
FCC’s comment system targeted by DDoS during filing period for net neutrality - petergatsby
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/the-fccs-comment-system-targeted-by-ddos-attacks-during-filing-period-for-net-neutrality/
======
wcarron
Real confirmation of an attack would be a nice-to-have in this situation. I
can see 3 probable realities:

1\. The sheer volume of commenters and responses took down the system. They
cover it by saying a DDoS attack was the cause. 2\. They are intent on
crippling Net Neutrality anyway, and either designed the system to
insufficiently handle traffic and call it a DDos or even DDos themselves. 3\.
Since there are groups with vested interest in removing net neutrality, and
they have deep pockets, I can easily see a few groups moving to protect their
interests. In other words, a legitimate DDoS attack.

All 3 seem equally likely to me, especially considering Ajit Pai's stance on
NN. This is not encouraging as a citizen of the US.

~~~
ben174
John Oliver's video is #3 trending on YouTube right now. It specifically calls
for people to write comments on that page. He even bought up a domain that
points directly to the page.
[http://gofccyourself.com](http://gofccyourself.com)

~~~
pera
Citing the second paragraph of the posted article:

> “These were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC’s
> comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host.
> These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they
> made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the
> FCC.”

~~~
unityByFreedom
And the official statement from the FCC,

> “Beginning on Sunday night at midnight, our analysis reveals that the FCC
> was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos). These
> were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC’s comment
> system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host. These
> actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it
> difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC. While
> the comment system remained up and running the entire time, these DDoS
> events tied up the servers and prevented them from responding to people
> attempting to submit comments. We have worked with our commercial partners
> to address this situation and will continue to monitor developments going
> forward.” [1]

Given that the FCC thinks "bulk commenting" via a spreadsheet is a proper
solution to their website difficulties, I don't really believe in their
ability to diagnose an issue as a DDoS. More likely, lots of people were
trying to comment but couldn't.

[1]
[http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0508/DOC-344764A1.pdf)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _" While the comment system remained up and running the entire time, these
> DDoS events tied up the servers and prevented them from responding to people
> attempting to submit comments."_

...That doesn't sound like "up and running."

~~~
failrate
It sounds like weasel-speak for "the web service didn't crash", but our switch
was completely saturated.

------
MBCook
I wonder if anyone else can confirm this somehow.

This seems like it would be great cover if you're trying to hide the fact that
people a lot of people really dislike what you're doing and are complaining so
much your system couldn't take the load. "Oh, it wasn't because lots of people
were complaining.... it was a DDOS".

~~~
r00fus
So what if it's an inside job? I mean, it'd be easy to cripple the server if
you have network access/control.

~~~
mmagin
Everyone knows a DDOS can't melt steel beams :P

~~~
labster
Depends on whether or not the data center's A/C is working.

------
cschep
Are we sure it's not just a lot of people trying to complain at once? :)

(joke about they should have purchased fastlaneTM brand internet)

------
bluetwo
Once again: We screwed up by not making this a campaign issue.

Many of the news stations here are affiliated with internet providers. The
candidates both took money from the industry. No one was going to make this an
issue, and we screwed up by not forcing it to be part of the conversation.

Of course we also let the election happen without a major conversation about
fracking.

~~~
mattnewton
But Emails! Locker room talk!

I think this needs to be solved at the state-representative level anyways with
legislation. This currently fickle flipping between administrations is bad for
consumers and creates uncertainty in buisiness, which means they don't want to
make long term investments. Why bother upgrading your wires for a long term
profit if you are going to be regulated into the dust or if you are going to
be more free to exploit monopoly power on your pricing? Just play wait-and-see
forever.

------
mrfusion
The FCC calls democracy DDoS.

~~~
rocqua
I mean, civil disobedience is basically a physical DDoS against government.

------
bearcobra
I know for consumer complaints the FCC runs everything through Zendesk, so in
theory there is a 3rd party who could verify any claims like this. I wonder if
the there's a vendor doing hosting for the comments system as well.

------
elif
Maybe they had enough bandwidth, but it was QoS'd down for netflix

~~~
mmanfrin
If the government wants fast lanes, it has to pay for Xfinity® CustomerReach™;
it's how the market moves to fit the needs of consumers!

------
justforFranz
Not that legitimate comments matter. This administration is going to do what
the business community wants, period.

------
EGreg
Oh yeah, like these comments really matter this time around.

A certain sector of society elects Donald Trump, who appoints the new FCC
chair, and they'll do whatever they want within legal possibilities. Do you
really think the sector of society which most cares about this rule change
will affect the outcome with comments? They will no more do so than scientists
will affect the budget of the EPA with comments.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Trump is as much a politician as anyone. He's so worried about his rep, he's
actually trying to build the wall.

If people are against this en masse -- he won't touch it. My guess is he backs
down or takes a neutral stance, just like Wheeler did on net neutrality, and
like Obama did on encryption.

I mean, you know behind the scenes they're trying like hell to get rid of net
neutrality, but they can't do that in the face of a public outcry.

This is _one_ issue that is not red/blue. The hackery of Trump's campaign
operated through the open internet, and I think the tech crowd on both sides
of the aisle realize that removing net neutrality would just enrich the ISPs
and would do nothing to improve our internet speeds or access to diverse
content.

~~~
tzs
> If people are against this en masse -- he won't touch it. My guess is he
> backs down or takes a neutral stance, just like Wheeler did on net
> neutrality, and like Obama did on encryption.

Wheeler did not take a neutral stance. He was always for net neutrality. Some
people were confused on that point because after the courts tossed out the
Open Internet Order of 2010, Wheeler's first proposed replacement was weaker.
In particular, it would have allowed paid "fast lanes".

It was weaker not because he preferred weaker net neutrality, but rather
because he wanted to try to save net neutrality using the same legal authority
that the 2010 order used, if he could. That would be very likely to survive
further judicial scrutiny, and also not to draw to much Congressional ire.

But from the start he said he was open to reclassifying ISPs as Title II
common carriers in order to make a new order that was stronger than the 2010.
The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of that, and that's what he
went with.

People also get confused about Wheeler's intentions because he was once head
of the main cable trade association, and later head of the main
cellular/wireless trade association. What is often overlooked is that at those
times, those industries were young, small, and trying to compete against big
established players (broadcast networks in the case of cable, the big
telephone companies in the case of cellular/wireless). Fighting for cable and
wireless was the pro-consumer, pro-competition side at the time.

In Wheeler's own words:

Wheeler> You have to think about what I was lobbying for. The cable industry
at that point in time was fighting being put out of business by this agency at
the request of the broadcasters. Broadcasters wanted to shut down the cable
companies. They didn't want to give them access to programming because they
didn’t want the content in the market, the competition in the market. And so I
joined a crusade—we called it ‘plant a flower in the vast wasteland’—to have
choice for Americans in what they see on television.

See this interview if you want to understand Wheeler:

[https://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/how-a-former-
lobbyi...](https://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/how-a-former-lobbyist-
became-the-broadband-industrys-worst-nightmare/)

~~~
unityByFreedom
> Wheeler did not take a neutral stance.

I didn't mean to say he did. The president is the only one who can wait and
see what the public thinks before speaking. Everyone else has to act in order
to test the waters for the President.

> Wheeler's first proposed replacement was weaker. In particular, it would
> have allowed paid "fast lanes".

Yeah, that's not net neutrality at all. Title II classification was good and
overall Wheeler kept the internet open. But, fast lanes don't have any place
in a neutral internet.

------
callesgg
The site works just fine for me.

[http://www.gofccyourself.com](http://www.gofccyourself.com)

press the link "\+ Express"

I mean i have not posted anything as i am not a US citizen but the form loads
and i can fill it in

~~~
ixwt
There is a checkbox for International people. This could still potentially
affect everyone outside of the US.

~~~
throwaway91111
This is especially true for foreign companies that still rely on equal access
tk US infrastructure for both serving domestic needs and routing.

------
mtgx
It may be due to John Oliver (again):

[http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/160454924113/fccs-c...](http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/160454924113/fccs-
claim-that-site-was-hacked-during-john)

[https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/2017050...](https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20170508/06200037314/john-
oliver-net-neutrality-rant-has-crippled-fcc-website-second-time.shtml)

------
AdmiralAsshat
So which ISP has a botnet under its control, I wonder?

~~~
ohazi
Well, ISPs control firmware updates to any cable modem attached to their
network, so... all of them?

------
JustSomeNobody
Besides the ISPs and the Government (rather, the part that wants this), who
has anything to gain by this?

~~~
binarymax
If net neutrality goes away, then incumbent corporations with existing
foothold and ISP partnerships may get a monopolistic-like advantage.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Ah, good point. I wasn't thinking about the Corps with existing partnerships.

~~~
ergothus
It's also the corps with money: Pay for preferred treatment and raise the
barrier to entry for any competitor. Given how Microsoft reacted when they saw
their greatest enemy as "some kid in their garage brewing the next killer
app", that's a very real concern.

------
tomokasa
Did someone happen to save the John Oliver original video? It shows "This
video is not available" for me.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak)

EDIT: was blocked in Canada, thanks NegatioN

~~~
NegatioN
That link is accessible from Norway at least. Maybe it's blocked in your
region?

------
syphilis2
In addition to complaining to the FCC individually, Mozilla is accepting
signatures for an open letter:

[https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/net-
neutrality](https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/net-neutrality)

------
mnm1
Still doesn't work. They can't even keep their site up, yet they want to
dictate policy for the whole Internet. Am I the only one who finds that absurd
and beyond fucked up?

EDIT: Site works, form submission doesn't. Doesn't sound like a DDoS to me.

------
wonderwonder
Instructions say select your state from the dropdown. State is tagged
required. State dropdown is empty and wont let me proceed :) Tried again an
hour later and it worked.

------
smkellat
Maybe this should never have been something implemented by mere regulation in
the first place? The Commission generally disregards bulk comments that repeat
the same boilerplate language, has done so for decades, and is looking for
logical argument grounded in the law rather than emotional outbursts.

How about getting a bill passed in Congress providing for this? There were
opportunities. There can be again in the future. Laws are harder to repeal
compared to regulations.

Besides, I was there when the original ECFS was created. Events like this make
me miss the days when paper filings were the norm. You had to think harder
about what you were going to say compared to today's emails of rage provoked
by a comedian. You had to reflect carefully way back when...prior to mid-1997,
that is.

