AT&T's war over the weekend with the controversial Internet
forum 4chan.org seems to have come to a close as of Monday, but not before some anonymous denizens of 4chan's notorious /b/ board launched attacks on the
broadband provider for blocking access to parts of 4chan that were the source of what AT&T claims was a denial-of-service attack affecting one of its customers.
"Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org," the Dallas-based telecom said in an official statement released Monday. "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."
AT&T was apparently not alone in detecting a denial-of-service threat from 4chan -- unWired was among several other ISPs that temporarily blocked 4chan due to "relentless ACK scan reports" emanating from the image board, Ars Technica reports.
That Web site's Jacqui Cheng further reports that pranks stemming from 4chan users' anger over AT&T's weekend actions may include a "[a] fake report about the death of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson [that] briefly appeared on CNN's iReport (the article has since been removed) in an apparent attempt to affect the company's stock price."
Now that the AT&T block has been lifted, it appears that some 4chan users are encouraging a ceasefire. The 4chan Web site, ostensibly an image board for posting pictures of manga and anime, also is home to the "random" forum known as "/b/" -- a minimally administered discussion board where most users post anonymously, often using the screen name "Anonymous."
While /b/ often is cited as the origin of harmless, popular Internet fads such as "LOLcats" and "rickrolling," it also is allegedly the source of more harmful mob actions by the "Anonymous" collective, such as the hacking of Sarah Palin's e-mail account.
