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All 4Chan boards have been down since Monday evening in an apparent cyberattack. Rumors circulating the 4Chan refugee community in the Down Detector comments section indicate that the site was penetrated by hackers approximately one month ago. The damage inflicted was extreme. Statements by 4Chan’s (strictly unpaid) janitorial staff indicate the site could be down for weeks. Hope is rapidly dimming that the site will be back at all.
There are a number of both ideological and state actors that could be responsible for the attack: the Israeli Mossad, the Ukrainian SBU, the American Central Intelligence Agency, any number of Democratic Party functionaries. But at this time the provenance of the attack is unknown, and no one has taken credit.
What is also unknown is the political ramifications of the Id and meme generator of the internet being abruptly taken offline. Almost all memes on the internet originate from 4Chan and without it, the wellspring of internet creativity and culture will die with it.
Also unknown is what the effect will be of hundred of thousands of Chan refugees migrating across the internet. 4Chan is well known as a containment unit and gulag for the most dangerous ideological elements on the internet. The level of weaponized autism that stands to escape can only be equated to a earth shaking digital Chernobyl.
The final unknown and most troubling question is whether coffee is in fact good for you.
From what I understand, the hack that took down 4chan (a 10 year old security vulnerability in what files they allowed people to upload) was way too stupid to have been a state actor. By which I mean, it would have been effortless for a state actor to have taken 4chan down at any point. There is no reason for them to do it now. So instead I'm more willing to chalk it up to random belligerence.
If details of what the hack revealed are remotely true, it seems like 4chan was co opted by state actors anyways. Lots of moderation and bans nipping at the edges of "noticing". Lots of .gov and .edu addresses on record. There is a sense that there were forces trying to sheep herd 4chan gently closer to The Message.
Adding on to @grognard’s comment below, I recall hearing that the misconception of jannies having .gov emails came from a mocking tweet saying that a number of them had signed up with their “gov names [as in real names] and .edu emails”, which was misunderstood as “.gov and .edu emails”. Then, as the internet is wont to do, this more salacious rumor spread faster than the truth.
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No. There are no .gov addresses. There are a few .edu, but not from any particularly connected institution AFAICT. I can DM you the dump list, but it is publicly available. Most addresses are Gmail and even Outlook, with a smattering of ProtonMail.
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