FCC Emails Show Agency Spread Lies to Bolster Dubious DDoS Attack Claims

As it wrestled with accusations about a fake cyberattack, the Federal Communications Commission purposely misled several news organizations, choosing to feed journalists false information, while at the same time discouraging them from challenging the agency’s official story. Internal emails reviewed by Gizmodo lay bare the agency’s efforts to counter rife speculation that senior officials manufactured a cyberattack, allegedly to explain away technical problems plaguing the FCC’s comment system amid its high-profile collection of public comments on a controversial and since-passed proposal to overturn federal net neutrality rules. The FCC has been unwilling or unable to produce any evidence an attack occurred—not to the reporters who’ve requested and even sued over it, and not to US lawmakers who’ve demanded to see it. Instead, the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily-duped reporters, chiefly by spreading word of an earlier cyberattack that its own security staff say never happened.