FCC Site For Accepting Net Neutrality Comments Falls Over (Again) On Final Day To Submit

from the make-your-fast-lane-jokes-now dept

Tue, Jul 15th 2014 10:04am — Mike Masnick

It's already happened once that the FCC's commenting system buckled under the weight of a flood of submissions. However, today is the final day to send in official comments on the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), and once again, FCC.gov appears to be unable to handle the deluge. I've been personally trying for a while now to submit Floor64/Techdirt's comments, without any luck. I'll have a post up soon about our actual comments, whether or not I can actually get them delivered to the FCC, but you'd hope that the FCC could at least figure out how to keep a (rather basic) site up at such a time. Unexpected downtime happens, but the FCC had to know they were going to get a flood of traffic and submissions today and had months to prepare. Update And... the FCC has extended the deadline to Friday at midnight, because of the technological problems.

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Filed Under: comments, fcc, net neutrality, technology

30 Comments

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TheResidentSkeptic (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:59am

Let's just make a new rule...
Qualification to Regulate is based on Ability to Implement.

... imagine how many useless bureaucracies this rule would shut down...
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Michael, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:10am

It's probably the same issue Microsoft was having running all of the no-ip traffic through their systems.

That or the NSA system to log all of the traffic has been creating too much drag.
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Michael, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:12am

Re: Let's just make a new rule...
Do you need a legislative body that passes this rule to implement it?
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Andrew Norton (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:13am

They did have an alternate way to submit after being Oliver'd

http://www.fcc.gov/page/fcc-establishes-new-inbox-open-internet-comments
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DannyB (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:13am

I know who can help the FCC with this problem!
Maybe the FCC could ask for help from the people who built healthcare.gov?
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JP (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:17am

Sounds like someone has paid the GCHQ to use Gateway and Predators Face on the FCC's site.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:25am

30,000 comments on this motion? That seems really low.
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Sneaky Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:30am

I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
I got my comment in. It crashed, I went back a page, submitted again.
It took about 20 tries, but it finally took it.

Maybe if the FCC didn't have computers from the middle-ages...

Not that it really matters. They'll side with the $Money$.
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Violynne (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:31am

"...but you'd hope that the FCC could at least figure out how to keep a (rather basic) site up at such a time."
Thanks, Mike.

I needed a good, hearty laugh today.

Too bad I can't "Funny" this. This line would easily win the humorous post of the week.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:31am

They suck. You can still e-mail them at openinternet@fcc.gov and they'll take it into account.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:38am

It was also over 700k signatures and now it's only displaying 200k.

Here's a tweet from Wheeler mentioning it's over 650k:
https://twitter.com/TomWheelerFCC/status/487669400816717824
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DannyB (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:45am

Re: I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
It's not a problem with the FCC's computers.

It's a problem with the particular kind of modems they use between the web server and the database server.
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DannyB (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:48am

Re:
> "...but you'd hope that the FCC could at least figure out
> how to keep a (rather basic) site up at such a time."

Lobbyists: hey FCC we hope you can at least figure out
how to keep your comment site DOWN at such a time.
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Ninja (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:50am

but the FCC had to know they were going to get a flood of traffic and submissions today and had months to prepare.

That's what happens when you don't pay for the fast lane. Silly FCC.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:59am

Re: Re: Let's just make a new rule...
non-sequitor.

The political body is constructed of people able to lie profusely to people that don't really give a damn to secure their votes.

A problems go away when the electorate finally starts giving an actual fuck about its liberty and can get off the dem this or rep that schtick.

Once the public makes it clear that anyone attempting to fight corruption will be vigorously voted in to solve the problem you will find a lot of people willing to run.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:59am

Re:
They 'lost' over 100,000 from the first failure.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:05am

Re: Re: I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
You know that the web server usually hosts the database, right?
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DannyB (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:07am

Re: Re: Re: I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
Well, sure. Why not. And while we're at it, let's NOT even bother with a firewall on the server. What could go wrong?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:37am

Re:
This consultaion period has smacked of incompetent malice.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:38am

Re: Re: Re: I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
This is not usually true for larger installations (and shouldn't be true for any installations -- it's a terrible practice).
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Traveller800 (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 12:04pm

I have to say...I'm not surprised it crashed...and I'm also happy to see that they have extended the deadline to the end of the week.

It seems to me that they didn't expect so many responces.

The 'keeping a basic site up' comment seems a bit unfair. Every website has its limits and given the US has about a third/half the words population in it, even half those people posting all at onc would overwelm even the best designed site.
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Traveller800 (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 12:06pm

Re:
every website has its limits...no ammount of preperation can prepare a site for half the planet trying to post at once.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 1:45pm

Re:
The US has 319 million people living in it. The population of the world is 7.1 billion. China has the largest population in the world and they're only 1.4 billion.

On an unrelated note: Why are people waiting until the last day to submit their comments? The FCC may have had months to prepare their site, but everyone else had months to prepare their comments.
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ECA (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 12:28am

cONCOURSE
In all our history of the 20th century has there ever been a location created REAL or virtually that could handle more then a few thousand people at a TIME that wished to interact with our ELECTED officials?

NO.
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TestPilotDummy, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:33am

SENATORAL CHAOS THEORY
this is that OTHER thread, I didn't comment on.
GOD DAMN IT.

So being late, I will grasp the ABOVE comment and reflect.

"cONCOURSE
In all our history of the 20th century has there ever been a location created REAL or virtually that could handle more then a few thousand people at a TIME that wished to interact with our ELECTED officials?"

I am goin to POP this out there. (pun intended) but I know you've seen POPVOX right?

Have you spent 18 hours a day there for several days yet?

JUST ASKIN

I got in trouble with the moderators right off the bat.

I WAS CUSSING AT THE SENATORS lol....

u fsckin oath breaking treasonous scum mfcststbba's
elders comprende'

What I did get was frequent updates on their technology.
um, the senators, well maybe I stirred them for awhile this (Honorable as far as I can see) P-VOX, the end game there ain't shit I can do, to fix the mess these fscking oath breakin fools are meddling with. A21. -2nd, -1st , -4th, -5th (by deception) and I amd tired of fscking REFERENCING new changes to OLD WORD languages!! You have to declare your 5th DOG..

It frankly feels like talking to the enemy, and I am sayin this as a sworn in Active Duty USAF human, who got an honorable discharge after working as an electrician on F4's.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:39am

Re: SENATORAL CHAOS THEORY
The old address.

well maybe I stirred them for awhile this (Honorable as far as I can see) P-VOX,

has changed, the new address is.

well maybe I stirred them for awhile via this thing (Honorable as far as I can see) called P-VOX,

Okay with that said, they HAVE PROBLEMS. ;o)

Like No STATE | COUNTY | CITY | DISTRICT | HOA
right bitchez!?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:43am

Re: Re: SENATORAL CHAOS THEORY
I kno flooding the dam thread,,,

I kno my shiznits make nosense to the un initiated,

But With those LOCAL gov feedback / trackin

Holy Schamolie, you can FORCE THIS BACK DOWN RIGHT NOW!!!
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 8:08pm

FCC spokesman parody
"What part of, 'We are not interested,' are you having trouble understanding?"
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DannyB (profile), 17 Jul 2014 @ 11:29am

Re: Re: Re: I'm smarter then the FCC computers....
Nobody in their right mind would host anything unnecessary on the web server. The web server should be as small of an installation as possible.

Also try putting it behind a reverse proxy, just for good measure. (You know how you can use a proxy, like maybe Squid, for outbound web requests? Just take that proxy, turn it around, and stick it between the intarwebs and the web server. Not only can the proxy cache static resources, but it can have rules that disallow bad url's, and other bad things.)
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