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Subject: [IP] Re: 4chan and att DO READ



Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Date: July 27, 2009 10:56:22 AM EDT
Subject: Re: [IP] 4chan and att  DO READ

Dave -

I have received an offlist suggestion as to how AT&T might block the "/b/" and "/r9k/" sections of the website without inspecting content.  It is possible that "GET" commands to URLs for those pages involve further URL references to a common server (or servers)with a specific IP address, but other, unrelated URLs with the same DNS name do not require access to that server (or servers).

Such redirections would allow for a selective block by IP address only to be put in place by AT&T refusing to route IP packets to that address.

I don't know if that is the way AT&T did actually operate the block - but it suggests that AT&T might not be inspecting content to achieve the blocking observed by those who detected it.  It's why I asked how they achieved selective blocking.

I hope AT&T does disclose the techniques used, and the criterion on which they decided to block a popular site unilaterally.

- David

On 07/27/2009 09:41 AM, David Farber wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Date: July 27, 2009 8:32:30 AM EDT
Subject: Re: [IP] NOT the whole story: a comprehensive time line of 4chan and att

This is hardly the whole story, Dave.  I'd be interested in how AT&T managed to block *only* certain parts of 4chan's web content.   Since DNS routing does not depend on the characters after the "/" in a URL in *any* way, the site's mention that AT&T was blocking only certain sub-"directories" of 4chan's content suggests that the blocking involved *reading content of end-to-end communications".

If AT&T admits it was doing this, they should supply to the rest of the world a description of the technology that they were using to focus their blocking.  Since AT&T has deployed content-scanning-and-recording boxes for the NSA in its US-based switching fabric, perhaps that is how they do it.  However, even if you believe that is legitimate for the US Gov't to do, the applicability of similar technology to commercial traffic blocking is not clearly in the domain of acceptable Internet traffic management.


On 07/27/2009 06:41 AM, David Farber wrote:
The whole story djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joly MacFie <joly@punkcast.com>
Date: July 27, 2009 3:12:23 AM EDT


According to
http://www.centralgadget.com/att-blocking-access-to-portions-of-4chan-2336/
access has been restored