Slashdot Mirror
Lizard Squad Bomb Threat Diverts Sony Exec's Plane To Phoenix
As if cutting off from their games millions of users wasn't enough for the day, Forbes reports that [the] hacker collective (or individual) known as the “Lizard Squad” succeeded in taking offline many gaming services including Blizzard’s Battle.net and Sony PSN. But things took a turn from irritating DDoS attacks to another level of harassment earlier this afternoon when the group took to Twitter to announce publicly that it a believed the flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley had explosives on board. The flight had been bound from Dallas to San Diego, but in response to the bomb threat, the plane was diverted to Phoenix.
Pissing off game companies is one thing. Getting the DHS involved is another entirely. They've just brought a level of hell down on themselves they are woefully unprepared to deal with.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
It is starting to look more and more like this is FamedGod's doing, and these lizardtards are just trying to highjack the lulz.
https://www.facebook.com/Lizar...
Looking at Lizard Squad's twitter feed they have the maturity level of about a screaming toddler. The obvious lack of thinking is painful. They see these things as just pranks and a way to make a political statement. But bomb threats and DDoS attacks are a good way to waste your prime years in prison.
I don't know what's worse: being blown out of the sky with explosives or having to stay in Phoenix.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
These lizardsquad chuckle heads have been DDoSing all the major game networks for the past 3 weeks. They even claimed to have DDoS fbi.gov and nsa.gov over that same time. Now they finally have the fame they were looking for all along. CNN, Forbes and the front page of /.
I just don't get why someone would be willing to commit criminal activity like they did just to annoy some people. It's not exactly a show of skill - PSN has been a low-hanging fruit for DDoS attacks since forever - and it's clearly not making them any money. I'm sure there's also ways they could've annoyed people more without having DHS coming after them for calling in a bomb threat. If I had a DDoS-capable botnet I'd at least do something fun with it, like spam mobile email addresses with fake CNN updates purporting that Christ has risen and he's declared the Year of the Linux Desktop.
Seems quite possible that Sony just offered a lot of money to one of these script kiddies so that the authorities would be incentivised to do the corporation's dirty work.
The offer will never materialise.
I can't prove it, but I can say it. - Stephen Colbert
Slashdot, where nerds forget The Law of Parsimony.
Pissing off game companies is one thing. Getting the DHS involved is another entirely. They've just brought a level of hell down on themselves they are woefully unprepared to deal with.
My thoughts exactly. These kids better find a cave or a hole on the ground somewhere near the Khyber Pass or Timbuktu. Making bomb threats/pranks? There is a whole lot of angry coming right at them right now, the likes you can only escape by being a government entity, not some stupid script kiddie.
But things took a turn from irritating DDoS attacks to another level of harassment earlier this afternoon when the group took to Twitter to announce publicly that it a believed the flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley had explosives on board.
From US Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 40 844 - Penalties
(e) Whoever, through the use of the mail, telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate or foreign commerce, or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, willfully makes any threat, or maliciously conveys false information knowing the same to be false, concerning an attempt or alleged attempt being made, or to be made, to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property by means of fire or an explosive shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years or fined under this title, or both.
This is not including whatever state laws that were violated on top of Federal laws. One (well deserving) word: Darwin.
yeah, the same way the maffia would tell you: "it's a nice little shop you have there, I heard something bad could happen to it, like a fire, or a bomb. Want me to check on you once in a while ? you know just to be sure you're safe and all ?"
it's not like they would ever threaten anyone. Just relaying some hearsay and proposing some help.
They said they've been receiving reports about a bomb on the plane, not that they put one there. They didn't make a bomb threat; they relayed one.
They better have proof that they received a bomb threat then.
They also pissed off "the better man". https://twitter.com/FamedGod/s...
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
And the little fuckers talk about their exploits like some drunken dip-shit at a bar. They've lost sympathy from one group of people that might have some for them and they've called in a federal felony level bomb threat. Someone, perhaps their own bragging, is going to rat them out for this and a few years from now, they will be drug out of their mom's basement to the glaring light of CNN while mum tearfully cries on national TV about her over weight pasty skinned stereotype and the loss of every microprocessor device in the house.
Then the feds will hit the formerly bragging stereo type with every thing they can think up to up the charges to several hundred years in jail and the little stereotype will whine on face book and kickstarter about how the government is out to get him. Well, buddy, WE are the GOVERNMENT and WE are hoping you took metal shop in high school so that you can spend a few decades making license plates in a penitentiary. DDOSing a game is bad. Scaring hundreds of innocent people on a plane with bomb threat is way worse.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
Everyone seems to think this was no big deal... it was just a DDOS and the use of a phone! etc...
My question is: How did they know what flight Smeadly was on? That right there is the scary bit...
... that these are not real internet lizards, just posseurs. I suspect that GEICO jerk. He's a sell-out.
Put Sony Exec on the no fly list.
A plane landed in Phoenix instead of San Diego.
It doesn't appear that this involved "so much havoc or panic", or that "everything" depended on John Smedley reaching San Diego on time.
If it did, my Emergency Broadcast System must be broken. They should test that thing some time!
"Did you really think they were spending $500 on a hammer?"
Aggg, I replied to myself instead of replying to someone else's post.
So wait... it's OK if it blows up in Phoenix, but not in San Diego? Not sure I understand the logic of rerouting the flight.
Yes officer, I just yelled fire because 'someone else' did. I didn't start a panic for nefarious purposes or anything. There's only ONE place to report the threat of a bomb, and that's to authorities, not to a general public who can often knee jerk a response to a potentially real emergency without any form of organized response.
Bye!
I just read on the Internet that Sony is bribing hackers to call down drone strikes on each other. Spread the word...
YOU CANT STOP THE SIGNAL, MAL!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Who is this supposed to be?