*no jailbreaking, no nothing*

this has been a topic of controversy mostly bescause the usual crap that AT&T pulls of its hat each time something related to the iPhone comes aboard.

i am sure everyone knows about this particular case, the infamous tethering, and how they have pushed its release (should have come with the 3.0 update, but it didn’t – same as MMS).

a workaround for AT&T’s blockade was developed (check it out here) and it has worked great so far, i would personally suggest that if you do it to keep it low because you could have repercussions to your contract if you abuse of it.

AT&T has finally talked about enabling it to customers, but at the ridiculous price of 55$ a month (or so the rumors say), which taking into account what you already pay for your “unlimited” internet and unlimited text messages plus minutes etc can go well over 150$ a month only to have a working iPhone.

i will quote here the “how-to” in order to enable the tethering (quoted from the link above):

“Just go here with your iPhone browser. This enables tethering and if you reboot you can get MMS. MMS is still wonky on AT&T, though.”

yes, its that simple, follow that link and ta-dah!, you’re done!.

i will repeat it just in case, be careful on your bandwidth consumption, it wouldn’t surprise me that AT&T is keeping an eye on this and you could get in trouble for it.

oh yeah, and before i forget about it. this hack is not working anymore on the 3.1 update for the iPhone that should be comming soon’ish (i think, cant be bothered to look for a release date at this moment). so i’m guessing that we will either have to wait for a new hack, or maybe follow the jailbreaking path.

right, well, i better get back to work i guess…

Reports are spreading that AT&T is now blocking 4chan.org’s «/b/»-section.

*you are now listening to the imperial march*

Firing one of the first shots in the net neutrality war, AT&T has blocked 4chan’s /b/ image board. AT&T subscribers are unable to connect to /b/ and /r9k/ (both of which are hosted on img.4chan.org). However, subscribers can get on any of the so-called «worksafe» boards that 4chan.org offers.

The problem seems to be present only for wired connections only (AT&T Mobility customers are not affected). The problem is not caused by an DNS-error, as traceroutes indicates that AT&T is dropping img.4chan.org requests in the AT&T network.

Slashdot, Digg & Reddit are now running stories that are rapidly being upvoted about the topic.
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/94pf2/att_is_now_blocking_all_access_to_img4chanorg/

As citizens of a free internet, what do we think about this kind of censorship?

UPDATE 1: Confirmation comes from several Reddit users that the website has indeed been blocked in a number of areas in the US and that it is not a technical issue.

UPDATE 2: A mere 5 hours after the problems were first reported on Reddit, sources on /b/ say that members of Anonymous has already started planning retaliation towards AT&T – amongst other things posting personal information about AT&T executives. One might quietly wonder if the AT&T megacorp. knows what’s it up against – with 4chan often being referred to as “The Internet Hate Machine”.

UPDATE 3: It turns out 15.5% of all US internet users use AT&T DSL, so this is quite a big problem. It will severly affect 4chan, both in regards of traffic and advertising volumes.

UPDATE 4: moot, the founder of 4chan, officially acknowledges the ban – calling for disconcerned users to «call or write customer support and corporate immediately»: http://status.4chan.org … Somehow, I get a feeling they’re gonna do a lot more than that, moot.

UPDATE 5: From rumors on /b/, it seems 4chan’s first retaliatory strike will be towards Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T. The Consumerist has more. There are also murmurs about the AT&T block being put into place because of supposed mass DDoS-attacks to and from img.4chan.org, but so far there has been no official, verifiable response from AT&T.

UPDATE 6: 4chan’s current gameplan evolving over at Encyclopedia Dramatica (Great stuff!). Also, from reports gathered on Reddit, it seems this block allegedly is because of massive DDoS-attacks against img.4chan.org.  The reports doesn’t say  anything about why AT&T would block 15.5% of all US internet users from using a specific website without any warning, though.

UPDATE 7: This article is now no. 1 on Digg.com – and has received more than 120.000 visitors in less than 10 hours. For now, I guess 4chan and Anon is showing AT&T its strength in pure numbers. Help spread the word, we need to raise awareness of this issue and Net neutrality.

UPDATE 8: According to CentralGadget, 4chan is now UNBLOCKED by AT&T. AT&T says they were «following the practices of their policy department», but that they have restored network-wide access to all areas of 4chan. Shitstorm averted? Also, according to CentralGadget, 4chan is currently down «due to a large DDOS attack, affecting most of 4chan’s servers.» This appears unrelated to the AT&T blockade, but may have been triggered by the high-profile attention that 4chan has received during the past 24 hours.

The block has been lifted, AT&T has posted an official press release in their website and you can read more details here.

The source of this is: http://stormen.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/att-blocks-4chan/

More info can be found here: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/AT%26T_Blocks_4chan

anynow, back to the title. i am quite sure i had one of this blog thingies, i have no idea where it was but meh, for sure its not here since my nickname was still free.but wait a second, why i am arguing about this stuff, i’m meant to talk here…wait…

right, ok. as usual at this time of the day i am still stuck on the office, wondering how can i squeeze in the little work i have left to do for the next hour and 20 minutes. good luck with that eh?. oh, what do i do for a living?, i wish i knew!, i work in a very very very bizarre company, you basically do whatever there is to be done. seriously, anything. i mostly do computer work tho. i work both with hardware and software, video editing, working with photoshop. you know the deal (or maybe you dont, but do not despair!,  i will most likely rant about all of it in future editions and you might get a grasp on what i am on about).

i think this has been a bit too long for an introduction so i guess i should conclude it with the following:

what can you expect to find in this blog/journal/whatever?, rambling (lots of it), computer talk and gaming. and of course, about my happy happy life.