On Sunday, May 7, 2017 John Oliver told his audience about Net Neutrality. During his 20 minute segment he indicated that gofccyourself.com will redirect people to the FCC page to leave comments. You can viewthe video clip, approximately 20 minutes long and definitely R rated and NSFW, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak
On Monday, May 8, 2017 the United States Federal Communications Commission issued a statement indicating that their site was under attack from a denial-of-service attacks (DDos). I find that very suspicious. The first thing makes me skeptical is in their release, (PDF version) they indicate that they had a high amount of traffic from people that were not trying to file comments. I wonder how they can tell that fact. (Full text at end of this post)
The FCC continued that the comment system was functional the entire time, but the servers were not able to process all the requests that were arriving. By my estimation that means that the system, not the individual application. That approach is basically the same as saying that the car tire was still functional while the car was stuck in sand. The system does not function, the pieces might but not the system.
Then again, it could be a great example of the exact action the FCC is trying to allow. The ISP providers could have scaled the network communications. I am not indicating that the FCC or their commercial host throttled communications to prevent people from commenting. I am saying that under the proposed repeal of Title II from Internet communication would allow that exact action.
If you would like to comment you can go to any of the links below:
- https://dearfcc.org/ – my favorite as it provides suggested text and background from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/proceedings?q=name:((17-108))
- http://gofccyourself.com <- note not secure, but redirects to a secure page
My HTML version of the statement:
Media Contact:
Mark Wigfield, (202) 418-0253
mark.wigfield@fcc.gov
For Immediate Release
FCC CIO STATEMENT ON DISTRIBUTED DENIAL-OF-SERVICE ATTACKS ON FCC ELECTRONIC COMMENT FILING SYSTEM
—
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2017 – Federal Communications Commission Chief Information Officer Dr. David Bray issued the following statement today regarding the cause of delays experienced by consumers recently trying to file comments on the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS):
“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.”
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Office of Media Relations: (202) 418-0500
ASL Videophone: (844) 432-2275
TTY: (888) 835-5322
Twitter: @FCC
www.fcc.gov/office-media-relations
This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action. See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).