4chan

Crowdsourcing or witch hunt? Reddit, 4chan users try to ID Boston bomb suspects

As the search continued Wednesday for clues as to the person or persons behind the Boston Marathon bombings, hypothetical suspects and crime scenarios began popping up via online crowdsourcing.

After 24 hours passed without an arrest in the attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigations said Tuesday that the "range of suspects and motive remains wide open" and asked the public to submit photos, videos or anything suspicious that they may have seen or heard.

Members of the link-sharing community Reddit launched a sub-section called "findbostonbombers" late Tuesday to collect clues.

"Sometimes the rules change. Sometimes dogma needs to be flipped: 'Shut up and let the cops do their job' in the case of a terrorist attack is exactly wrong," Jason Calacanis, Internet entrepreneur, said in a blog post. Calacanis suggests that investigators should be combing through services like Twitter and video-sharing app Vine for clues.

Reddit users targeted at least three men, based purely on speculation. A link posted from photos-sharing site Imgur showed photos of the men collected on the Web site 4chan. … Read more

The 404 1,251: Where we find the cipher in the sound (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Did 4chan just find the Boston Marathon bomber?.

- 4chan's Boston bombing Google Doc culls photos, speculation, and accusations.

- Internet tough guys and girls already pointing fingers at the Middle East. Response: "Please don't let it be a Muslim."

- Beating conspiracy theorists at their own game.

- Using Microsoft Photosynth to recreate a panoramic photo of the bombsite.

- Encode hidden messages in your Facebook pics with "Secretbook" extension.

- Demonic portraits and other evils lurking beneath waves of musical spectrograms.… Read more

Restaurant's Mountain Dew flavor contest punk'd

All the people at Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen -- a local restaurant chain in California -- wanted was a catchy name for their forthcoming green apple-flavored Mountain Dew beverage creation. Having faith in their loyal, caffeine-addicted, corn syrup-lovin' customers, they jumped on the crowdsourcing bandwagon and delegated the task to the public.

Unfortunately for the earnest restauranteurs, 4Chan (and/or Reddit) users were most happy to oblige.… Read more

The 404 1,093: Where we're monitoring that scan you just interfaced (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 show:

- Guy gets butt kicked for wearing digital eye glasses inside McDonald's.

- Burger King employee stands on lettuce, gets busted by Internet.

- This is how you paint a 150-foot Batman.

- Does this photo of yesterday's storm in New York deserve an Instagram filter?… Read more

Web exposes Burger King employee standing on lettuce

When it comes to humor, you can't always have it your own way.

Well, you can, as long as you don't post it online.

My evidence for this thesis comes from a Burger King employee who thought it would be amusing to stand in two large plastic tubs of lettuce and have a photo taken.

Was he or she wearing shoes? But of course. Was this funny? But of course the lettuce-stomper must have thought it was. That is, until Anonymous members of 4Chan thought it would be just -- and, perhaps, funny too -- to find this … Read more

The 404 976: Where we're making ghosts turn red (podcast)

Megaupload users (the legal kind) are upset with the FBI's decision to shut the site down yesterday before anyone had a chance to back up their files.

In response to the lawsuit, Anonymous hit back with several denial-of-service (DOS) attacks that brought down several government-run Web sites including those for the Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as Universal Music and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Today we're chatting about yesterday's Apple iBookstore announcement and what it'll mean for schools and the future of education. We'll also spend some time looking at the Megaupload arrests, and run through the top 10 questions kids ask that puzzle parents, like "Why is the sky blue?" and "How do airplanes stay in the air?"… Read more

4chan outage could be digital version of a food fight

4chan, a site known for launching memes and harboring trolls, was down early today following an outage earlier this week that could be attributed to a digital version of a lunchroom food fight with users of Tumblr, according to a knowledgeable source.

The evidence is in what appear to be tit-for-tat online fliers circulating among users of the sites. One flier titled "Operation Overlord: Final Phase Tumblr" vowed to take down the popular microblogging site. It urged people to download the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) software so their computers could be used to overwhelm Tumblr with traffic … Read more

The 404 821: Where the water's polluted with germs (podcast)

After a 26-day service outage, Sony finally kickstarted its PlayStation Network, allowing users to resume online gameplay. It turns out the original server hack was hosted on Amazon's EC2 Cloud Computing network, but the outages aren't over yet--the servers crashed again after being flooded for password resets.

In other news, the Internet organized a mean prank victimizing online daters in New York on Friday, so to make all you single dudes out there fell better, we go around the room telling our favorite pranking stories. Let us know if you have a good one!

The 404 Digest for Episode 821

Hiccups dog PlayStation Network restoration. Internet organizes cruel, but kind of funny, online dating prank.

Episode 821 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 789: Where we're desperately clinging to our last peanut (podcast)

Natali Morris is letting go of her peanuts and leaving CNET, but she'll be here until April 29, which means there are only four more Natali Thursdays left! In this edition of The 404, Google is making news with its latest social networking effort, +1; the government is developing a panic button smartphone app; and Reddit users are defending the integrity of the board against link fraud!

The 404 Digest for Episode 789

Single tires are available for sale on Amazon.com. Today is World Data Backup Day--thanks, Reddit! 4chan sends us the Anonymous Bad Guy 404 Augmented Reality app. Uncle Henry shows us The 404 playing on a white iPad 2. Hard Wok Cafe logo mock-ups by Hai Ho and Robin--thanks!

Episode 789 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks

The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others, according to a report.

During a December 16 raid, agents seized a server at Tailor Made Services, a Dallas-based co-location, or server-hosting, facility, and copied two of its hard drives, according to The Smoking Gun Web site, which said it has obtained the FBI affidavit in support of a search warrant for the seizure.

It's not clear what was found on the drives, The Smoking Gun reported, saying that … Read more