We here at COED have long thought that AT&T was a giant pile of steaming sh*t, based purely on our cell phone service: constant dropped calls, disappearing voicemail, geriatric-like 3G speeds in New York.

But it seems the retarded behemoth of communication has now pissed off pretty much everyone – by effectively censoring the Internet.

The conspiracy started after AT&T blocked threads on the cesspool of the Internet, 4Chan.org, who’s responsible for about 90-percent of the online memes you know and love (LOLCats, Rick Rolls, etc…).

Claiming it was protecting its customers from a DDoS attack, AT&T disallowed traffic to 4Chan’s popular threads, /b/ and /r9k/. This came after a campaign on 4Chan and Digg to spread false rumors that AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson was found unexpectedly dead outside his home.

To thicken the conspiracy, popular posts about the 4Chan block were mysteriously removed from the front page of Reddit.com.

The 4Chan block has now been lifted. But still, this DDoS attack claim is obviously bullsh*t, what with the false rumors and all.

Now, since AT&T’s communications infrastructure is so vast, pretty much all online activity goes through AT&T in one way or another – so you’re probably not going to be able to stop using all AT&T services altogether, without – gasp – quitting the Internet. But if you can stop giving them money directly, now would be the time.

UPDATE: According to an officially released statement from AT&T, the censorship of 4Chan was nothing but some good ol’ parental protection:

“Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.”

The tech blogs seem to be accepting this statement as the truth. But since it, you know, came from AT&T, I’m not so sure…

UPDATE 2: PCMag.com is reporting that, ironically, the DDoS attack that AT&T claims was coming from 4Chan.org was actually directed at 4Chan.org.

…unWired, a different ISP [from AT&T], states on NANOG (North American Network Operators Group, an insider discussion board for ISPs) that they also had to block 4chan to mitigate the effects of a DDOS attack. Other ISPs on the discussion disagree, especially on a wide scale blocking of the site. 4chan’s “history of pulling pranks” also seems to have figured into this. The DDOS, ironically, seems to be an attack on 4chan. From my Verizon FiOS connection in New Jersey I can get to 4chan, but it’s very slow. [Emphasis added]

Apple’s 2009 WWDC conference kicks off today, with a ton of rumored goodies expected to be announced in the next couple of hours. So whether you’re waiting to find out when you can download the new iPhone 3.0 software, what the newest iPhone looks like or just wanting to see if the zombie-like Steve Jobs makes it for the event, our friends at Gizmodo are live-blogging the whole thing with up-to-the-second updates.

Check out Gizmodo’s WWDC 2009 live coverage, here!

Way back in 1993, AT&T released a series of commercials called “You Will,” which showed off some “fantasy” technology that they predicted would become a reality in the coming years. Watching them now, it’s amazing how many things they got right. It’s almost too good…

If you haven’t noticed, we loves to watch us some explosions here at COED.  So when we saw this frozen turkey deep fryer mishap commercial a thousand times during Christmas break, we couldn’t help but wonder, is this for reals or total BS?  I mean, I get that water and boiling oil don’t typically play very well together, but I was incredibly skeptical that an actual explosion would occur upon dropping a frozen butterball into a pot of Canola oil. And according to the Discovery Channel, it’s bullshit – or at least kinda bullshit. Turns out there’s still a giant fireball involved, though. So that still kicks ass.

Instead of slapping on suntan lotion, smokin’ a doobie, and heading to Grant Park to watch tons of awesome bands at this year’s Lollapalooza, we’re still at the office like a bunch of frickin’ dumbasses. But we know we’re not alone, so we’ve scoured the Web to find all the best coverage, videos, tidbits and music coming out of Lollapalooza 2008. It’ll seem like you’re actually there, but without all the sweaty people and $25 bottles of water.

Check out the best Lollapalooza-covering Sites on the flip side! (more…)

Instead of slapping on suntan lotion, smokin’ a doobie, and heading to Grant Park to watch tons of awesome bands at this year’s Lollapalooza, we’re still at the office like a bunch of frickin’ dumbasses. But we know we’re not alone, so we’ve scoured the Web to find all the best coverage, videos, tidbits and music coming out of Lollapalooza 2008. It’ll seem like you’re actually there, but without all the sweaty people and $25 bottles of water.

Check out the best Lollapalooza-covering Sites on the flip side! (more…)

The Dave Matthews Band is giving students at 100 universities the opportunity to win a free concert in the fall of 2007. Holy crap thats sick! If DMB ever played at Seton Hall I’d probably OD of crack-cocaine or drink myself into a coma or who knows… maybe I’d do both! Regardless of my thoughts on the situation I’ll give you some details after the jump… (more…)