On Sunday, AT&T blocked one of 4Chan's many message boards, the infamous /b/ board, widely known as a spawning ground for Internet memes, bizarre humor and edgy pornography.
Online pundits quickly cried foul, accusing AT&T of censoring the anarchic message board, but as early as Monday morning, software engineers and other tech analysts were suggesting that one or more online attacks had been originating from 4Chan's IP addresses, or at the very least, someone behind the attacks was making it look like 4Chan was behind it.
Today 4Chan founder Christopher Poole, aka Moot, confirmed that a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack had originated from 4Chan's image-hosting subdomain, img.4chan.org. A DDoS attack is a "distributed denial of service" attack, which knocks out a website (or group of websites) for its intended users.
Despite the admission, Poole said that AT&T went too far in response to the attack.
“They essentially dropped a nuke instead of using the fly swatter,” Moot said. “I was told by someone within the company that an engineer essentially overreacted and made a mistake in choosing how to deal with a rather trivial issue. That’s how we got to where we’re at now.”
The 4Chan message board is also credited for siring any number of high-profile online movements and pranks, including the shadowy Internet organization Anonymous.
After AT&T's blockade of the site Sunday, reports started appearing online saying that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had died, apparently due to a cocaine overdose that happened while he had hired a number of male exotic dancers. None of that happened, and no one has taken credit for the prank.