4chan is a large website primarily used to anonymously post pictures, and talk about anonymously posted pictures. I didn’t directly link to it because I didn’t want you to accidentally click on the link and have a heart attack. Imagine the most disgusting thing you can possibly imagine … then imagine people posting pictures of it and laughing about it. That’s what 4chan is. I checked it out once and made it almost five minutes before finding a picture of a chick “making out” with an octopus. And by “making out” I mean, well, you can guess what I mean. Encyclopedia Dramatica once called /b/ (the “random” sub-section of 4chan) “the asshole of the Internet,” a description /b/tards (regulars of /b/) are quite proud of.

It would be one thing if the members of 4chan stayed on their own forum, but they don’t. Have you ever heard of Rickrolling (the art of tricking someone into watching Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” video)? That started on 4chan. And remember the “Chocolate Rain” video that got so popular that Dr. Pepper used it in one of their commercials? 4chan. And LOLcatz, all those funny cat pictures? 4chan. And then there were all their attacks and protests against Scientology. moot, the owner and administrator of 4chan, once estimated that /b/ gets “150,000 – 200,000 posts a day”. According to Wikipedia, 4chan hovers around the 1,000th most popular website on the Internet and has ranked as high as #56. That’s a lot of people.

Yesterday, AT&T announced that due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack (which in reality happens every day), they were going to block access to 4chan for all AT&T users under further notice. This is about as smart as punching a hornet’s nest with your fist and then announcing loudly, “I AM SUPERIOR TO YOU, FOOLISH HORNETS” as they swarm around you and sting your superior ass to death.

Late Sunday night, CNN reported that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had been found dead in his mansion. Of course he didn’t really die; someone posted the fake report on CNN’s iReporter site and the story appeared briefly on CNN’s website. While there is no proof, 4Chan is known for their media pranks. In April of this year, the site’s founder (moot) was voted “The Most Influential Person of the Year” on Time.com (Link). “Time.com suspects foul play.” O RLY?

And that’s how 4chan rolls. Its members won’t talk to you directly or reason with you. They’re like kindergartners with machine guns, or the kid from the old Bill Cosby skit “who would kill you for a cookie.” They’re kids, either literally or mentally, with the equivalent of internet “weapons”. If there’s one thing they can do better than offend people, it’s mobilize. If you think having fake CNN reports posted about you is bad, ask Adam Goldstein what he thinks about 4chan. After having trouble with a member of 4chan on eBay, 4chan members:

bombarded the seller’s website with a distributed-denial-of-service attack, bringing it down; targeted his website service provider with a DDoS, bringing it down; hung posters of the seller’s picture in his neighborhood stating he was a child molester; had delivered to his home 25,000 UPS boxes, pizzas, prostitutes; constantly telephoned his home, cell and place of business.

AT&T’s story of blocking 4chan “because of a denial of service attack” didn’t make much sense. Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks happen literally all the time and this is not the way to deal with them. According to updated information, AT&T has lifted the 4chan ban, which is probably a good idea before the kids really had a chance to really get organized.

I’m not sure which part of this story is scarier; the fact that there are a zillion kids out there on the Internet that can quickly organize themselves, or the fact a giant network provider like AT&T can cut off a section of the Internet from you. Between this and last week’s major faux pas where Amazon deleted eBooks off of customers’ Kindles … times, they are a changin’.