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The investigation focuses on a specific anti-NN comment that was submitted, identically worded, hundreds of thousands of times, in alphabetical order by name.

The investigation focuses on a specific anti-NN comment that was submitted, identically worded, hundreds of thousands of times, in alphabetical order by name. That's not "people submitting false names" through a website, it's obviously organized fraud. If you're suggesting that CQ was just the unwitting middleman between the FCC and some other group that was submitting the fraudulent comments through their site, that would have been trivially detectable and filtered out by CQ: > “Before we submit these comments (via the API) we remove any bad or questionable submissions,” he told Gizmodo. “On a technical level, a few of the things we do include running the email address through an email validator, eliminate duplicate records with the same email address, and remove multiple submissions from the same IP address.”

ikeboy 8y ago
>The investigation focuses on a specific anti-NN comment that was submitted, identically worded, hundreds of thousands of times, in alphabetical order by name. No, it's focusing on many different comments, including some from pro-NN groups and some from anti-NN groups. 14 groups in total were subpoenaed. The WSJ article linked (can read it at http://archive.is/sp9Q7 http://archive.is/sp9Q7) says 4,622 people polled said they hadn't left a particular comment that was pro-NN, which is the majority of the 7,741 total responses that claimed they didn't leave the comment that bears their name. >If you're suggesting that CQ was just the unwitting middleman between the FCC and some other group that was submitting the fraudulent comments through their site, that would have been trivially detectable and filtered out by CQ: It's trivial for any teen on 4chan to defeat those measures, come on. Pretty much everything that's out there could in theory have been done by a single 14-year old for laughs. Connect to websites that are collecting names without extensive validation, use a few IPs, etc. What's more likely - that 14 different groups, some on the pro-NN side and some on the anti-side, all chose to commit crimes by faking names and addresses, or that one bad actor connected to a few of them to troll?
- outsidetheparty 8y ago
  I find it interesting that you keep referring to "the WSJ article linked" -- which now that you've actually linked to it turns out to be a 2017 article that as far as I can tell you're the only one who's linking to -- rather than the current article on Gizmodo we're actually discussing here, which describes an investigation that is in fact focused on the specific anti-NN comment submitted by (or through) CQ. Even that WSJ article focuses largely on that specific blatant example, and notes that the several anti-NN statements they examined were "63%, 72% and 80% bogus comments" (the single pro-NN statement they examined "was 32% bogus.") Astroturf exists and is a problem on all sides, yes, but this specific instance is far beyond the pale. Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation. > It's trivial for any teen on 4chan to defeat those measures That's... debatable. But also beside the point. CQ claims they vetted their submissions for "questionable submissions". If that vetting failed to notice that an identical comment was submitted through them that many times, with names in alphabetical order, then they either are lying about vetting their submissions for accuracy, or they are themselves the ones committing the fraud.
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    The article is linked from the OP here. OP is narrowly focused on a particular one out of fourteen companies under investigation for unclear reasons. They don't say whether they've tried similar analysis of any of the other form comments. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say they expect more clicks here than with a more in depth investigation of everyone involved, for reasons left as an exercise to the reader. >Astroturf exists and is a problem on all sides, yes, but this specific instance is far beyond the pale. Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation. 14 organizations are under investigation, not just one. >But also beside the point. CQ claims they vetted their submissions for "questionable submissions". And also gives a few examples, all of which are trivial to bypass, and all of which are automated, so it's not clear why you'd think they are manually looking at any of these before submitting unless it fails the automated tests.
    - outsidetheparty 8y ago
      > 14 organizations are under investigation, not just one. I did miss that, fair enough -- amend my statement to "Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation of these 14 organizations". > it's not clear why you'd think they are manually looking at any of these It's not clear why you'd think 818,000 (per WSJ) identical comments submitted in alphabetical order should pass automated tests?

ikeboy 8y ago

>The investigation focuses on a specific anti-NN comment that was submitted, identically worded, hundreds of thousands of times, in alphabetical order by name. No, it's focusing on many different comments, including some from pro-NN groups and some from anti-NN groups. 14 groups in total were subpoenaed. The WSJ article linked (can read it at http://archive.is/sp9Q7 http://archive.is/sp9Q7) says 4,622 people polled said they hadn't left a particular comment that was pro-NN, which is the majority of the 7,741 total responses that claimed they didn't leave the comment that bears their name. >If you're suggesting that CQ was just the unwitting middleman between the FCC and some other group that was submitting the fraudulent comments through their site, that would have been trivially detectable and filtered out by CQ: It's trivial for any teen on 4chan to defeat those measures, come on. Pretty much everything that's out there could in theory have been done by a single 14-year old for laughs. Connect to websites that are collecting names without extensive validation, use a few IPs, etc. What's more likely - that 14 different groups, some on the pro-NN side and some on the anti-side, all chose to commit crimes by faking names and addresses, or that one bad actor connected to a few of them to troll?

outsidetheparty 8y ago
I find it interesting that you keep referring to "the WSJ article linked" -- which now that you've actually linked to it turns out to be a 2017 article that as far as I can tell you're the only one who's linking to -- rather than the current article on Gizmodo we're actually discussing here, which describes an investigation that is in fact focused on the specific anti-NN comment submitted by (or through) CQ. Even that WSJ article focuses largely on that specific blatant example, and notes that the several anti-NN statements they examined were "63%, 72% and 80% bogus comments" (the single pro-NN statement they examined "was 32% bogus.") Astroturf exists and is a problem on all sides, yes, but this specific instance is far beyond the pale. Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation. > It's trivial for any teen on 4chan to defeat those measures That's... debatable. But also beside the point. CQ claims they vetted their submissions for "questionable submissions". If that vetting failed to notice that an identical comment was submitted through them that many times, with names in alphabetical order, then they either are lying about vetting their submissions for accuracy, or they are themselves the ones committing the fraud.
- ikeboy 8y ago
  The article is linked from the OP here. OP is narrowly focused on a particular one out of fourteen companies under investigation for unclear reasons. They don't say whether they've tried similar analysis of any of the other form comments. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say they expect more clicks here than with a more in depth investigation of everyone involved, for reasons left as an exercise to the reader. >Astroturf exists and is a problem on all sides, yes, but this specific instance is far beyond the pale. Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation. 14 organizations are under investigation, not just one. >But also beside the point. CQ claims they vetted their submissions for "questionable submissions". And also gives a few examples, all of which are trivial to bypass, and all of which are automated, so it's not clear why you'd think they are manually looking at any of these before submitting unless it fails the automated tests.
  - outsidetheparty 8y ago
    > 14 organizations are under investigation, not just one. I did miss that, fair enough -- amend my statement to "Which is presumably why it merits this year-long investigation of these 14 organizations". > it's not clear why you'd think they are manually looking at any of these It's not clear why you'd think 818,000 (per WSJ) identical comments submitted in alphabetical order should pass automated tests?