On Christmas Day, many gamers around the world found themselves unable to play their favorite games. The reason; The electronics services that power these games, PSN and Xbox Live, were under a group of hackers (Lizard Squad) who claimed responsibility.
Today, Xbox Live seems to work but PSN is still down, although Sony has said it is working to restore it. While players expect services to be fully restored, there are many unanswered questions. Why would anyone do that? What do we not know?
The short answer is "for Lulz", as someone familiar with Internet culture would say, "for fun". But the answer is a little more complicated.
Η Daily Dot today published an interview with some of the Lizard Squad, the group that claims to have taken down the online services. He is also alleged to be behind some other attacks in the past.
Of course no one can confirm that the Lizard Squad downloaded PSN and Xbox Live using denial-of-service attacks. But the timing fits: the team claimed that Xbox Live and PSN would not be running for Christmas for almost a month before launching the service. It might be a coincidence, but it probably isn't. The Lizard Squad said they downloaded PSN and Xbox Live at Christmas to prove the "incompetence" of Microsoft and Sony.
"Microsoft and Sony are fucking backward, and literally monkeys behind computers," one Lizard Squad member told The Daily Dot. "They would be better off hiring someone who knew what they were doing. "If they went from prison to hiring people who had been convicted of things like this, they would have a better chance of preventing such attacks."
"If I worked [at Microsoft or Sony] and had a big enough budget I could stop these attacks completely," another Lizard Squad member claimed. “I would have bought more bandwidth, special equipment, and set it up properly. It is a programming skill. With an attack of this scale he could have gone millions. But that wouldn't be a problem for Sony and Microsoft."
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In a different interview given to BBC Radio, a member of the Lizard Squad was asked if they felt ashamed after they had virtually destroyed children's Christmas.
"If I felt ashamed, I would have apologized, but I can not," was the reply. "With what we're doing, maybe companies can change for the better," he later said, explaining why Lizard Squad downloaded PSN and Xbox Live. He later said that players pay so much for subscriptions to play online, only for Microsoft and Sony to maintain these services. The Lizard Squad seem to be convinced that what they are doing is for the "common good".
"We do not care so much if we disturb the public life," said a member of the Lizard Squad. "Surely they could have a day without playing games. The attack lasted only 12 to 14 hours.
Twitter communication and interviews made by members of the Lizard Squad do not scare them once they get caught?
"There is a chance they will catch us, and I personally do not worry about that, to be honest," a Lizard Squad member told the BBC. "If they catch me, they will catch me. "Maybe I will end up in jail, or maybe I will end up helping businesses get better."
Some claim that what Lizard Squad is doing is not really hacking. But the Lizard Squad have an answer that disagrees.
"Attacks of this scale cannot be done without access in crazy amounts of funding or being able to gain access to the computers that took part, through hacking … you can't do DDoS attacks from your home computer,” Lizard Squad said in the Daily Dot interview. "Not working."
Another member of the Lizard Squad does not sound so sure about his hacking skills during the interview on the BBC radio.
"They would not call me a top hacker. I know people who are much better than me. But I think I know a few things. "
