Despite an avalanche of over-the-line jokes and gaffes that cost him deals and a show, as well as an ever-changing YouTube landscape, Felix “Pewdiepie” Kjellberg remains the king of YouTube mountain. For now, anyway: An Indian music production company called T-Series has been fast on his heels for a while and — with their subscriber counts at a near-tie — could topple him any day now. One fan decided to take matters into his own hands by hacking printers.
YouTube currently displays both Pewdiepie and T-Series as having 72 million subscribers, but in reality Pewdiepie is about 100,000 subscribers ahead. T-Series, however, has been making faster gains, leading fans to start advertising on Pewdiepie’s part. Some have done (relatively) normal things like playing Pewdiepie’s song “Bitch Lasagna” at a club.
Others have purchased billboards in their cities, because it’s their money and they can do what they want with it, I guess. And while these fans are mostly having a laugh by *checks paper* throwing money and publicity at one of the world’s wealthiest, most popular YouTubers, there’s a method to the madness: People want the “face” of YouTube to remain an individual creator rather than a big company. (Granted, Pewdiepie is practically an enterprise himself at this point, but you get the idea.)
Recently, people in places ranging from Canada to the UK reported that their printers began mysteriously spitting out Pewdiepie ads.
So this just randomly printed on one of our work printers. I think @pewdiepie has hacked our systems. pic.twitter.com/wSG9cprJ4s
— Dr.Moxmo (@Dr_Moxmo) November 29, 2018
Somebody hacked my mom’s printer for this https://t.co/9dOQoUlazK pic.twitter.com/kSuZqtjkWs
— PewDiePie Submissions (@LWIAY_bot) November 30, 2018
@pewdiepie I work in IT around Brighton and our Printers are being hacked….is this your propaganda? pic.twitter.com/xIRCGEQoNB
— Georgia Barton (@georgia_bizzle) November 29, 2018
“PewDiePie, the currently most subscribed to channel on YouTube, is at stake of losing his position as the number one position by an Indian company called T-Series that simply uploads videos of Bollywood trailers and campaigns,” the ad read, telling people to unsubscribe from T-Series, subscribe to Pewdiepie, and “Tell everyone you know. Seriously.”
On Twitter, a user named TheHackerGiraffe took credit for the ads, saying that people should “spread the word with your friends about printers and printer security” because “this is actually a scary matter.”
Speaking with The Verge, he said that it was actually pretty easy to browse a repository of internet-connected devices and hack 50,000 of them: “The most horrifying part is: I never considered hacking printers before, the whole learning, downloading, and scripting process took no more than 30 minutes.”
Despite all that, the new Pewdiepie video did not mention TheHackerGiraffe. I guess global-scale cyber crime in the name of helping a Swedish millionaire stave off a multi-million dollar Indian music production company doesn’t pay after all.
Comments
8 responses to “Guy Hacks Printers Around The World To Tell People To Subscribe To Pewdiepie”
I wonder what the overlap is between “people who still own printers” and “people who would want to subscribe to Pewdiepie” is?
From a sample size of one (me) it’s a yes to both, so therefore due to my totally legitimate and rigorous scientific testing I can only conclude 100% of owners of printers are interested in being subscribed to pewdiepie, unfortunately the bad news is 100% of printer owners are already subscribed as also detrimined under my totally qualified scientific research. As such this effort will be for nought.
Third circle is people who have their printers on an unprotected network
Counterpoint: Fuck off, Hackerson. I’d rather dowse my eyes in kerosene.
This makes my want to create a YouTube account just so I can subscribe to T-Series
So many people leave IoT devices either with no password protection or with the default protection.
You can find sites both on the clear web and dark web that give you unsecured security camera links. Too many people think IoT devices are just set up and forget.
’tis a silly age we live in.
– Giraffe just spread awareness on printer security, while helping out pewds in the process. 2 birds 1 stone anyone?
– Pewds did not mention TheHackerGiraffe you are right, but Gloria Poppy did in Pew News.
– Painting him as an enterprise is so out of touch.
– Stop bullying the 9 year old army
also… subscribe to pewdiepie and buy the 70m merch. (do your part)
I wonder if thehackergiraffe is going to enjoy US Federal Prison as much as he enjoys letting people know he committed a crime….