Consumers Who Had Their Identities Stolen By A Spam Bot Demand FCC Investigate Bogus Net Neutrality Comments
from the industrial-chicanery dept
Shortly after the FCC voted to begin killing net neutrality earlier this month, we noted how a mysterious bot began spamming the FCC comment system with posts favoring the dismantling of net neutrality. Analysis of the bot indicates it has simply been pulling names from a hacked database of some kind, posting the same exact missive over and over again. The scale of the informational assault isn't subtle; one estimate suggests that more than 40% of the nearly 3 million comments filed so far are courtesy of this bot, the operator of which still hasn't been identified.
The original report detailing this bot activity actually managed to get a hold of many of the people whose names are being used, and confirmed that these folks never left comments at the FCC website -- and in many instances have no idea what net neutrality even is. In some instances, many of the supposed anti-net neutrality commenters are no longer, well... living:
It is uncertain how these individuals' personal information was obtained, but it appears that a significant portion of the names and addresses used to post these comments were culled from government files stolen during a number of different network breaches over the years. Many of the addresses associated with these people's names are outdated, and according to the digital rights group Fight for the Future, in at least two cases a comment was filed to the FCC's website by people who recently died.
People who aren't dead and had their names used in this fashion aren't particularly happy about it. Net neutrality activist group Fight for the Future recently launched a website letting users test to see if their name is being used in such a fashion. And they followed that up with a letter to the FCC, signed by more than two-dozen people whose names have been (ab)used in this fashion, urging the FCC to discard the obviously fraudulent comments and help investigate who's behind the campaign:
"Based on numerous media reports [2], nearly half a million Americans may have been impacted by whoever impersonated us in a dishonest and deceitful campaign to manufacture false support for your plan to repeal net neutrality protections. While it may be convenient for you to ignore this, given that it was done in an attempt to support your position, it cannot be the case that the FCC moves forward on such a major public debate without properly investigating this known attack."
But that's precisely the problem. Because the phony bot comments support the FCC's frontal attack on net neutrality, there's every indication that the FCC intends to do nothing about any of this. And when the final vote comes to a pass later this year, you can be sure that these comments will either be used as evidence of support for the FCC's large ISP-serving policies, or be used to suggest that the massive outpouring of support for the agency's 2015 rules should be disregarded entirely.
The FCC is scheduled to continue fielding comments on its plan to kill net neutrality until August 16. If you're a living, breathing human being, you can add your thoughts to the proceeding here.
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Filed Under: bots, fake comments, fcc, net neutrality, spam, spam bot
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The agenda couldn't be more clear.
This is just a dog and pony show to formalize the decision they already made on the public's behalf without their desire.
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Re:
Fuck you citizens and your opinions.
You may have asked for us, or supported us regulating shit for you, but seriously... fuck you and thanks for your support which put us here.
~FCC
yes, yes in can be made more clear!
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Their identitites were not stolen
If making a copy of a movie isn't theft, then forging a person's name on an electronic form isn't theft.
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
Just go back to drinking your copyright rules cool-aid and enjoy your copy of Terminal Reality.
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
Likewise listing people names can have any number of legitimate purposes that are not theft. This mass-copying and misrepresentation for profit and influence IS theft.
Techdirt is consistent.
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Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
One is as an overall category involving unsanctioned obtaining something. The other is a specific case of a person losing an item without consent, without the use of force and with the original changing hands.
When it comes to copyright infringement, the border-case if mass distribution (like making available on a p2p-server) has been called not theft, but copyright infringement/counterfeiting here on the account that copying online doesn't deteriorate the original product in a meaningful way and is not a 1 to 1 loss on the market given how it constitutes an easy way of format shifting etc.
That misrepresentation/fraud like this is called theft is certainly not consistent with reducing the use of the word theft to its specific meaning.
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Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
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Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
I wouldn't call it theft. I'd call it infringement.
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Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
> ALL copying IS NOT THEFT
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160831/11454935404/our-copying-is-not-theft-t-shirt-seems-t o-really-upset-some-people.shtml#c751
Same goes for identity theft. There's no such thing. It's identity fraud or just plain fraud.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
>All copying is not theft.
Can be interpreted to say that no copying is theft. It can also be interpreted, separately, to say that SOME copying may be theft, but not all of it is. Such as, say, in opposition to someone who is alleging that all copying IS theft.
While you CAN willfully interpret other people's words as obtusely as possible simply because you don't agree with them, it's not very productive. All such behavior is not becoming.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
> It's true that not all unauthorized reproductions are infringing, but ALL copying IS NOT THEFT. Some of it is infringing. Some of it is not. And we can't have a reasoned debate on what makes sense and what doesn't when people continually claim that "copying is theft." It's not.
> So, we're not saying that infringement is good or bad. We're saying that it's not theft.
I'm not being willfully obtuse.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
Fine; substitute "theft" - the word YOU used - with "infringement." Or just "illegal and wrong." My point still stands:
Making a personal copy of a movie for legitimate reasons like backups or format shifting isn't illegal and wrong. Selling that copy is. Misrepresenting it as real, is. Mass-producing copies certainly for profit or influence is. I've never seen Techdirt state otherwise.
Likewise listing people names can have any number of legitimate purposes that are not illegal and wrong. This mass-copying and misrepresentation for profit and influence IS illegal and wrong.
Techdirt is consistent.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
This site needs a style guide for the writers (and I say that as a fan).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
However, this article wasn't written by Mike. Maybe different TechDirt writers have different opinions on the terms used here. It really is confusing.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Their identitites were not stolen
Yes, but context also refers to the particular topic that we're discussing.
I would argue (and have, a couple of posts down) that it's far more important to maintain precise use of legal terms in the context of discussing copyright infringement than it is to do so in the context of discussing fraud. Because in the context of copyright infringement, the imprecise and colloquial use of words like "theft" and "stealing" is a political tool to equate two very dissimilar areas of law in the minds of a public that often does not think that one of those two things is as serious as the other. I am not aware of any such ulterior motive in the colloquial use of "theft" that we see in the phrase "identity theft". Though, again, if you have some examples, feel free to share them.
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
Depending on who knew the meaning, words have different context?
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
You are correct. Legally, neither copyright infringement nor fraud are theft. Colloquially, both are often referred to as theft.
There is, however, a fundamental difference in context. Most people would agree that some forms of copyright infringement are ethically acceptable despite being illegal (breaking DRM to play a legally-purchased DVD under Linux, to open a legally-purchased ebook in the program of your choice, to use a text-to-speech program to make a document accessible to the blind, etc.), and believe that, as such, these things shouldn't actually be illegal.
I'm not aware of any such controversy surrounding fraud, though if you can think of any, please feel free to share with the class.
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Re: Their identitites were not stolen
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It looks like the bot is still at it...
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Captcha anyone?
I also find it interesting that the same people rolling back customer privacy issues don't have an issue with a bot stealing people's identities...
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Re: Captcha anyone?
But since publically available analysis has been done after filtering away the main bots, you can compare the results and if FCCs are significantly different on the numbers, you know they are condoning fraudulent activity.
I am unsure if condoning/negligence of acting on fraudulent activity is a crime, but if they use the bots activity in their analysis, there should be enough ground for demanding an independent probe into the actions of the administration of FCC and/or demand firings on derelect of duty.
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Re: Captcha anyone?
I'm not sure I'd advocate captcha in this case. Public comment sites like this need to be accessible to blind users, and I'm not convinced that captcha is sufficient.
That said, a competent IT staff tasked with dealing with bots would be an appropriate way to handle the issue.
How do you mean? The privacy protections were rolled back by Congress, not the FCC.
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Oh come on!
If impersonating others were a real problem the free market would take care of it.
In fact these people should be glad their names were used because it was in the cause of unleashing the competition that will sweep the problem away!
I am certain about all this because I read Ayn Rand's, Jozef Schumpeter's and future nobelist Paul Ryan's incisive writing on the evils of so-called Net Neutrality.
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Alternatively
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and they all want "Single" payer - or universal
smh
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Re: and they all want "Single" payer - or universal
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Re: and they all want "Single" payer - or universal
Almost as if not all laws or government agencies were the same. How weird.
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- a bot would be found guilty of copyright infringement
- the anti-net neutrality folks behind the bot would be found guilty of copyright infringement
I know copyright is used for everything from SLAPP lawsuits to censorship - but it has a pretty shit record of catching the "actually guilty".
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Your best bet is to learn to live off the land instead of being a consumer/waster. That doesn't mean you should nevershop but only buy what you can afford/own do not live off of credit.
All these *underground vault fires* that are happening will continue to get worse as we have Non English speaking people run the system and public funding cut or misused.
Liberals misuse public funding to fund abortion/naked butts as concept art. Republicans just cut back without any real growth. They are both fighting for their own version of a one world power based structure.
The RFID chip will be the key ID for you cannot buy or sell without it.
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Great idea. Please go live off the land, as soon as possible. Preferably somewhere without electricity or wifi access.
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"FCC intends to do nothing about any of this"
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Was a comment deleted?
This is weird. I just reloaded this page to check whether there had been new comments, and the listed "number of comments" immediately below the article went down by one - from 38 to 37.
I've never seen that happen on Techdirt before.
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Re: Was a comment deleted?
Hypothesis: Something is going through the hidden-because-flagged posts looking for ones which are actually blatant spam, and deleting what is found.
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A test case
Then count the number of days these messages remain visible on the site.
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