LizardSquad Copycats Planning DDoS Attacks On Xbox & PSN For Christmas (softpedia.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Last year on Christmas, the LizardSquad hacking group took down PSN and Xbox Live for many hours via DDoS attacks. This year another group, called Phantom Squad, is planning the same thing. The group has been launching small test attacks on PSN, Xbox, Reddit, SWOTR, and other game servers over the past few days.

Comments

Why?

[JimMcc]

I don't understand why? Seriously, I don't get it.

Is this just the modern day equivalent of throwing a rock through a shop window in the middle of the night; an act perpetrated by frightened little children acting out?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is paying attention to me. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Re:Why?

[Lumpy]

Pissy little 13 year olds that are angry that mommy did not buy them an Xbox one yet.

that is all these groups are.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so nobody ever played video games with their kids on Christmas? Nobody ever bought their kids a console for christmas?

Idiot.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why? Seriously, I don't get it.

I don't know about XBox live, but for PSN, it's probably due to Sony's business practices: rootkitting people's PCs, removing features paid for already, etc. Many, many people want to see Sony die, so if you do business with them, don't be surprised if you have some problems because of that. In a way you are supporting those things yourself with your purchase dollars.

Re:Why?

[maharvey]

No need to worry about that anymore, thanks to Slashdot.

Re:Why?

[ElectricHellKnight]

I don't understand why? Seriously, I don't get it.

Why? Why you ask? You question why?!

Because they can, that's why.

Re:Why?

[cavreader]

"Many, many people want to see Sony die" Took a poll did you? If you have a beef with Sony or any other company don't buy any of their products. Nobody is forcing you to use anything Sony makes. And let those who are not as juvenile as yourself use products of their own selection without you being an ass.

Re:Why?

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's time you learnt a few facts, a couple of which I'll share with you here:

Yule and Saturnalia predate Christianity by a considerable margin.

Some Christian denominations have even at various times discouraged or even banned their members from celebrating Christmas on the grounds of its pagan origins.

(And if you ask me, people who live in their mothers' basements and only poke their heads out to criticise others on false premises are stupid.)

Re:Why?

[Xest]

I don't think it's as well thought through as that in these cases. Last year Lizard Squad were shouting about how they loved ISIS.

I think Lumpy has it right above - angry little shits whose parents are pissed that all their friends have Xbox's/Playstations and they don't so are lashing out at the world, there doesn't seem any more to it than that as their political message is all over the place and doesn't make any kind of sense.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not advanced in any way –don't give them credit. They are using brute force to bring system to their knees.

Any claims that people should spend time with their loved ones on Christmas is just trying to put their bullshit in wrapping paper. They do this for the laughs and for being assholes. There are probably a lot more people like me, not having family to celebrate with and no friends in my position. For the last 20 years I have spent most of the christmas holiday playing computer/console games, reading books or doing something to spend the time when everything is closed down and there are no people around. But why would these "Phantom Squad" idiots think of lonely losers? They have no empathy and no other agenda than being douchebags.

Luckily for me I have enough games I can play without going online, still I think they harm our society. They contribute to nothing. If they had any real skills in showing security holes, that would be one thing, but they lack sofistication. The only thing they know how do to is use the digital equivalents of sticks and rocks to bully other people.

As for your last statement, you are wrong. "Annoying sheeple" is not acceptable. Informing them yes, but making them collateral damage won't help you. Those you call sheeple won't make the connection between the corporations and what you are doing.

But you are partly right- they are trolls.

Re:Why?

[donaldm]

I am not a physiologist but they are either doing it to stroke their egos or Just Cause. ;-)

Re:Why?

[donaldm]

Pissy little 13 year olds that are angry that mommy did not buy them an Xbox one yet.

that is all these groups are.

Actually it could be because their mummy did buy them an XB1 instead of a PS4. Ducks for cover behind a chest high wall. :-)

Re:Why?

[donaldm]

Oh my the old hoary "rootkitting people's PCs" from over 10 years ago that was done by BMG even though Sony was in the process of acquiring them. As for removing features. Yes they did remove the "Other OS" feature over security concerns in the PS3 with an optional update, but lets be honest here how many people used that?

Ok I get it, you hate Sony for no valid reason.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yule and Saturnalia predate Christianity by a considerable margin.

Going into nitpicking territory, we don't have the slightest clue when Yule was first celebrated and the first written references to it are later than first references to Christmas. People usually assume that the Yule was lot older than that but that's just an assumption.

Christmas didn't grow to be a major holiday until much later, though.

Re:Why?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Yule was celebrated by Germanic tribes before they encountered Christianity.

Re:Why?

[Coren22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ??

Re:Why?

[Lumpy]

Cant duck for cover, the Xbox is downloading another 20gb update.....

Re:Why?

[smallfries]

Which imaginary friends encourage you to celebrate the middle of winter through the modern secular pastime of consumer excess?

They sound like pretty cool friends.

It could be worse...

[DaHat]

It could be North Korea threatening war again.

Re:It could be worse...

[MightyMartian]

Only if Seth Rogen has another really shitty movie opening in the next few weeks.

Real Live Grinches!

[berchca]

Let us punish the children for, well, something...

How is this clever?

[JustNiz]

What a bunch of moronic pussies.
What are they trying to prove? That they can ruin the holidays for a bunch of kids? Wow what a bunch of cretins.
Theyre not even doing anything semi-intelligent like actually hacking, just doing yet another boringly unoriginal Skript Kidde-like DDOS.
woo. Big woop.

Re:Good for them!

[jeffmflanagan]

Maybe talk to a therapist rather than spewing your ignorant hate.

Re:So...

[campuscodi]

What the hell are you even talking about?

We should destroy these so-called "hackers"

[samantha]

We hackers that deserve the name and love software and computers should search out these asshats and clean their clocks. This is very uncool.

Their basic argumetn

[rossz]

They say they do it "because we can". They argue if you make it in any way possible for them to DDoS you, you deserve it. There is a limit to how much of an attack you can stop, and even the best planned network is going to go down if you hit it hard enough.

Bunch of pathetic losers who get off on pirated porn and ruining christmas for kids.

Re:Their basic argumetn

[SuricouRaven]

The best planned centralised network. Decentralised networks can take it.

Re:Their basic argumetn

[Rhywden]

Sooo... how do you know who to connect to in such a "decentralised network"? Even the poster child for such connections, BitTorent, relies on someone telling you where to begin connecting.

I'm talking about match-making capabilities here - if you want to go back to exchanging IP addresses over SMS or something, be my guest.

well-known terrorist technique

[turkeydance]

set up a situation, and see what fixes it. then, for the real attack, allow for the previous fix.

Is it the Christians?

[The-Ixian]

Perhaps it is Christian fundamentalists trying to makes sure that kids spend time with their family rather than play video games.

That's about the only reason I could come up with...

Re:Capital punishment

[maharvey]

Moronic? Yes.

Childish? Yes.

Deserving of death? Um, no.

Re:suddenly, slashdot loves Sony?

[captjc]

No, you seem to be missing the subtle nuance of the situation. Sony and Microsoft as companies can both fuck-off and die. However, taking down the online game servers isn't attacking either of them as a company, it is attacking the people who bought their products and wanted to play on what could be their only day off.

I know that I only get off on Christmas Day and New Years Day. I don't have school holidays where I can get a whole week or two off. So if I get my one chance to sit down and play and the servers are down, I'm not going to blame Sony or Microsoft (OK, I probably will). I am going to blame these assholes who took down the servers because reasons.

Re:Of all the ways you could spend your holidays..

[captjc]

The 80's called, they want their stereotypes back.

Besides, who spends the entirety of Christmas Day with their family outside of little kids? We go over for dinner around 2:00 we leave around 6:00. We all live fairly close by so it isn't like we never see each other. I doubt I am that far off from average in that regard. I know I will be pissed if I can't enjoy playing my new game console on the one day I have off.

Wow

[dank101]

They type DDoS as DDOS, they don't understand the concept of grey-hat hacking. They've claimed they've been testing servers with attacks, with no downtime or proof. I can already see this will be the worst DDoS attack ever.

Amazon eats their lunch

[tgibson]

even the best planned network is going to go down if you hit it hard enough.

That's the rub. Hitting it hard enough. As of five years ago, Amazon was beyond reach of these little babies.

Guess you old UID's don't understand

[Nyder]

I see a lot of people with low UID asking why, and insulting these script kiddies for what they are planning on doing, giving exactly the sort of reaction these script kiddies are looking for. Haven't you learned by now? When peeps going trolling, you go ignoring. Never feed the trolls. Yet all I see is crying and whining and insults getting flung around. You keep feeding the trolls. You are giving them the reaction they are looking for, and they haven't done shit yet.

Guess what? If they do DDOS the various game networks, so fucking what? You going to cry in front of your kids about how these script kiddies are ruining Xmas for everyone? You going to throw a temper tantrum like a kid? Grow the fuck up. So what if they want to ruin Xmas for people who get new video games? Why are you letting them ruin your xmas? And why you giving them what they want, attention?

If you are smart (which by posts I am guessing you aren't), you will either give your kids the video games early so they can get them activated (so lame you need to activate games online before you can play them) so they can at least play single player mode if the networks go down. Or just tell your kids to enjoy the holidays doing something other then play video games.

Whatever you do, quit getting mad at the script kiddies, quit insulting them, quit asking fucking why and just accept that giving attention to trolls just makes them do other things for attention. Ignore them.

Re:Guess you old UID's don't understand

[Ash-Fox]

Honestly, my question is, why aren't these console firms using technologies like anycasting to minimize attacks, reduce server latency and redistribute load? This isn't exactly a new technology, I remember doing anycasting configurations over a decade ago that dealt with problems like this.

Users are paying for xbox live, PSN+ etc. they really should be at least getting something on par to the.. well.. relatively free online multi-player services. Sadly, these users are poorly informed and their poor purchasing habits seem to outweigh those of us that have sense.

Re:Guess you old UID's don't understand

[Ash-Fox]

Both consoles use localised CDNs

No, they break up CDNs on a region basis, stop making up non-sense. Even hobby projects like Dalnet which sustain larger DDoS attacks can do it.

You're just a typical PC master-race loser

I think you're making assumptions about someone you barely know anything about. Clearly I've hit a nerve.

You're just a typical PC master-race loser, getting upset millions of others don't share your love for a computer game platform.

Upset? Love? Very emotional language you got going there. However, I don't particularly feel either towards any particular service.

If these DDoS attacks were pointed at EU or Ubi, you'd lose out on online gaming too.

Tell me again, why you think I wasn't referring to Wii U's anycasting setup?

These criminals are PC zealots, like yourself. Perhaps you're one of them?

Oh yeah, I'm a PC zealot. Because I clearly don't have a selection of game consoles under my television, I clearly don't have physical copies of games that are only playable on consoles (the vast majority of my library are downloadables) and I clearly wouldn't keep backup controllers for when some of mine go faulty.

It's not suprise you posted as anonymous, you don't want to make a reputation for yourself being ignorant, right?

Re:Guess you old UID's don't understand

[donaldm]

Actually a DOoS is only going to affect on-line multi-player and digital downloads or people who really, really need to update their console. If connection is slow well how about a single player game or actually go and talk to your family and friends.

Re:Guess you old UID's don't understand

[Ash-Fox]

Paying £24 a year for a service that gets you more than 48 games

Any games I had wanted I had already purchased, they do not typically give you new releases immediately either as part of the package (which I generally get cheaper by buying these from big grocerty chains like ASDA than game shops for some reason?). Therefore, value for people like myself is rather limited and only serves as a bonus that is irrelevant.

you're assuming neither Sony nor Microsoft can mitigate these attacks

Honestly, that's your assumption. I wasn't saying they weren't doing something to mitigate attacks, I was pointing out a specific technology they were not using to mitigate attacks.

yet you know how

Why wouldn't I know some of this stuff? It's not like I haven't made made architecture plans for datacenters before, automated multi-resilience sites for operation.

you believe you're simply superior

I don't believe I'm superior, I'm more astonished it isn't happening, hence the why.

and get paid to know them and the technologies available far more than you probably ever will.

I don't know, but considering I am rejecting job offers (and I'm not even looking) from the U.S. because they don't pay enough, it would lower my standards of living and not really worrying about money -- This isn't really something I find myself worrying about. Getting certifications when relevant for my day job is the norm for me as well?

but don't pretend you could solve this problem

To be frank, I have every confidence that I could solve problems provided corporate red tape does not prevent me from doing so (this includes some architecture decisions). I've had similar problems in my work that involved me implementing interesting solutions that are BGP based with features that weren't explictly designed for such purposes (load balancing without load balancers, redirecting traffic through alternate routes, flagging legitimate traffic through some

The only way to cope was to simply increase the amount of bandwidth to a level far beyond that which is typical, and frankly at that point it can just be cheaper to let it blow over and compensate your customers with a few free days or whatever

Or adding better peering and improving their BGP management, I can already see what peering is used on LINX sites (including on the extranet) -- there is much to be desired. They could have spread out infrastructure beyond some regional datacentres and I have no doubt what I see on LINX is their standard on other sites as well.

It turns out your sense, isn't, given that basically everything you've said is wrong and stupid. Well done, you just made a complete fool of yourself with your misplaced arrogance trying to belittle two groups of people who are apparently much much smarter than you.

You've made plenty of assumptions about me and they weren't exactly holding true which seems to be what you've based your conclusions on.

Re:Guess you old UID's don't understand

[uninformedLuddite]

I guess you will be pressing the f5 key a lot as your online enemies fear your 31337 skillz over xmas.

Re:suddenly, slashdot loves Sony?

[Ash-Fox]

That's funny - when this happened, the prevailing sentiment on slashdot was to call for the utter destruction of Sony as a company.

You make it sound like it was yesterday, it was ten years ago.. If the best argument you've got is something from ten years ago, you're not going to be able sway many people.

Re:So...

[Coren22]

, you can bet that they'll eventually put a stop to your kind of post, along with ALL anonymous posting.

As someone who reads at -1 for moderation purposes, nothing of value will be lost.

Re:Good for them!

[Coren22]

On top of the other replies, what about people who have no family? It isn't like everyone has people to spend the holidays with.

Re:So...

[Puls4r]

I think your sarcasm meter is broken. I don't support the removal of anonymity. That is where we are headed, however, when people can play nicely in the sandbox.

Seems they didn't learn from Lizard Squad

[djnforce9]

Last I checked, Lizard Squad got caught. Not sure why this copycat group believes the same won't happen to them.

This is neither funny nor does it do anyone any good so hopefully they reconsider before going through with something so foolish.