4Chan Down: Thousands of Users Report Issues Accessing Controversial Website
CONTROVERSIAL website 4Chan has gone down for thousands with users unable to access the message board. More than 1,000 users of the site have logged complaints on the Downdetector website, which measures outages, on Tuesday morning.
Speculation of a major hack began circulating on social media soon after, with some users claiming that hackers had "dumped the entire database." The platform has long been at the center of online controversies, including the 2014 leak of intimate celebrity photos, which included images of actress Jennifer Lawrence.
The rumors surrounding the hacking are getting more and more intense. According to one post, a hacker had been in 4chan's system "for over a year". Screenshots that have been shared on Soyjak.party seem to depict someone accessing 4chan's internal systems. These consist of statistics about users on different parts of 4chan, a page displaying deleted posts and the IP addresses from which they were created, pictures of someone with administrator access to a 4chan backend database, and other internal documentation.
4Chan allows users to post anonymously but the website collects their IP address and other information. The reported leak could expose data that was intended to stay private, said one user.
Users are being advised to monitor trusted sources for updates. There is no official word from 4Chan's administrators at this time.
Theories on the Hack
- A hacker allegedly "dumped the entire database" according to some users.
- Others believe that the bad formatting of the site led to the hack.
- One X user claims zero work has been done on the site since founder Christopher Poole – aka “Moot” – left in 2015 to join Google as an adviser on its new social products.
Social media users are panicking over the ramifications of the hack – with some fearing the leak of the source code could lead to unlimited access to individual IP addresses.
The Consequences
- Some believe that this is history in the making, while others think it's nothing will come of this.
- Panic spreads over consequences of hack. The site has been shrouded in mystery and controversy – including links to the dirty dossier on Donald Trump – this could be problematic indeed.
Hundreds continue to report issues accessing website, with more than 200 complaints coming through from the US in the past few minutes. We'll keep you posted here with all the latest updates.