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Hacker Taunts Blizzard After Knocking Gamers Offline (csoonline.com)

Posted by msmash on from the another-day,-another-hack dept.

Reader itwbennett writes: A person nicknamed AppleJ4ck, who has been previously been linked to Lizard Squad, a group notorious for DDoS attacks against gaming platforms, including the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, has taken credit for server outages affecting gaming giant Blizzard (Alternate source: ZDNet) Monday morning. The outages led to authentication lockouts for gamers attempting to access Overwatch, Hearth Stone, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Heroes of the Stone, and others. During the outage, AppleJ4ck said Monday's problems were just a test, promising more outages in the future.

99 comments

  1. Heroes of the Storm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    [nt]

  2. It didn't even take 20 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ubiquity of internet-connected, unpatched computers has made it trivial to amass millions of zombies. Anonymous had the right idea: some NGO should be out there crawling the web and forcibly fixing these vulnerabilities.

  3. DDOS is lame by KlomDark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Never had any respect for lamers who just do DDOSs. That's not hacking, it's just being annoying. Doesn't take any special skills.

    It's nothing like breaking through some code or router or something that actually proves that you are of elite intelligence.

    Breaking directly into Blizzard is one thing, but just snowing them under with myriad packets just isn't impressive.

    Find something else to do with your life.

    1. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Building the weapon is the skilled part, deploying the weapon is just the fruits of his labor

    2. Re:DDOS is lame by subanark · · Score: 2

      > Doesn't take any special skills.

      Depends on who you are attacking. Anyone who could find a weak point in AWS and take down a whole datacenter, would be impressive and quite scary.

      Sure, renting a bunch of zombie machines and doing DDOS is nothing special, but rolling up your own malware (or just convincing a shit load of people to help you) is much more impressive.

      Note: by impressive, I mean likelihood of a SWAT team to come down and bust your ass.

    3. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've said it before and I'll say it again.

      DDOSing is the online equivalent of the 3 stooges getting stuck in a door.

      Morons like that deserve to be smacked across the face, at minimum. Doing it on purpose to keep others out deserves what another AC said - to be skinned alive on public display to inform others of what they can expect for themselves if they want to be "cool" like that. I do not believe in reforming people who are willfully malicious. Snuff them out.

    4. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just some punk kid trying to make a name for himself when really he's just showing how pathetic he really is. "Oh wow, you knocked game servers offline" big accomplishment. The Panama Papers guy is way more impressive.

    5. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never had any respect for lamers who just do DDOSs. That's not hacking, it's just being annoying. Doesn't take any special skills.

      It's nothing like breaking through some code or router or something that actually proves that you are of elite intelligence.

      Breaking directly into Blizzard is one thing, but just snowing them under with myriad packets just isn't impressive.

      Find something else to do with your life.

      In today's environment, a "hacker" toolbox starts with YouTube.

      Regardless of type, I fail to find respect for many attacks when the "skillz" required consists of watching a step-by-step video and burning a fucking ISO.

    6. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus the servers were down for less than an hour. Whoopdeedoo.

    7. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, keep it up AppleJ4ck-off. Maybe someone will figure out who you are in the real world and stomp your real world guts out....

    8. Re:DDOS is lame by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 3

      No, skill is using a DDoS as a smokescreen for the ACTUAL hack....

      3 or 4 weeks from now, we'll hear all about how millions of BNet accounts have been compromised..... or worse yet, we won't hear.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
    9. Re:DDOS is lame by sexconker · · Score: 1

      For end uses, the denial of service lasted several hours.

    10. Re:DDOS is lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There should be a death penalty for mouth breathing morons that want it for minor offenses.

  4. DRM? What's that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is precisely why you should only buy a game after a crack is available for it.

    1. Re: DRM? What's that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the games affected are pretty much online. And we saw what happen to the vanilla wow servers, they are getting sued.

    2. Re:DRM? What's that? by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      Even if these games were cracked- and effectively, some are, such as the ability to play WoW on a server your friend sets up, trivially- the issue here is that almost all the gameplay is completely online, for real reasons, such as needing to play with people who are not in the same room as you. Yes, yes, your point has some merit- for instance, for the Diablo 3 campaign, or the Starcraft campaign- but overall, its silly, because the multiplayer parts of these games are huge. Hearthstone is just a multiplayer card game, there's basically nothing else. Starcraft is primarily a set of online matches with other players. WoW is entirely online. Etc.

  5. Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    People like AppleJ4ck need to be caught and skinned alive on Twitch streams as a warning to other children acting like this.

    1. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's funny how the DDOS of a gaming service is what it takes to get people upset here.

      Attack a bank? Obviously they should have paid more attention to security - it's really their own fault.

      Attack a politician? Well, they're evil anyway.

      Attack someone suspected of a crime, even though they haven't stood trial? Well, these things happen.

      Take down World of Warcraft? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but a bank or a politician getting hacked doesn't affect me - a gaming service I use does.

    3. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Eosi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      DDOS and actual hacking are not the same thing. Therefore your message is wrong. No one cares if you DDOS Trump or Clinton, will not even make the news.....

    4. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Comedy is when it happens to you.

      Tragedy is when it happens to me.

      Or something like that...

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    5. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by simcop2387 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah, that might make the news. Trump would go on twitter immediately and blame the wrong people.

    6. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by KlomDark · · Score: 3, Insightful

      DDOSing a bank is no hack, it gives you no access to money. Not a security issue, it's a network redundancy issue.

      Not impressed with DDOS kiddies. It's like farting in church. Might drive a few people away.

      But if you want to impress me: Build your own god.

    7. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is the END of the WORLD ....of warcraft.

    8. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 1

      I second the motion....

      --
      You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
    9. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      To be fair, DDoS'ing a bank or other (small) institution could potentially get you a bit of ransom if you're able to...
      1) knock them offline for long enough, and
      2) if enough of their business is reliant on being online, and
      3) the network guys at the target institution and their ISP are completely clueless about blackholing or other countermeasures.

      It would have to be a real small institution with a shit ISP, though for all three to occur. It also predicates on the target being willing to pay up.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    10. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      It is the END of the WORLD ....of warcraft.

      ... and I feel fine...

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    11. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Speaking for myself, I'm more pissed off by the hacker's attitude of "I'm doing people a favor" than anything else... like he (or she) is somehow ethically justified to make decisions about what other people are supposed to be doing with their time instead of playing a video game.

      Perhaps it isn't the most productive way to spend one's time, but the decision to play or not should be theirs... not someone else's.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    12. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Comedy is when it happens, tragedy is having to clean up after

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It's funny how the DDOS of a gaming service is what it takes to get people upset here.

      Attack a bank? Obviously they should have paid more attention to security - it's really their own fault.

      Attack a politician? Well, they're evil anyway.

      Attack someone suspected of a crime, even though they haven't stood trial? Well, these things happen.

      Take down World of Warcraft? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!!

      It's only funny when you phrase it like that. If instead you phrased it like this:

      Attack an evil corporation who had it coming?
      Attack an evil politician who had it coming?
      Attack an evil person who had it coming?
      Attack someone who is in general good standing with the Slashdot community? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!!

      You'll find yourself just nodding your head in agreement.

    14. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Eosi · · Score: 2

      Ah true. Then he would say that he is really really rich, and can afford it.

    15. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe if you spent less time gaming you'd have something to put in a bank?

    16. Re: Skin him alive on Twitch by pinkushun · · Score: 1

      Extra, Extra! Link found between violent games and the people who play them - story at 11.

    17. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Texmaize · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't a better and far more accurate joke be:
      Hillary would just hire someone to cover it up
      Reflexive liberal bias is still reflexive.

      --
      "Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
    18. Re: Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clinton/trump what a good idea.. something worthy of being knocked off the internet

    19. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe if the bankers spend less time banking, you'd have something to put in a bank.

    20. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trump: Everybody loves my packets, i've got the best packets, until only recently you could only get my packets at one of my 5-star resorts, but now, they are available to everybody!

    21. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He'd get someone else to build him a fire-wall.

    22. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by guises · · Score: 1

      But if you want to impress me: Build your own god.

      That's what it takes to impress you? You're setting the bar awfully high there.

    23. Re:Skin him alive on Twitch by DiEx-15 · · Score: 1

      Take down World of Warcraft? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!!

      Considering the collective yawning and dismissal of most Slashdotters. Combined by the general lack of impressive talent to do said attack:

      That should be a clear indication that the level of anger, with the exception of the usual die hard fanboys, is around "Meh" to "So Fucking What?" levels.

  6. Internet not designed for this by DogDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is going to keep happening, because the Internet was never, every designed for something like this. Security is near impossible, because it was designed to be an OPEN system, not a closed one, with security everywhere. Like it or not, the Internet is going to continue to break in bigger and bigger ways.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:Internet not designed for this by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It may have been designed to be open, but in practice it suffers a deep mono-culture of protocols (DNS and DHCP) and a lack of redundancy, especially at the proverbial "last mile", where the ISP can 'drop anchor' on your connection on a whim. It is still not an ad hoc network, which it needs to be if it is to be truly open, and if you want to keep it from breaking.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Internet not designed for this by Thanatiel · · Score: 1

      If AS owners were filtering the traffic in and out, it would reduce this kind of attacks.

      By filtering I mean that if a packet goes out, it has to originate from an IP of the AS; and if a packet goes in, it cannot come from an IP on the inside.

      This would effectively anihilate a type of DDOS I will not describe here for obvious reasons.

      But AFAIK, the infrastructure cost is not worth it ... yet ?

      --
      Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
    3. Re:Internet not designed for this by OverlordQ · · Score: 1

      > This is going to keep happening, because the Internet was never, every designed for something like this.

      All it'll actually take is ISPs to actually implement egress filtering. Pretty much every major DDoS method out there requires forged packets to execute. Deny them that and the problem goes away.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    4. Re:Internet not designed for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the internet works as designed. In this case - Blizzard calls their ISP, they change the routes to the auth servers and problem over.

    5. Re:Internet not designed for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is going to keep happening, because the Internet was never, every designed for something like this. Security is near impossible, because it was designed to be an OPEN system, not a closed one, with security everywhere. Like it or not, the Internet is going to continue to break in bigger and bigger ways.

      False optimism.

      The way it is breaking is power-hungry weirdos want to control it. Somehow they think it's worth it to but catpcha's everywhere to hassle millions just in case somebody want's to test their weirdo skills. It is Google trying to be the gatekeeper while Microsoft is the registrar of your identity... all the while Facebook has your contact and activity log if you are stupid enough to use it.

      All 3 of them serve the US government out of fear for their safety and their families safeties, if they refuse the "business partnership".

  7. Didn't affect me by The-Ixian · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I played WoW pretty much all weekend and did not encounter any issues.

    Hopefully apple jack continues to throw this level of expertise at the "real" attack.

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Didn't affect me by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Keep in mind that WoW and Overwatch use a whole pile of different data centers. Personally? I hope Blizzard comes after them with everything they can gather and sue the shit weasel into the ground.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Didn't affect me by riis138 · · Score: 2

      Same here, no issues all weekend on both WoW and Overwatch.

      --
      Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
    3. Re:Didn't affect me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't RTFA but I think the attack was against the battle.net servers not the actual game servers. I think you have to log into battle.net b4 playing any blizzard game.

    4. Re:Didn't affect me by DroolTwist · · Score: 1

      I got DC'd from Battle.net so I lost my D3 connection, but I reconnected in less than 3 minutes. A bit annoying, but nothing to ruffle feathers about.

  8. How about... by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Game makers stop with the fucking cloud required crap?

    Let me run my own damn server, and authentication so I can just play it? Stuff that in your bunghole.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:How about... by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think you understand what "MMO"s are.

      This isn't a case of people not being able to play single player games. Not even a case of people not being able to play something that could be reasonably hosted by individuals, such as Quake ][.

      Multiplayer games do have a huge audience for which much of the appeal lies in the service having huge numbers of other players. I don't play any of them anymore, but I can see how this could be a problem for a large number of people.

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    2. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't think you understand what "MMO"s are.

      This isn't a case of people not being able to play single player games. Not even a case of people not being able to play something that could be reasonably hosted by individuals, such as Quake ][.

      Multiplayer games do have a huge audience for which much of the appeal lies in the service having huge numbers of other players. I don't play any of them anymore, but I can see how this could be a problem for a large number of people.

      As far as it being a problem, consumers can obtain some pretty incredible upload speeds these days, so I fail to see why you could not break apart the hosting burden (ala P2P/torrent) across those players who have the bandwidth and hosting horsepower to handle a "chunk" of that.

      Of course, this would also require finding a reasonable ISP who doesn't try and ass-rape you with usage caps or other bullshit restrictions that would mandate a higher-priced "business" account. Sadly, that could be a larger challenge than creating the technology to share the hosting burden.

    3. Re:How about... by Calydor · · Score: 1

      Because the instant you allow hosting on one of the clients you make it a LOT more likely that some kind of hack (as in god mode, wallhacks and such) is going to be deployed.

      If you 100% control the server it is far less likely.

      As an example, in WoW's early days the server trusted client information too much resulting in people running around at insane speeds. Glide, I believe the hack was called. Imagine how that would go down if a random player had actual access to the server information.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    4. Re:How about... by Ravaldy · · Score: 1

      As far as it being a problem, consumers can obtain some pretty incredible upload speeds these days

      Most services have a high download rate and a low upload rate. Additionally, many services provide burstable connectivity which is horrible for hosting gaming servers.

      I really don't see the need to host your own server in today's wide availability of servers. Gaming companies don't cater to the minority, they cater to the majority because that's what makes the games lucrative and stable.

      There are still indie companies out there that make games where you can self host (such as Rust) but the cost of hardware + connectivity is so high you may as well rent a server.

    5. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't think you've played modern MMOs recently.

      The "massively multiplayer" part is a joke. Everything is instanced off and you have large, empty zones that might as well be single player.

      There's no reason not to let people host the instances themselves just like old Quake II servers, since pretty much all a modern MMO does is have a bunch of players run around a given map. Hell, they'll even teleport you to the map rather than require you to go there in the game world, and automated match-making means you don't even need to talk to the other players. The whole thing might as well be a single player game with AI-controlled companions.

      I mean, you use the automated match-making to pick a map and be thrown in with other players, where you then just beat up some AI-controlled enemies for a set period of time for a chance at random drops. There's a reason MMOs are dying and it's because they've devolved into effectively single player games you have to be online to play.

      Explain to me why this requires cloud servers and can't be peer-to-peer hosted? It's basically Diablo without the randomly generated maps, and that worked just fine with peer-to-peer hosting.

    6. Re:How about... by cfalcon · · Score: 2

      If you want to play on a private server, go ahead. There's plenty of them.

      But if you want to play on a full Blizzard server, then you need a whole datacenter tracking MANY players, that's multiple machines, not just one, all interconnected. That's the world of warcraft- millions of players who can communicate instantly, and interact in game instantly. The reason everyone is connecting to these datacenters is because they provide a service you can't repeat locally. It's not about upload bandwidth, it is about latency, and a distributed network is inherently terrible at that. It is very much about processing power, and RAM, and these are serious machines all hooked together doing that to support that many players.

      Just think about designing it for a second- if I move my character from X to Y, on the live system my client tells the wow server what I did, which validates it (so I'm not teleport hacking), updates its internal state, figures out which players are close to me, and then sends data needed to draw my character to them. This means that your client doesn't need to know the whole of the world, it just needs the section you can see, etc.

      Now try this distributed. Every distributed node needs a constant copy of the world, and all must be in sync. You need a way to figure out how to resolve disputes, and if some of the nodes are compromised you need to find a way to figure that out. You have the same problems that bitcoin does, but you need to do it instantly and simultaneously. It's laughable.

    7. Re:How about... by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      Can you tell me why single player Diablo 3 needs to be connected? Especially considering that the connection, which only updates the chat, keeps going down so often. I can play WoW, WoT, STO, etc all day but get kicked off of D3 regularly.

    8. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the world of warcraft- millions of players who can communicate instantly, and interact in game instantly.

      No, it's not.
      I'm not sure exactly what it is these days but IIRC they max out between 5k and 10k people logged on at the same time on any individual server. Which is not even remotely close to some other games which can support in excess of 40k concurrent logins on the same server.

      There are also 'soft limits' regarding how many people can be in the same location at the same time, and still updated everybody with all the actions happening within their range. Once you start getting more than a few hundred players within 'range' of each other, the servers can't keep all the clients updated with all the actions going on around them, even if the client machines were powerful enough to display everything.

      So you're really NOT playing with "millions of other people", at best you're playing with thousands of other people, and usually it's more like dozens or hundreds.

    9. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Inasmuch as we gain something by requiring you to connect to our servers to play the game....
      and inasmuch as we can afford the loss of the precious-few clients like you who refuse to play...

      you can go jump in a lake.

      --All major game studios.

       

    10. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a reason MMOs are dying and it's because they've devolved into effectively single player games you have to be online to play.

      Well that's the result, not the cause. The causes are many, but are a combination of technical limitations, both on the server side as well as client side, and social issues.... Specifically, people have been completely pussified and overly sensitive.

      For example, I once played an MMORPG where my character was a Thief. I got banned for "Kill Stealing and Ninja Looting". Well no SHIT, I was a fucking THIEF. What the fuck do you expect a goddamn Dark Elf Thief to do? It's not like I was playing a Lawful Good High Elf Paladin or something, my character was the very definition of an evil jerk. But yet I was supposed to just LOOK like an evil character, but ACT like Mother Theresa.
      I also quit playing FPS games, because apparently it's OK to stab someone in the back with a knife and then blow off their fucking head in a shower of gore and blood, but it's not OK to say mean things to them or call them names.

    11. Re: How about... by pinkushun · · Score: 1

      Give me DRM free games any day!

    12. Re:How about... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 2

      I don't think you understand what "MMO"s are.

      If I could play WoW solo or have my own server & only play with friends, I'd probably get back into it again.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    13. Re:How about... by metaforest · · Score: 1

      If you want to play on a private server, go ahead. There's plenty of them.

      But if you want to play on a full Blizzard server, then you need a whole datacenter tracking MANY players, that's multiple machines, not just one, all interconnected. That's the world of warcraft- millions of players who can communicate instantly, and interact in game instantly. The reason everyone is connecting to these datacenters is because they provide a service you can't repeat locally. It's not about upload bandwidth, it is about latency, and a distributed network is inherently terrible at that. It is very much about processing power, and RAM, and these are serious machines all hooked together doing that to support that many players.

      Just think about designing it for a second- if I move my character from X to Y, on the live system my client tells the wow server what I did, which validates it (so I'm not teleport hacking), updates its internal state, figures out which players are close to me, and then sends data needed to draw my character to them. This means that your client doesn't need to know the whole of the world, it just needs the section you can see, etc.

      Now try this distributed. Every distributed node needs a constant copy of the world, and all must be in sync. You need a way to figure out how to resolve disputes, and if some of the nodes are compromised you need to find a way to figure that out. You have the same problems that bitcoin does, but you need to do it instantly and simultaneously. It's laughable.

      WoW is divided into shards. Each shard might have a few thousand client subscriptions of which only a few hundred are online at any time. Most MMOs operate this way. What this means is that millions of WoW players do not interact in the same world, and they cannot even chat between the different shards. In fact the only place all WoW players can interact together is on the Community Forum.

      If you want a real MMO experience where all* the players are in the same persistent, real time, game instance (single Shard), you'd have to be playing EvE Online. ~300,000 subscriptions and at any given moment between 15000 and 35000 are logged in.

      *There is one caveat: China has it's own EvE Online instance that does not interact with the rest of the EvE Universe, because China.

    14. Re:How about... by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      > WoW is divided into shards.

      This is technically true, but read on!

        > What this means is that millions of WoW players do not interact in the same world

      They absolutely do. I can send you a tell from any server. I can invite you to party from any other server, and then you will phase into my server immediately. The only exception? If I'm a lower level than you by a lot, then I will instead phase onto your server (no matter who did the invite: prevented from people making world hopping alts- otherwise the group lead determines which server everyone zones into).

      So even though we started on different servers, you can immediately phase to mine. Once grouped, we can queue dungeons together, queue rated battlegrounds (and I think arena now), or regular battlegrounds, or just run around to gank horde together. You can mine mines and pick herbs on my server. What I can't do is invite you to my guild, and that restriction is in place solely to keep guilds relevant- there's no technical problem behind that.

      You can send a tell to ANY player. You can be invited by ANY player. You can go to ANY server in this way. No, not everyone is dumped into the same instance of Goldshire at log in- that's obviously not possible, nor would it be useful.

      Furthermore, servers that are related to each other have merged zones. Meaning that as you walk from Stormwind to Elwynn, you will go from a zone shared by only one (or a few) servers, to a zone shared by MANY. It will be filled with other players who have done the same. Each zone is built this way to ensure that no server has sections of it that are a vacant lot: if a bunch of people across all servers fill up, say, Loch Modan, then it will gradually decouple them until such time as the number present is appropriate again. It's all dynamic, very fluid, and way way way beyond the tech that any other MMO has on this front right now (though some are pretty close).

      The stuff you said was partly true in like 2012, and mostly true in like 2010. But it's been years since then man, that's outdated lies now!

      Here's an example of this in action, from when I played a couple years ago: there was a world boss that spawns reasonably often. When it does, anyone on that server can make a raid, and post a thing in oqueue (an addon that helps you coordinate). Immedatiately, everyone else who was waiting for that boss can be invited. So in this example, you would see a boss you needed a raid to take down, press a button, and quickly fill a raid with people who are explicitly interested in that boss. Upon taking the invite, they phase into your server, but they do so wherever the heck they are at in the world- so if they were flying over the ocean, they'd still be flying over that ocean, but now on your server, not theirs. Presumably, you get a warlock out there, and then you open a portal and say "push 1 for summon!" and the raid fills with "1". You summon your raid, you kill the world boss.

      Now, is it good that an MMO operates like this? I'm of two minds on it. It has some downsides. But from a technical perspective, this is pretty fucking marvelous.

      And you sure couldn't handle that many players, interacting in that way, on a private server. There's really just one world of warcraft, man, with everybody on it, and you can visit any piece of it if you have a mind to do so.

  9. We never thought that anyone would... by Tyr07 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...figure out the ping command. Sending packets? Only a mastermind.

    It's like claiming you won a discussion by saying 'Nuh uhh' more times or a blunt object because you're too dumb to use words.

    1. Re:We never thought that anyone would... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      ...figure out the ping command. Sending packets? Only a mastermind.

      Oh? Did you have first hand knowledge of the attack to base your comments on the fact that someone read the man page for ping? Or maybe DDOSing can be done in a wide variety of attacks ranging from the fairly lame (ping) to the far more advanced (e.g. NTP Reflection). Or do you actually think a bunch of computers running ping are able to bring down a large high bandwidth datacentre, in which case pot meet kettle.

    2. Re:We never thought that anyone would... by Maow · · Score: 1

      ...figure out the ping command. Sending packets? Only a mastermind.

      There's a lot more to modern DDoS attacks via amplification / reflection than a bunch of ping packets (from 2013):

      Recently, DDoS attacks have spiked up well past 100 Gbps several times. A common move used by adversaries is the DNS reflection attack, a category of Distributed, Reflected Denial of Service (DRDos) attack. To understand how to defend against it, it helps to understand how it works.

      100 Gbps is staggeringly large and nearly impossible to defend against. "Well past 100 Gbps" is mind boggling. Didn't RTFA to see the scale of this DDoS, but the scale of them today is significant to say the least.

    3. Re:We never thought that anyone would... by Bengie · · Score: 1

      100Gb is nothing these days. We now have 32Tb/s trunk lines with 400Gb/s channels, soon 1Tb/s channels. Core routers rated in petabits per second. 100Gb just doesn't seem like a lot.

  10. editing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Overwatch, Hearth Stone, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Heroes of the Stone"

    ah yes, the famous titles by Bliz Zard from Activest vision

    If you're going to post gaming news, maybe knowing the actual game titles could lend some credibility

  11. Someone put out the memo by stealth_finger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    DDoS isn't hacking.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    1. Re:Someone put out the memo by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Anything is hacking these days according to the media. Didn't ya get the memo? Sneezing is hacking, rubbing a balloon against someones head is hacking. DDoSing 127.0.0.1 is also hacking.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Someone put out the memo by Calydor · · Score: 1

      You need to stop posting my IP on the internet!

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    3. Re:Someone put out the memo by Ravaldy · · Score: 1

      The process for achieving a DDoS requires what you would like to consider "hacking".

      The actual definition of hacking however includes any computer crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    4. Re:Someone put out the memo by Ravaldy · · Score: 1

      No, it's the definition. The media is using the word properly.

    5. Re:Someone put out the memo by yodleboy · · Score: 1

      "DDoS isn't hacking." No it's a network micro-aggression.

    6. Re:Someone put out the memo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not even remotely. The word isn't old enough that it is immutable. DDoSing is about as much "hacking" as playing with yourself is (maybe even less since hackers actually do the latter.)

  12. Ya'll are underestimating the accomplishment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, its a DoS. But its a DoS of the authentication service Blizzard has put a LOT of time and effort into, going as far as grafting it on to existing games. It's handling millions of requests from every corner of the planet every day... and you think all it took was a skiddies "babby's first syn flood" to bring it down?

  13. New game revealed by this DDoS? by darniil · · Score: 1

    The outages led to authentication lockouts for gamers attempting to access Overwatch, Hearth Stone, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Heroes of the Stone, and others.

    Looking forward to seeing if it's any good.

  14. They released a new game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    didn't know that blizzard released Heroes of the Stone...

    1. Re:They released a new game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a competitor to Hearthstorm, right?

  15. Re: Ya'll are underestimating the accomplishment.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Bring it down" is a huge overstatement. The majority of people had no problem logging on, a few had to try twice and a very small number were locked out for a de minimus length of time. Not exactly hacking the Gibson, yo.

  16. it wuz haxx0rz! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, just another poser s'kiddie. But that's the only kind you get on /. these days. You just know where the editor's sympathies are.

  17. New game from Blizzard! by Vegan+Cyclist · · Score: 1

    Heroes of the Stone? Wow - can't wait for this new game!

    And isn't the 'others' really just Starcraft...? (If you clump the Warcraft games in with WoW.)

  18. So much for the dark web... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would have thought, by now, that someone who ran ddos/mass account theft on popular gaming networks would be found face down on the keyboard already, victim of a distributed fundraising campaign with stretch goals that included finger removal.

    1. Re:So much for the dark web... by Spamalope · · Score: 1

      with stretch goals that included finger removal.

      I think that's the best way to handle persistent spammers. Spend the anti-spam infrastructure budget on the dark web and hold a quarterly drawing to decide which top 20 spammer gets the contract.

  19. WOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An idiot knocks Blizzard offline for one hour and he's a headliner across the world

  20. Good anybody can run their own overwatch server by nyet · · Score: 1

    Oh, wait.

  21. The real problem by JustNiz · · Score: 2

    OK so you have managed to build a botnet large enough to give you the potential to apply pressure to change the world in some small way, and the best you can come up with is to ruin the weekend for a few kids by disrupting traffic to some game servers? Pathetic, just Utterly Pathetic.
    Thats the real trouble with Lizard Squad and all the other DDOS skript kiddies these days. They have zero fucking style or imagination.

  22. LITERALLY-- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The United States NSA are the actual Lizard Squad.

    Literally, not in jest. Not a joke. Not a euphemism. Not a casual Slashdot troll.

    They are the mother fucking Lizard Squad.

    1. Re:LITERALLY-- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, the actual group "Anonymous" are Israeli state-sponsored.

  23. We know one thing by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    With a name like AppleJ4ck, it does tell us that he's part of a team. Expect more hacks from Flutt3rShy, P1nkieP1e, R4riTy, Rainb0wD4sh and Tw1l1ghtSp4rkle.

    1. Re:We know one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, most bronies aren't retarded DDOSers.

    2. Re:We know one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's right we're not. I'm still moderating the parent "Funny" though, 'cause it made me laugh.

    3. Re:We know one thing by WallyL · · Score: 1

      My Little Pwnies?

  24. It's a DDOS by phorm · · Score: 1

    Anyone, including a bank, can be DDOS'ed. It's just a matter of firepower, and is's not particularly complicated.

    I might get upset if my bank got *hacked* due to some poor security practice - especially if money was last - but I wouldn't be that upset at the bank itself for a 1h DDOS due to self botnet loser.

    In either case the guy doing the attacks needs to face some consequences though.

  25. Xbox live support number by moinsodi · · Score: 0

    Xbox live support number Happy weekend Xbox gamers! If we've missed you, shoot us another phone team here. 1 855 388 0710