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TL;DR: 4chan has long been one of the internet's most infamous communities, playing a central role in the rise of various memes and controversial incidents. Following a cyberattack that abruptly took the site offline, comments from an anonymous former moderator suggest its chances of returning are slim.
Access to 4chan was disrupted on April 14, and troves of internal data appeared online shortly after. Members of Soyjak, a rival forum, claimed responsibility, declaring victory in a feud that has spanned several years.
The attackers claimed they had infiltrated 4chan's systems for over a year before executing the attack. At least one admin account was compromised, a previously deleted board was revived and defaced, and visiting 4chan now results in a 503 error message.
So 4chan very likely got hacked because they were running on an extremely out of date version of PHP that has a lot of vulnerabilities and exploits and are using deprecated function to interact with there MySQL database.
Web security 101: Keep your code and software up to date. pic.twitter.com/JFDOsbr5rt
Information from the leaks indicates that the site's source code was extremely outdated and vulnerable to numerous exploits. The hack also exposed administrators' email addresses and revealed that they could see the IP addresses of everyone who posted on the ostensibly anonymous forum. Additionally, the attackers obtained the personal information of paid subscribers.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a 4chan moderator told TechCrunch that the damage likely extends beyond what has been publicly revealed. Given that the attackers appeared to gain complete control over the forum – and access has not been restored more than a week later – its return seems unlikely.
4chan was founded in 2003 by Christopher "moot" Poole, then a high school student, as an alternative space for discussing anime culture. Poole based the site's design and code on Japan's 2chan, one of the world's largest online communities.
A reference to the viral "Chicken Jockey" meme from the Minecraft movie is likely 4chan's final post.
Poole's English-language version quickly gained notoriety for its irreverent and often offensive content. In 2015, he sold 4chan to Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2channel (not to be confused with 2chan). The site's cultural influence and infamy only grew throughout the 2010s.
Widely known trends like Pepe the Frog, wojaks, rage comics, and trolling were popularized on 4chan, but the forum also gained a reputation as one of the internet's darkest. 4chan played a central role in the rise of movements like QAnnon, the incel community, GamerGate, and the alt-right. The site was also linked to multiple mass shootings, the 2014 celebrity photo leak scandal, and other serious incidents.
4chan's influence on 21st-century culture is undeniable, but if it really is gone, many won't miss it.
English (US) ·