The Operation Chokehold fake protest by Fake Steve Jobs has caused quite an uproar. With thousands of fans supporting the mission and dozens denouncing it on Facebook, Operation Chokehold has taken a life of its own. Fake Steve actually hopes that people do not to participate in the digital protest:
For what it’s worth, we don’t expect many people to participate in the flash mob. Even if all 1,600 fans of the Facebook group participate, that’s probably not enough people to crash a network. Is it?
Truth is, I hope not. I really don’t want to cause any actual harm to my fellow AT&T users. Quite the opposite — I feel as if we’re all caught in the same horrible prison, suffering alongside one another.
Earlier today, you guys and dolls debated the merits of this protest. There are fair points on both sides. AT&T’s service does suck and its customers should bring attention to its sucktitude, but people in emergency situations could suffer from the loss of coverage Operation Chokehold could cause.
After almost a day to think about Operation Chokehold, I’m leaning towards it being a non-event. Right now I’m 70/30 on anything noteworthy happening. What do you think? Will AT&T crash on Friday or not?
I'm gonna duck and cover, just to be safe. And travel close to wi-fi spots only.
ATT knew about the flaw to begin with. Their engineers knew the network couldn't handle the influx of people, nor was it setup properly to handle data in the first place. A crash would have only regurgitated that fact.
Here’s the thing with the “emergency operations call” argument:
If all it takes is a few thousand people to crash the network and prevent important calls from getting through, then it will happen by accident on day if not on purpose as these people intend to do. The point they are trying to illustrate is valid: AT&T has an uber-shitty network. If it crashes due to these shenanigans or one day in the future due to accidental overuse, the result is still the same; not being able to make emergency phone calls.
By overloading the network now, you can expose the flaws to AT&T and everybody else so that something can be done about it so that one day in the future it will not happen accidentally. This is similar in the way hackers are hired by the FBI to try to crack their firewall and expose weaknesses in order to build up better safeguards so that they are not broken by an outside malicious hacker one day in the future.
These guys at Fake Steve.net are actually doing AT&T and their customers a service by exposing a flaw that will surface in the future. It is in AT&T’s best interest to correct this flaw before it becomes a problem or worse in the future.
-M
I anticipate it actually happening. BUT I cannot see AT&T changing anything based on the results of what happens on Friday.
Why would they change anything if people are deliberately creating a failure?
You don't redesign a water system that meets most peoples needs because someone intentionally went out and turned on everyone's faucets causing problem for everyone.
a few thousand people crashing the network? out of 80 million users I doubt that. What time is my phone supposed to stop working tomorrow?
@Shockwave: Not to hijack the conversation, but did you get the email from last night? Big new dude.
"news" not new. Really changes the entire connotation of the sentence.
I see it crashing in some of their cities, but I don't think they can crash the whole network. It would also be funny if ATT blocked all users from their data network on Friday. They could also charge maintenance fees if it does crash and still not improve their network.
@nigthshade – I did man, that game looks cool. I just emailed a couple of questions I thought of. check them out. Yesterday I took a little time and updated the site with all of the PS3 and 360 games that will release December and January. I thought it would be helpful to keep up on this so people can find all of the games on the site. I'll try to do the wii and portable games if I get a chance. it really didn't take that long with the EB games site up for pulling info based on release date and pics
@Shockwave: Yeah, I try to update stuff as I post stories about it, but since I post most of the news, I tend to leave most of the backroom stuff to others. The game was already on my radar screen, but I like stuff like that. Play.com gave it a 10/10. Take their reviews with a grain of salt because everything gets pretty glowing reviews there, but a perfect score is nothing to scoff at either.