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posted by chromas on Tuesday August 14 2018, @03:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the ~blame dept.

Ajit Pai admits FCC lied about "DDoS," blames it on Obama administration

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai acknowledged Monday that the FCC lied about its public comment system being taken down by a DDoS attack during the net neutrality repeal proceeding.

Pai blamed the spreading of false information on employees hired by the Obama administration and said that he isn't to blame because he "inherited... a culture" from "the prior Administration" that led to the spreading of false information. Pai wrote:

I am deeply disappointed that the FCC's former Chief Information Officer [David Bray], who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people. This is completely unacceptable. I'm also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn't feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office."

Pai's admission came in a statement yesterday. "It has become clear that in addition to a flawed comment system, we inherited from the prior Administration a culture in which many members of the Commission's career IT staff were hesitant to express disagreement with the Commission's former CIO in front of FCC management," he also said.

Inspector General report.

Also at The Verge:

The toughest condemnation of Pai's actions came from Fight for the Future, a net neutrality advocacy organization, which called for Pai to step down. "Ajit Pai should resign. These new revelations from the FCC's internal investigation are a smoking gun," the group said in a statement. "They clearly show that the FCC chairman knew months ago that there had never been a cyber attack on the FCC's comment system, but did nothing, allowing the false narrative to spread in a cynical attempt to downplay the overwhelming opposition to his attack on net neutrality."

Previously: John Oliver Leads Net Neutrality Defenders to Crash FCC Website. Again.
Senator Blasts FCC for Refusing to Provide DDoS Analysis
FCC Says its Specific Plan to Stop DDoS Attacks Must Remain Secret


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:14AM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:14AM (#721324)

    So here's the main difference I'm noticing between the Trump and Obama administrations: Obama's people at least gave lip service to concepts like "serving the public trust", and were not seeking to loot the public treasury while in office. Sure, in some cases they were hoping to land cushy gigs on K Street, Wall Street, or think tanks when they were done, but what they weren't doing were moves like deregulating companies in which they or their family members just happened to have significant monetary stakes.

    And that's because a key value of Donald Trump is "He who is richer is better, regardless of how he got there." And he hires people that agree with that value. And surprise surprise, that means that he's hiring people whose government salary isn't enough income to keep them happy, and are constantly looking for kickbacks and other ways to personally profit from their government decisions. Again, nothing that new in government, but Trump and his people are not even seriously trying to hide it.

    And yes, this sort of thing starts at the top. For instance, about a year ago, when I was closely reading all the regulatory changes that came through on a weekly basis, I noticed cutbacks on a bunch of tariffs coming straight from the president's office that were a bit disguised as to what the cuts actually were. So I looked up all the references and such, and it just so happened that a bunch of the items that had substantial cuts were precisely the materials and countries used in Ivanka Trump's handbag business. You'd have a very hard time convincing me that that was a coincidence.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:28PM

    by digitalaudiorock (688) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:28PM (#721602) Journal

    Here's a rather mind-numbing list for anyone who's counting:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/tracking-trumps-web-of-conflicts/ [bloomberg.com]