Ajit Pai Throws His Employees Under The Bus After Investigation Proves FCC Made Up DDOS Attack
from the ill-communication dept
You might recall that when HBO comedian John Oliver originally tackled net neutrality on his show in 2014, the FCC website crashed under the load of concerned consumers eager to support the creation of net neutrality rules. When Oliver revisited the topic last May to discuss FCC boss Ajit Pai's myopic plan to kill those same rules, the FCC website crashed under the load a second time. That's not a particular shock; given the massive public opposition to the repeal, and an FCC website that's never been accused of being cutting edge.
But things then got a bit weird. After the second attack last year, since-departed FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray issued a statement (pdf) claiming that FCC analysis showed the FCC had been the target of a DDOS attack by "external actors":
"Beginning on Sunday night at midnight, our analysis reveals that the FCC was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos). These were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC’s comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host. These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC."
But the FCC's claims were seen as suspect by numerous security experts, who say the crash showed none of the usual telltale signs of an actual DDOS. Journalists then discovered the "analysis" the FCC supposedly conducted never actually took place. When media outlets began reporting that the FCC actually had zero evidence to support the DDOS claim, the FCC issued a punchy statement to multiple outlets accusing Gizmodo reporter Dell Cameron (who broke the story) of being "completely irresponsible":
"The FCC has never stated that it lacks any documentation of this DDoS attack itself. And news reports claiming that the Commission has said this are without any basis and completely irresponsible. In fact, we have voluminous documentation of this attack in the form of logs collected by our commercial cloud partners."
No evidence was ever provided to journalists or lawmakers that pressured the agency for hard data proving the claims. Because, we now know, no such evidence ever actually existed because no DDOS attack actually took place.
Eventually, e-mails obtained via FOIA request made it clear that the FCC CIO either made up the DDOS attack or misinterpreted legitimate Oliver viewer traffic as a malicious act. But those e-mails also made clear that Pai's FCC then pushed the DDOS attack narrative to numerous tech reporters, apparently in a bid to try and downplay the public's massive opposition to Pai's controversial policies. This act was only compounded by the FCC's refusal to seriously address the identity theft and fraud that polluted the repeal's comment period, the only real time consumers had a chance to have their voices heard.
Fast forward to this week. After a lengthy investigation into the whole idiotic affair, the FCC's Inspector General has released a report (pdf) again making it very clear that the FCC not only made up the DDOS attack, but repeatedly misled Congress when asked about it. The report notes how the FCC under Pai's watch "misrepresented facts and provided misleading responses to Congressional inquiries related to this incident," and that investigators were unable "to identify any evidence that FCC staff or contractors analyzed server logs or conducted any substantive analysis."
The FCC IG report notes that some of these false claims several FCC staffers made to Congress were passed on to the DOJ for an additional investigation, but the DOJ has thus far declined to follow through. The fact the press was also routinely misled (as discovered in FOIA-obtained e-mails) and fed false statements doesn't appear to have warranted much concern in the report.
Hoping to get out ahead of the pretty damning investigation, Ajit Pai issued a statement before the report was released throwing everybody but himself under the bus for the DDOS attack that wasn't:
"I am deeply disappointed that the FCC’s former Chief Information Officer (CIO), 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.
If you're a kid just making your way into this brave, weird, world, blaming all of your employees is not what actual leadership looks like. You'll also be shocked to learn that Pai, who harbors post-FCC political ambitions, isn't being particularly truthful.
For one, Bray was hired under Wheeler but still served as Pai's CIO for a notable chunk of his early tenure, making his claims Pai's responsibility. Two, former FCC boss Tom Wheeler acknowledged recently he didn't believe the DDOS claim, yet Pai not only did -- but had PR staff double down on the claims. Pai also just floats over the fact that his office not only misled Congress, but repeatedly sold the DDOS claim to reporters as part of a bizarre bid to downplay public opposition. In reality, it now seems obvious Pai's FCC just didn't like the narrative of "millions of people are angry at the FCC for bad policy" that was bouncing around the media thanks to John Oliver, and thought doubling down on bullshit was an ingenious PR countermeasure.
In a statement of her own, Pai's fellow Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel got more to the point:
"The Inspector General Report tells us what we knew all along: the FCC’s claim that it was the victim of a DDoS attack during the net neutrality proceeding is bogus. What happened instead is obvious—millions of Americans overwhelmed our online system because they wanted to tell us how important internet openness is to them and how distressed they were to see the FCC roll back their rights. It’s unfortunate that this agency’s energy and resources needed to be spent debunking this implausible claim."
And in a statement to Gizmodo Senator Ron Wyden was blunter still:
"This report shows that the American people were deceived by the FCC and Chairman Pai as they went about doing the bidding of Big Cable. It appears that maintaining a bogus story about a cyberattack was convenient cover to ignore the voices of millions of people who were fighting to protect a free and open internet. Americans face higher prices for streaming services and other content as a result of Chairman Pai’s repeal of net neutrality protections, and it’s going to sting even worse knowing they were lied to about it by their government. The fact that Chairman Pai and the FCC came clean only after their story was debunked by the inspector general is disappointing, but it’s sadly unsurprising in this administration."
We'll see if anything even vaguely resembling accountability stems from the FCC's repeated efforts to mislead the press and public on this subject. And you can be sure this and the fake comments scandal will be popping up in the looming court fight over net neutrality. If nothing else, Pai's providing everybody with a stellar example of what ethical leadership doesn't look like, in case you needed yet another demonstration in 2018.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, david bray, ddoc, fcc, made up
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typo
te --> the
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This clearly comes from the top; and even if it didn't, accountability rests there regardless.
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this will only happen if the government is stopped from allowing the legal action against the repeal of net neutrality from taking place.
now this information is revealed, why is the decision to repeal net neutrality even allowed to remain in force? Pai knowingly and purposefully ignored the millions of Americans who wanted to keep things as they were in order to snuggle up to the main ISPs and telecom players and go backwards, letting these industries back into doing what they do best, lying to customers, cheating customers, lying to the government (although that means very little with the one we have atm!) and preventing even the slightest semblance of competition that would see better services and lower prices! he should be arrested and trialed, then locked up. if an ordinary person had done what he did, the DoJ would have been all over him like a rash!!
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Of course there will be consequences
Heads will roll. I expect Pai to pull a full Erdoğan and use the opportunity to fire people he doesn't like but had no plausible pretense to get rid of previously, afterwards presenting the head count as proof of accountability, never mind that it will be all the wrong people getting sacked.
That's how you turn bullshit into gold.
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Re:
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Re: hired liars
There are thousands of taxpayer-funded Information Officers and Public Affairs Officers in the Federal government. Their primary job is to make their boss and his organization look good. They do this by promoting favorable information about their boss/organization and deflecting/spinning any negative information, Every agency in the Federal government works this way. Bray will easily find another similar job in government.
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No seriously, I can see lying to the media. I don't like it, but there is clear 1a protection there.
But how are there no punishments for knowingly lying to Congress? I'm not talking hand slaps and being forced to resign. Why are there no actual criminal proceedings like would happen to any of us?
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Re: typo
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Political ambitions?
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Business as usual in this administration. He looks tame when compared with Cheeto.
Can I give my insightful vote for Wyden?
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Re:
For any random CIO, probably none? But in this case it seems pretty clear that the narrative of overwhelming numbers of the public speaking out against the FCC's plans---enough numbers to overwhelm their server---was unwelcome, so claiming a DDOS attack instead was their way of delegitimizing that massive response.
It wasn't about the servers, it was about stifling the message.
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Re: Re: typo
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Call it what is was. A propaganda campaign to down play the public concern.
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Watch Out for that Bus
If you work at the FCC right now, watch out for that bus coming back around.....
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Ajit forgets that he is responsible for all of his peons actions
Sorry Ajit, you're responsible for all the crazy illegal antics you've been pushing. You know, things like impeding a federal investigation, falsifying reports to said federal agencies, lying to congress (okay, that's not illegal, as congress lies to congress all the time), lying to your employer (not Trump, we, the people are your (and Trump's) employers, oh, and by the way Trump... You're FIRED!!)
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Re: Re:
But even his speech could be reasonably argued away in most cases. He rarely talks to them in an official capacity and the State of the Union can be argued away as a political stump speech and protected.
Now If you said "If Congress started a practice of punishing officials lying before Congress, the U.S. Congress would have no representatives left" I would totally agree with you and still push for the punishment to happen.
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I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
You're just claiming, as in every one of these pieces that's time better spent on items of importance and that you might yet win on.
And even with this complete nefarious coup against your notions, United States will struggle on not noticeably harmed. Enjoy.
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Re: I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
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Re: I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
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Re: I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
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Re: Re: I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
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Not unlike that seen on the streets of anytown USA.
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Every time a game company releases a new expansion, they increase their server capacity. This is no different, yet the only ways to explain the FCC's CIO not accounting for this sort of surge is if he's so naive and out of touch with reality he bought into Pai's propagandist claims completely -- or Pai stopped him from adding capacity.
Neither one is a situation where the person responsible should keep their job.
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I stopped listening; this was even worse than Trump saying the economy strength Obama created is actually due to him.
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Re: I'm happy you got the admission. Now show me any effect!
Then why bother with the charade? Similar to "Town Hall Meetings", public input is there for show only and the decision(s) have already been made.
Not sure what your confusion is here, but perhaps you do not understand how DDOS attacks are typically conducted.
not noticeably harmed? Yeah - not noticed at the top, but certainly at the bottom - As always.
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A partisan maven responds
When you are trying to make top-of-the-line, partisan leadership guided government policy, the last thing you need is a bunch of loudmouthed, uninformed citizens trying to participate. All that leads to is indecision and compromise.
So it is definitely malicious when someone like Oliver encourages citizens to participate.
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Woudn't hold my breath waiting on that one.
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Re:
But getting convictions for it isn't easy. See the baseball player who clearly flat out lied right to congress's face that he didn't do steroids.
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Re: A partisan maven responds
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Effect: Nothing you say is true.
This is patently false. The FCC is obliged to take ALL comments into account, regardless of where they came from. This means (as you and others are so fond of saying) that it doesn't matter who submitted the comments, only the content contained in them. Or are you now going to flip flop on us again?
It shouldn't matter who submitted the comments (as long as they were legitimately submitted and not from a bunch of fake or dead people), if the response was ginned up, that doesn't mean they may not have a valid point. Obviously it got enough people worked up to respond to it, that means that people care about it and the reasons why should be looked at and taken into consideration. That. Never. Happened.
Because that's their flipping job and what they are legally required to do. How do you not understand this?
Yes, it's absolutely nefarious that a government agency would flat out lie to the public, then the chairman lie again and say he didn't know about it while throwing the entire agency under the bus.
Because the government lying to the public and other branches of the government is not harmful at all. Right.
And in a couple years, if NN is never reinstated, you will be paying the same kinds of pricing packages as cable. Want email? Extra $5 a month. Streaming video? Extra $25. And so on. Also, you'll be stuck with Google and Facebook because ISPs will jack up their interconnection fees so high that any startups or any companies smaller than Google and Facebook won't be able to afford it.
Oh yes, not harmed at all.
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How many years, how much money..
They are doing a bad job.
The Gov has PAID these Corps a couple times to GET THINGS DONE..and with little to NO excuse, have done NOTHING except Pick up the Checks for the service they have NOT GIVEN..
WHEn are we going to walk into the corps and TAKE this stuff back??
The IRS cant inspect things very easily, This is VERY TRUE.. And I would LOVE to give them the money, tech and PEOPLE they need to investigate and COLLECT all the taxes they folks have NOT PAID.. Gov. money is given FREE OF TAX..
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I think we already know the answer to this - for all govt POS scum (say 90% of them?)
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Re: Of course there will be consequences
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Re: A partisan maven responds
The problem for Pai is that FCC was created to reduce legislation by making an agreed upon framework for communication services: If you want to simplify and coordinate the legislative market across the country, FCC is the place to do it! Removing legislation from FCCs books results in different legislation popping up in different states as long as the demand is there, which is exactly the situation that spawned a need for FCC in the first place...
The tiering in the legislative mill is why the removal of federal laws can easily result in more legislation hitting the free citizen and gov interference being more of a pain...
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So you can say the captain is responsible for the whole ship, but that is not really apt for the independant agency monstrocities. At most, Pai can set policy and priorities. Having a legacy deadbeat civil servant that appears to be both incompetent and an outright liar appears to have lead to this whole debacle. Pai was smart enough to make the guy confirm it in writing.
Now if you are arguing that agency heads should have the power to ax civil servants at will to put in place a team he or she can trust or feel is competent, I would wholeheartedly support that. And in that world I would also agree that an agency head should then bear responsibility for the entire organization.
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Re: Re: A partisan maven responds
Pai has a real libertarian opinon on the issue: Remove all legislation and every problem will be solved by market-forces without deep state obstruction!
If by 'problems' you mean 'The major ISP's can't currently do anything and everything they want with no repercussions' then yes, I'd agree that that's what he seems to be going for, because when it comes to problems the general public faces he seems to be completely indifferent.
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Re: Effect: Nothing you say is true.
any companies smaller than Google and Facebook won't be able to afford it
Didn't you get the memo? out_of_the_blue was a closet Google fan all along!
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This is relevant why? He only lied (that we know of) AFTER Pai became chairman, before that what reason was there to fire him?
Citation needed? Ultimately, civil servant CIO or not, he still has a boss, someone hired him. That person and/or the HR department has the authority to fire him, especially for something like this.
Yeah, that's a load of crap. First off, there's no way Pai didn't know he was lying, everyone else did. Pai just decided to go along with it. Which makes him at least as guilty as Bray, whether he's responsible for Bray or not. He knew better, and if he truly didn't know enough to recognize that there was no DDoS, then he is not intelligent or knowledgeable enough to be heading up a technology focused agency.
And one of those policies and priorities was to ignore the facts and lie to the public and Congress.
No, having someone in charge who has an agenda to ignore facts and hurt internet access for the American people just so legacy ISPs can get even richer is what led to this debacle. If he had been doing his job he would have called Bray out on it instead of going along with it. Heck, if he'd been doing his job it wouldn't have even come up because he wouldn't have tried to repeal the order in the first place, or at the very least would have found no reason to based on facts and evidence found in the public comments. And it's likely that Bray and Pai at least collaborated on the lies, if not cooked it up together.
This much is true. It gives him legal plausible deniability, even if no one actually believes him.
Why? This would just make the rotating door syndrome even worse and the FCC would be in even worse shape than it is now. Not to mention, no one would want to work for the FCC because they would probably lose their job in 4 years. Like it or not, government agencies are run, at least somewhat, like a normal business because they have the same requirements a lot of businesses do. You need to hire and fire people, you need an IT dept., you need an HR dept., etc...
This is a flawed argument, rarely does a CEO have the authority to fire everyone in a large company all at once (nor would they want to), especially a publicly traded one, yet he is still responsible for the entire organization. It has nothing to do with being able to fire someone, you are the leader of your agency and as such it's up to you to make sure your company is behaving. If someone is spouting blatant and obvious lies, especially to your superiors, refer the matter to HR (or hey, the IG, DOJ, FBI, etc... in this case) and you can bet their ass will be grass in short order.
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Re: How many years, how much money..
It makes you seem INSANE.
Best Wishes,
AC
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Re: Re: How many years, how much money..
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This is the same guy that has MILLIONS of dollars in bribes from AT&T, Comcast, Sinclair etc sitting in offshore bank accounts along with the promise of a nice well paid job once he destroys the department.
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Perhaps he's too busy trying to do damage control and write up a sufficiently nonsensical article for the steaming heap he calls his blog.
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