Dan Lyons AKA Fake Steve earlier this week posted about "Operation: Chokehold." The idea was to have so many users crowd AT&T's network that the whole thing would grind to a halt. Naturally, this idea received a lot of attention from the media and, while Fake Steve has yet to receive direct word from AT&T, it seems he's having second thoughts about the idea.
In a post titled, "Is Operation Chokehold Illegal? Or just stupid? Should we do something else?" Dan writes that many have said the stunt could be illegal and that "Dear Leader might be facing years of prison time for his role in inciting this peaceful protest." Leaving aside the fact that he thinks taking down AT&T's network is a peaceful protest, Lyons does seem a little confused as to how to proceed. He's also not sure if he can stop it from happening anymore.
We presume that if AT&T believed the protest was illegal, they would have used that word in their statement about Chokehold.Also for the record, from our point of view this is all just a joke that has spun out of control and gained a life of its own. We didn’t think anyone would actually do this. But now it’s on Twitter, and some kid has set up a Facebook group and it already has 1,600 fans. There’s even an opposition group on Facebook set up by critics of Operation Chokehold. They’ve only got 17 fans, but still.The point is, I’m not sure we can stop this thing.
Anyone else think he sounds kind of like one those kids who advertised his or her birthday party on Twitter or MySpace and then realized what mistake it was when 400 people showed up and trashed the house? Yeah, me too. Read the whole post here.
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