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posted by n1 on Saturday July 22 2017, @02:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the pics-or-it-didn't-happen dept.

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) criticized the Federal Communications Commission for failing to turn over its internal analysis of the DDoS attacks that hit the FCC's public comment system.

The FCC declined to provide its analysis of the attacks to Gizmodo, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request for a copy of all records related to the FCC analysis "that concluded a DDoS attack had taken place." The FCC declined the request, saying that its initial analysis on the day of the attack "did not result in written documentation."

“If the FCC did suffer a DDoS attack and yet created no written materials about it, that would be deeply irresponsible and cast doubt on how the FCC could possibly prevent future attacks," Wyden told Gizmodo in a story today. "On the other hand, if FCC is playing word games to avoid responding to FoIA requests, it would clearly violate Chairman Ajit Pai’s pledge to increase transparency at the FCC.”

Wyden also said that the FCC's response to the FoIA request raised "legitimate questions about whether the agency is being truthful when it claims a DDoS attack knocked its commenting system offline.”

After yesterday's articles about the FoIA request, the FCC issued a statement claiming that it is "categorically false" to suggest that "the FCC lacks written documentation of its analysis." The FCC claimed that Gizmodo only asked for analysis produced on May 8, the day of the attack, and that the FCC thus doesn't have to provide any written analysis produced after that date. Those are the "word games" that Wyden referred to.

Gizmodo's new article, titled "The FCC Is Full of Shit," disputes the FCC's characterization of the FoIA request.

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Passes Blame Over Lying About Public Comment System Being DDoSed 40 comments

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.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday July 22 2017, @02:35PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 22 2017, @02:35PM (#542918) Journal

    They won't provide any documentation that could enable tracing their sponsors? ;-)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @07:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @07:06PM (#543043)

    So says I!

    What says you?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @09:36PM (#543108)

    This story is about as broadly nerdy as they come - appeals to those with tech affinity as well as social, political, and economic implications.

    And yet, there are only three comments, including this one.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @10:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @10:34PM (#543129)
  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday July 22 2017, @11:45PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 22 2017, @11:45PM (#543166)

    WTF is with this written documentation crap? There are logs. Megabytes and megabytes of logs. Just aggregate the logs and send it off. If someone wrote documentation during the day of the DDoS it was probably a text message to the on-call network guy saying "OH SHIT EVERYTHING IS MELTING". Then an email a few hours later from the sysadmin to his boss saying "It looks like legit traffic from angry citizens." Then reply from the boss that says "No, that can't be right. Turn off the internet! We're being attacked by criminals or something."

    --
    SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
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