Did the FCC Lie to us about DDOS attacks?
Apparently the FCC lied to us. (Shocked and appalled I am!)
Okay, I've been doing some digging and the FCC didn't really lie, but commented in such a way as to let the press make exaggerated claims and twist words easily for their own media bonanza.
I'm not sure how much is the media or political here but from what I can piece together the FCC did in fact see a HUGE spike in traffic. Much of which was BOT related because people (myself included) often use bots to post comments to sites like the FCC.
Claiming that this is a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service attack) is frankly bullshit. Now, if they had said that due to excessive traffic the site is going down to a high number of automated postings, then it would be more accurate.
So was it a DDOS? Not really. DDOS implies intent to deny service. What happened was SO many bots and users were hitting the site with automated and non-automated messages that the site couldn't handle the traffic. This happens. It can look like a DDOS attack but what was happening was so many comment and chat bots were in use plus humans taking the time to comment that the site was simply overwhelmed. There aren't many sites that can handle 350,000 transactions per hour. Sure, iTunes and Netflix, and Amazon can, but they were PURPOSELY built and designed to handle that kind of traffic. They make MONEY on the traffic. The FCC was collecting COMMENTS.
Did the FCC do anything malicious? I don't think an investigation will turn up anything than perhaps the FCC using choice phrases for political expediency. The traffic could easily have been misconstrued as a DDOS or possibly as "Holy shit the public is pissed the fuck off!" but I wasn't working for the FCC and frankly I fall into that pissed off category. We should all contact our congressmen about Net Neutrality.
I was monitoring closely and I found the comments of the FCC very questionable at the time. I have no doubt it was political expediency that caused them to make those claims and you can twist the facts to claim that it was a DDOS attack, because there was such a deviation from normal. The reality is that people USE bots for both GOOD and BAD. Just because a bot is flooding your site, doesn't mean it is malicious. The knee jerk reaction of every IT security pro is to assume malicious intent when traffic becomes abnormal, but it takes time to analyze and determine what is happening. Bots were being used to help make a point, but that backfired because bots are always looked at as bad. Hence giving the FCC the ability to discount the comments.
Perhaps we need to have a discussion about good bot vs bad bot.
As I grow older I am less and less inclined to listen to the constant 24 hour news cycle. There is no time for investigation, there is no time to confirm FACTS, and no time for analysis.
You end up with speculation, sensationalist headlines and frankly, a lot of bullshit wasting your time.
Thank you for reading. Please subscribe and share if you like the articles.
https://www.techspot.com/news/74987-uncovered-emails-reportedly-show-fcc-made-up-ddos.html
https://medium.com/@davidbray/while-i-am-currently-executive-director-for-the-people-centered-internet-coalition-previously-four-93ce38f272e
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/fcc-accused-of-spreading-lies-about-ddos-hitting-comment-system/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb37k4/twitter-facebook-google-bots-misinformation-changing-politics
Okay, I've been doing some digging and the FCC didn't really lie, but commented in such a way as to let the press make exaggerated claims and twist words easily for their own media bonanza.
I'm not sure how much is the media or political here but from what I can piece together the FCC did in fact see a HUGE spike in traffic. Much of which was BOT related because people (myself included) often use bots to post comments to sites like the FCC.
Claiming that this is a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service attack) is frankly bullshit. Now, if they had said that due to excessive traffic the site is going down to a high number of automated postings, then it would be more accurate.
So was it a DDOS? Not really. DDOS implies intent to deny service. What happened was SO many bots and users were hitting the site with automated and non-automated messages that the site couldn't handle the traffic. This happens. It can look like a DDOS attack but what was happening was so many comment and chat bots were in use plus humans taking the time to comment that the site was simply overwhelmed. There aren't many sites that can handle 350,000 transactions per hour. Sure, iTunes and Netflix, and Amazon can, but they were PURPOSELY built and designed to handle that kind of traffic. They make MONEY on the traffic. The FCC was collecting COMMENTS.
Did the FCC do anything malicious? I don't think an investigation will turn up anything than perhaps the FCC using choice phrases for political expediency. The traffic could easily have been misconstrued as a DDOS or possibly as "Holy shit the public is pissed the fuck off!" but I wasn't working for the FCC and frankly I fall into that pissed off category. We should all contact our congressmen about Net Neutrality.
I was monitoring closely and I found the comments of the FCC very questionable at the time. I have no doubt it was political expediency that caused them to make those claims and you can twist the facts to claim that it was a DDOS attack, because there was such a deviation from normal. The reality is that people USE bots for both GOOD and BAD. Just because a bot is flooding your site, doesn't mean it is malicious. The knee jerk reaction of every IT security pro is to assume malicious intent when traffic becomes abnormal, but it takes time to analyze and determine what is happening. Bots were being used to help make a point, but that backfired because bots are always looked at as bad. Hence giving the FCC the ability to discount the comments.
Perhaps we need to have a discussion about good bot vs bad bot.
As I grow older I am less and less inclined to listen to the constant 24 hour news cycle. There is no time for investigation, there is no time to confirm FACTS, and no time for analysis.
You end up with speculation, sensationalist headlines and frankly, a lot of bullshit wasting your time.
Thank you for reading. Please subscribe and share if you like the articles.
https://www.techspot.com/news/74987-uncovered-emails-reportedly-show-fcc-made-up-ddos.html
https://medium.com/@davidbray/while-i-am-currently-executive-director-for-the-people-centered-internet-coalition-previously-four-93ce38f272e
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/fcc-accused-of-spreading-lies-about-ddos-hitting-comment-system/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb37k4/twitter-facebook-google-bots-misinformation-changing-politics
Comments
Post a Comment