AT&T is evil. This is news?! July 26, 2009

I recently saw a posting on reddit about AT&T blocking a web site, 4chan.org. Are people really surprised about this? Perhaps they don’t have AT&T, and hence don’t know.

I have a friend that runs presidentmoron.com, a site about former president Bush. Whilst living in southern Orange County, and having AT&T as the only broadband offering (there is no cable laid in the condo complex I lived in), I have noticed that this website has been periodically blocked by Ma Bell over the course of the last 1.5 years. Now, granted my friend that runs this site has it hosted at a home server, and could go down. I meticulously verified that the server was in fact running each time I could not connect. I connected through a corporate VPN to another computer not serviced by AT&T, and could reach the site.

Being pro-net neutrality, I decided to try and take a stand against evil, I decided to do something.

Well, what did I do about it, you ask? First, I called AT&T customer support. After talking to them for the better part of an hour, the tech concluded that either:

I must have some type of virus. The site is actually down. The site is under attack.

I explained that I can get to the site through VPN (just not through my AT&T connection), and hence it is not down, or under attack, and my virus status is irrelevant. This, of course, doesn’t matter. Nothing can be AT&T’s fault.

My next option was to contact the FCC, which I did. I sent in a request on their web site. All I got in return was a lengthy letter telling me that it was not their problem, and to contact the local better business bureau.

Well, I’m on to my last option to get some justice from multi-national corporations. The people. Perhaps if this story gets popular, AT&T will have to submit.

Here’s to hope.