On Christmas day, many gamers around the world found that they couldn’t play many of their favourite games anymore. The reason? The online services powering these games, such as PSN and Xbox Live, were down — and a group of alleged hackers claimed responsibility for it.
Today, Xbox Live seems to mostly be up and running. PSN is still down, though Sony says they’re working on it. While gamers wait to have services restored in full, the one thing everyone can’t help but wonder is why? Why would anyone do something like this? What’s the point?
The short answer is “for the lulz,” as anyone that is familiar with internet culture could have guessed. The longer answer is a bit more complicated, if not a little self-righteous.
The Daily Dot published an interview with some of the folks behind Lizard Squad, the group that claimed they had taken down the gaming online services. They have also claimed to be behind a few other stunts in the past year. To be clear, nobody can actually confirm that Lizard Squad really did bring down PSN and Xbox Live using denial-of-service attacks. But, the timing does match up: the group claimed Xbox Live and PSN would be down on Christmas nearly a month before it happened, and lo and behold, it came to pass. While it might’ve just been a coincidence, it’s interesting to hear Lizard Squad explain why they supposedly took down PSN and Xbox Live on Christmas. Apparently, the attack — which they have been allegedly planning for a while — was done to highlight “incompetence” at Microsoft and Sony.
“Microsoft and Sony are fucking retarded, literally monkeys behind computers,” one of the members of Lizard Squad explained to The Daily Dot. “They would have better luck if they actually hired someone who knew what they were doing. Like, if they went around prisons and hired people who were convicted for stuff like this they would have a better chance at preventing attacks.”
“If I was working [at Microsoft or Sony] and had a big enough budget I could totally stop these attacks,” another member of Lizard claimed. “I’d buy more bandwidth, some specific equipment, and configure it correctly. It’s just about programming skill. With an attack of this scale it could go up to the millions. But that’s really no problem for Sony and Microsoft.”
These corporations make billions off your existence and still don’t even pay their tax. And you’re still defending them? Open your eyes.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia) December 26, 2014
Assuming Lizard Squad did take down PSN and Xbox Live, some would claim that what they accomplished isn’t actually hacking. But, Lizard Squad does have a response for that too.
“For attacks of this scale, you can’t really do them without either having access to insane amounts of funding or being able to gain access to the computers via hacking…you can’t just do DDoS attacks from your home computer,” a member of Lizard Squad claimed. “It doesn’t work.”
trying their best to make things right for players who aren’t able to enjoy seasonal, limited time experiences — like snow in Grand Theft Auto Online.
Comments
36 responses to “Hackers Explain Why They Supposedly Took Down PSN And Xbox Live”
Hackers Explain Why They Supposedly Took Down PSN And Xbox Live:
“Because we’re c***s“
Yeah. What a bunch of twats. Sure, companies can spend “millions” defending against these attacks, but they really shouldn’t have to. People should stop being Richards.
why? – “for the lulz”
translation? – “I am a massive c*nt”
Nah. Despite what [name voluntarily redacted to stop giving them the publicity they crave] claim, their Christmas and Boxing Day DDoS attacks on the PSN and XBox Live networks prove their motives have zero to do with the “corporate agendas” of Sony and Microsoft and everything to do with being a bunch of giant a**holes.
Bunch of self-righteous twats. This mostly inconveniences the players, on Christmas day of all days. Doesn’t affect Sony or their higher-ups, just pisses on the lot of us. Slow clap for a group of prepubescent teens with a stick up their arse over big corporations. I probably wouldn’t jump to defend some of these companies on tax related matters, but attacks like this do little more than show how these people are willing to stoop low with no regard for the people they pretend to be alongside.
Pretty much what I wanted to say.
A DDOS attack can just be waited out, MS or Sony don’t lose money, Anybody who got a game for Christmas who can’t get the update to play it, or people who just wanted to game online with friends they are the ones who get shafted. MS & Sony don’t suddenly slash prices, feed the orphans and open up an animal rescue center. They carry on buisness as normal.
Heck the argument that MS & Sony should spend millions on stopping them is a joke. They have zero impact on the Business and only screw the Consumer who doesn’t yell at MS or Sony, but complains against these morons (I came up with a more creative and profanity enriched insult but decided against it) online.
They are changing the world, but not the way they claim they want to. MS & Sony basically ignore them and they just make Christmas a little worse for people who just want to play some Video Games over Christmas.
Well, it doesn’t have *zero* impact on business, but the impact it has is negligible. Lost sales from microtransactions, online purchases etc in that time period, do tend to add up to a bit, but nothing that’s going to break their back.
Lizard Squad in the end had, as you put it, zero impact on them, and made themselves look like absolute f**kstains. Nothing more.
I suspect people who wanted to buy something online like DLC or MTX (curse those who implement them) when the server was down would just wait till the next day to buy it.
But a blip in the stream of revenue is enough to cause a panic in certain executives whose targets aren’t being met fast enough.
I’m of the belief that if I want something today but the online store is closed I’ll get it tomorrow.
Most people are, so yeah, the impact was indeed negligible. It’s only the impulse buyers they would’ve lost temporarily. But they come back when its up anyhow.
But the politicians…. and their…. politicianing. And the corporations… well, they’re all corporationy.
This kind of thing shits me, but it does highlight the problem with games that require constant internet connections.
If you’re on the Xbox, you can go to offline mode and still play games, but it’s annoying that you cannot get achievements while offline.
“if they went around prisons and hired people who were convicted for stuff like this”
Oh yeah, fantastic idea. Hire criminals, then put them in charge of your entire network. What could possibly go wrong?
“nothing could possiblah go wrong”
“……ah…well, that’s the first thing that’s ever gone wrong…”
I’m totally going to trust a convicted felon with my credit card information. /endsarcasism
Indeed, while there IS a certain amount of logic to it, there’s also the flawed logic that these people themselves would be inherently smarter than those doing the right thing…
There’s a reason those idiots in jail were caught…
They weren’t obviously *THAT GOOD AT IT*.
Maybe Sony and MS could team up to find the ppl responsible; the happy ending to this story would be some convictions.
And when they end up in prison we can tell them that if we were in prison we could prevent against unwanted intrusions by lifting some weights and making some friends.
Waaah I cant get a job with these guys so Im just gonna make them wish they had have given me a job! Is basically what I read
Wouldn’t it be nice if some hard core militant group just put a bullet in each and every one of these dicks? I am not really that effected but they are just the ultimate internet trolls and a cancer on our modern society.
But seriously? After all this crap no one can ID these lizard knobs?
I don’t want them dead, but if they got found out and beaten up I wouldn’t be shedding any tears of sorrow.
Its still broken on xbone. Cant play anything online. No party, cant connect to anyone. All digital games dont work.
Lets just call it what it is, an attack on consumers.
“If we were working at Sony or, Microsoft, we would have stopped the hacking.” No you snarfing wouldn’t unlike you, Sony and Microsoft you know what kind of equipment you’re using sony and microsoft can’t read minds you know
Hackers Explain Why They Supposedly Took Down PSN And Xbox Live:
Because I’m an upset twat and no one can be happy. What a guy I am, be proud of me!
Wanker.
“Monkeys behind computers, literally” *sigh* you’d think they’d understand the english language before they worry about “fighting” corporations. They should be using their skills for something actually useful.
what I took away from this was:
” luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulz!!!!!11!!! thatz rite bitches. take that Sony and Microsoftr, cuz we got mad skillz 4 lyfe! Cant wait for thiz to go waay viral COS GOTTA GETS THIS UP ON REDDIT!
HAXXX!”
or you know, something like that.
yeah I agree, they’re c***s.
1) yes, they make billions. Billions freely given in exchange for entertainment. They aren’t ‘stealing’ it from us. As for the Tax issue, why don’t they target more egregious offenders, like the Koch brothers? Oh, that’s right, because they won’t get as much attention
2) Victim blaming. My attack was successful, so it was deserved? So, if I were to break into their house, it would be their fault for not having enough security?
3) they sure are confident that they could stop such attacks if they were hired. It’s easy to claim anything.
Maybe the techs at Sony are “retarded monkeys” (although I doubt that very much), but the folks st the FBI are not and their reach is long little kids. Lulzsec aren’t laughing from their jail cells…. Soon these guys won’t be either. I give them a year. Maybe two. Hope they like prison cabbage soup.
I think script kiddie heads on spikes would make lovely post christmas decorations.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
I thought they might have said they wished kids to spend time with the family for a day but alas it was more to do with money
opinions aside, anyone couldve have “PREDICTED” the servers where going to be down doing some proper math or just by blind chance. That´s the link to the so called squad? “THEY SAID ONE MONTH AGO IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?” . Come on… duh… anyone who knows “server for dummies” couldve announced that. and with no proof of anything being attacked, just “taken down” they couldve had perfectly been unable to handle such amount of requests… yeah blame “the hacker”… and oh then “christmas gets saved by the good people at Whatever”…. at least do some work on auditing for starters cause all those corpos prolly gave -im highly dubious but wth- money to whoever. its another stunt to maximize profit
yeah, people using the word “totally” as in “I could totally stop these attacks” are big ohh scary haxxors to be feared. God… so “they predicted” it …. yeah many people predict rain and it rains, some do and it doesn´t. that´s not proof of anything and yes, hackers are people really big on the word “tots”,” I COULD _TOTALLY_ STOP THESE ATTACKS!” oh boy… lol come on…
Lulz at “It’s all about programming skill”.
Seriously? It has zero to do about programming skills and NO I would never hire a script kiddie to write me shitty code containing infinite loops and with pictures of big dicks in the comments.
It’s about having the right network infrastructure – a couple of firewalls and decent BigIPs. Someone at Sony can’t set up a secure network properly. Goes to show that these kids really do just simply hit a button and away they go.
So a bunch of basement dwellers are throwing a tantrum because they lack the social and communication skills to go through the established hiring process for said companies. This is nothing but blatant blackmailing, if I were Sony or Microsoft I would most definitely not hire these arrogant, self obsessive and immature scum. “Retard monkeys sitting behind computers?” Speak for yourself “Lizard Squad”, it doesn’t take half a brain cell hire some servers from China or Russia to DDoS for you.
I watched an interview with one of the apparent Lizard squad children . hope to see this guys face on the news again , hopefully battered and bruised when people find him
here’s a pic http://www.businessinsider.com.au/lizard-squad-member-reveals-his-face-in-a-tv-interview-2014-12