign ISPs that block torrent sites and social networks? Or is there more to the story? Sponsor Poole wrote this afternoon, "Over the past 72 hours, we've been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic... only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional." However, a couple hours ago, Poole posted, "After an hour and a half on the phone, we've received confirmation from Verizon's Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are 'explicitly blocked.'" In the past , we've held a generally negative view of ISP censorship and traffic-shaping , regardless of site content. It'll be interesting to see how this battle shapes up, as Poole is calling for 4chan users to file complaints with Verizon's Network Repair Bureau. We are contacting Verizon to figure out specifically why the site is being blocked and will update this post as more information becomes available. Discuss ...Less

The Next Web Network — Updated, see the end of the post. 4-chan has reportedly been blocked on Verizon Wireless devices. In a statement on the official 4-chan status blog, the site’s ...More enigmatic founder ‘moot’ claimed, “we’ve received confirmation from Verizon’s Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are ‘explicitly blocked.’” While it does not appear that the block has extended to Verizon’s FIOS or Home Broadband services, moot also claimed that Verizon users from these services had been complaining about intermittent outages over the past few weeks. At this time, Verizon Wireless is claiming that “some 4-chan sites were disrupting our network.” If they were disrupting your network before, Verizon, then you’re really going to enjoy what’s going to happen next. The last time a similar block was thrown up against 4-chan, by AT&T in July 2009 , it sparked a 4-chan firestorm. Some users responded to the block by blocking AT&T IP ranges and/or redirecting them to pages explaining why they had been denied service. Others boycotted AT&T as an ISP and switched their service to other providers. Fortunately for AT&T, moot called off the hounds before more than one report that the AT&T CEO had died was released. While Verizon’s Twitter feed apologized for the down time as soon as they possibly could, it will be interesting to see whether or not this will be enough to hold off a similar reaction. Verizon’s best bet to avoid an interruption in traffic for their subscribers would be to apologize to moot personally. While the users of 4-chan don’t forget, a sincere apology to the site’s admin (who has a dedicated following) would likely keep the situation from getting too far out of hand. Protip: don’t bite the hand of a crazy man. UPDATE : 4-chan appears to be back online, although Verizon reps are said to be watching for any more block-worthy activity for the moment. ...Less

Digits — Verizon Wireless said Monday that its recent blocking of parts of 4chan was caused by “potentially disruptive” traffic from the popular site. “Our ...More network security system found traffic from some of the 4chan web sites that were potentially disruptive of the Verizon Wireless network and could affect our customers’ use of their services,” Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for the wireless carrier, said. “Upon further investigation, and ensuring no current risk of harm, [we] are giving the green-light to all 4chan traffic.” 4chan itself wasn’t blocked, he added. Christopher Poole, 4chan’s founder, said in a blog post Sunday that visitors who were Verizon Wireless customers reported problems reaching the site’s image boards. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because AT&T had a similar encounter with 4chan over the summer. It blocked the site after a business customer was targeted by a denial-of-service attack that emanated from IP addresses connected to 4chan. Like AT&T said at the time, Verizon Wireless pointed out that the move didn’t relate to 4chan’s content, which is infamous for Internet pranks like Rickrolling . “Verizon Wireless doesn’t care where you browse: CNN, 4Chan, Boy Genius, Twitter. We will give you the best network to connect through,” Mr. Nelson added in a tweet . UPDATE, 3:37 p.m. ET: Verizon weighs in on its policy blog, saying: “We take being the nation’s most reliable wireless network seriously. Seriously enough to protect our customers and our network from malicious attacks, even if we get dinged in the blogosphere. It’s easy to complain about ‘blocking’ when your wireless data connection is stable, fast and reliable. But try connecting to the web from your Droid or BlackBerry when attacks slow — and potentially block — use of our network altogether.” ...Less

Techdirt — Last summer, due to a DDOS attack emanating from IP addresses connected to 4chan, AT&T temporarily blocked access to 4chan... without giving a full explanation ...More for why. If you know 4chan, you know why this is a bad idea. It took very little time for the 4chan community to retaliate (and, as you know, no one "retaliates" like 4chan "retaliates"), and only a few days later, when AT&T explained what happened, did 4chan back off. So, now comes the news this weekend that Verizon Wireless is blocking 4chan (this is just Verizon Wireless, not Verizon), and the company seems to be making the same mistake. No clear explanation of why. I'm sure there's a reason that Verizon Wireless can give, but not explaining that immediately seems like a huge mistake. Update : Not surprising, but looks like the same reasoning as AT&T's temporary block last year. Still doesn't explain why the company wasn't upfront in explaining it. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story ...Less

Boing Boing — Verizon Wireless is said to be filtering HTTP traffic to/from boards.4chan.org (all image boards). From status.4chan.org : "After an hour and a half on the ...More phone, we've received confirmation from Verizon's Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are 'explicitly blocked." ...Less

Gizmodo — Last year AT&T blocked access to 4chan for about a day, due to a DDoS attack against the site. I'd love to hear Verizon's reasons on why they've blocked the ...More sit ...Less