[ NNSquad ] Verizon drops traffic access to 4chan.org

["Edge, Ronald D" <edge@indiana.edu>]

    [ 4chan has -- shall we say -- both a rather "freewheeling" history 
      and user community, but any time an ISP chooses to deploy blocks
      that interrupt most or all users of site, it is important that
      appropriate appeal and other procedures are in place to avoid
      having "reasonable network management" morph into censorship.
      It is particularly problematic when such blocks are implemented
      on weekends unless ISP staff is available to deal with these
      issues on other than a "wait until Monday" basis.

      Obviously, if an active attack associated with a site is in
      progress, an ISP acting responsibly can be justified in taking
      immediate action in such a case.  However, this is not always an
      obvious sort of situation, and the urge to broadly block before
      appropriate information has been collected to really understand
      who is at fault can be overreaching in some cases, especially when
      there is no immediate way for the blocked party to appeal the action.

          -- Lauren Weinstein
             NNSquad Moderator ]

      
Apparently this web site has a track record of not just generating
Internet memes, but also Internet attacks, and threats of violence.
AT&T blocked traffic to them at one point last year. Info on the site
in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan. I am
seeing commentary on some sites claiming this is 'an end to Net
neutrality'. I am having a hard time u= nderstanding the justification
of such claims, given what seems to be a somewhat iffy track record. I
don't think Net Neutrality means you ignore bad = actors and let them
run rampant, does it? Especially if they are the source of DDOS
attacks and similar actions?

At any rate, such actions are certainly deserving of discussion and
analysis.

  >From http://status.4chan.org/ Sunday, February 07, 2010 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."

If you've been affected by the block, please call Verizon NRB at (866)
298-5373 to file a complaint.

EDIT: If NRB can't help you, try Verizon Wireless Support at (800)
922-0204.  by moot @ 7:42 PM 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 to/from
boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port
is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional.

A call was placed to their support staff last night, and we were told
that the ticket would not be looked at until Monday at the earliest,
and: "You'll need the customer to call to request it be unblocked..."

If you've been affected by this block, please contact Verizon Wireless
customer support. The numbers we were given are: "Verizon Wireless
NRB: (866) 2= 98-5373" and "Verizon Wireless DSO: (800) 770-1179".

Note: Users with mobile browsers that proxy (BlackBerry, Opera) won't
necessarily have issues accessing the boards.  by moot @ 11:56 AM

Ronald D. Edge
Director of Information Services
Indiana University Athletics
1001 East 17th St  Bloomington , IN 47408
812-855-9010  edge@indiana.edu<mailto:edge@indiana.edu>
http://iuhoosiers.com<http://iuhoosiers.com/>

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going,
because you might not get there."
 "When you come to the fork in the road, take it"
--Yogi Berra