While innocently browsing my Twitter feed today I came across a few people mentioning that AT&T might be blocking img.4chan.org for a few customers in Southern California. Eventually many people were reporting that they too were being blocked from the site. Immediately people decried AT&T for “blocking” the IP for what could only be unfair censorship. This seemed immediately like the most retarded thing I have heard in a long time. While it is still in the realm of possibility, it is far from the most likely of scenarios. Anyone with a little imagination could arrive at more likely reasons for the site being blocked than AT&T censoring it.

(1) There is a flaw in AT&T router/modems that allows a third party to get your device to ping img.4chan.org repeatedly. AT&T blocks the IP, goes silent on the root issue until a patch can be pushed out to the router/modems.

(2) An actual botnet to be reckoned with is DDoSing the site, everyone going to check if they are blocked is just double fucking the site. This can be confirmed if AT&T eventually blocks your whole internet access because you keep trying to see if you're still blocked from img.4chan.org.

(3) AT&T have a compromised internal system/network and are working hard on a fix and to keep it quiet.

There. That is just three slightly different reasons that I believe is more likely than AT&T has some sort of beef with img.4chan.org. Think people. Just think before you start sounding like the crazy tin hat people.