back to article Dotcom 'saved' Xmas for Xbox – but no one can save Sony's titsup PlayStation Network

A string of denial-of-service attacks that took down Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network on Christmas Day appear to have stopped – and New Zealand-based file-sharing baron Kim Dotcom claims the ceasefire is all thanks to him. The portly polymath tweeted on December 25 that he was peeved at not being able to play Destiny …

  1. Haku

    Snow in GTA Online

    During Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Rockstar turned on the snow in GTA Online, I had a good few hours of play under my belt on Christmas Eve and was with friends most of the next day, the Liberator monster truck & Sandking XL were my favourite 'snowmobiles'.

    Quite a few gamers are quite understandably pissed off at the network attacks because it prevented them from enjoying the (very) short duration of snow.

    IMHO 2 days of snow was not enough, especially as most people would've had obligations to be with friends/family. A week would've sufficed, enough to really enjoy it and start wishing things got back to normal.

  2. ecofeco Silver badge

    Sony, now synonymous with?

    Will Sony soon become the synonym for FAIL?

    "No baloney, it's a Sony!" Sad how the mighty have fallen.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sony, now synonymous with?

      Ignore what's written here. It's fashionable to hate Sony, even make new up. PSN has been working fine here since about lunchtime. Playing Drive club online. Good times..

      What's bad, is we now reward hackers to stop. That's a very dangerous game to play.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    dotcome lives

    great twist to the story

  4. Downside

    Really?

    He claims it but did he really? What was lizardsquad.info all about?

  5. Mark 85
    WTF?

    Let's see if I got this right....

    The big guy bribed the DDoS'ers to stop the attack. I wonder why he bribed them with that much? I doubt that there's 3.000 LizardSquad members. And is it coincidence that they're now tagging 3000 relays? The big guy got to play his game but what's going to be the cost to everyone else?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's a trap!

    'Free' accounts could be a great way to identify lizard squad members. If I were involved, I'd be very careful to only connect through Tor or other proxies.

    1. Adrian 4

      Re: It's a trap!

      Tricky, if their Cunning Plan is to take Tor down.

      I don't see a real downside to encouraging DDos on game sites though. Perhaps it will make people reconsider the advantages of systems that still work when someone else's infrastructure is broken.

  7. Charles Manning

    Dotcom bah!

    Given dotcom's ability to fabricate "evidence" etc, I would not be at all surprised if he orchestrated the whole episode to try drum up brownie points.

    3000 freebies to whomever takes him from our shores.

    1. Starace
      Devil

      Re: Dotcom bah!

      Kim does have a lot of form when it comes to DDOS attacks. I know enough people who were on the receiving end.

      And he also has a huge amount of form when it comes to self promoting bullshit.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Prison awaits

    These crims should spend a long, long, long time behind bars if they can't be hanged.

    1. AlbertH

      Re: Prison awaits

      No - Microsoft and Sony need to take basic security seriously. They still don't - they're just interested in their gigantic profits.

      It must be remembered - Microsoft have NEVER released ANY properly working software.....

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        AlbertH

        I was all set to "upvote" that, until I got to your final comment. I imagined your spittle-flecked screen and chuckled inwardly as I hit the down arrow.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: AlbertH

          Eadon: The Sequal....

          Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid....

        2. Adrian 4

          Re: AlbertH

          Spittle, maybe.

          But can you identify something Microsoft released that works properly ? Or anything, really, except perhaps TeX.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: AlbertH

            I've been known to speak well of Excel. I've used it in predictive epidemiological modeling/analysis and I've done some rather large neural nets as well. Add all of econometrics and sociometrics, far more flexible than the custom tools we were using at the time. Those were all done in Excel '97, so it had some teeth to it way back when. I can't speak to the Excel 2007+ analytics or modeling.

          2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

            Re: AlbertH

            But can you identify something Microsoft released that works properly?

            Its mice are great.

  9. silent_count

    While I don't support DoS-ing either gaming network, this incident has neatly demonstrated the failings of need-to-be-online games to the general public.

    1. Adrian 4

      Why do they do this, anyway ? Aren't games just for something to do when the interwebs are broken ?

      1. Steven Raith

        No, that's your local porn stash.

        Just me?

        Oh.

        Steven R

  10. Duffaboy

    Lulsec ?

    Their calling card is kinda simular

  11. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Flame

    I really

    hope the members of lizardsquad or whatever they're called get older, grow up a bit, get hitched, have kids then try to deal said 8 and 10 yr old kids when a bunch of wankers takes down a major games network over christmas....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I really

      Aaaww, you're warming our hearts! We knew from the start it's all about children. Especially around Christmas. By the way, did it ever cross your mind maybe those criminals don't want their children to become gamers ?

      1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: I really

        I've had that scene played out for me when mad uncle Boris bought his nephews some racing game or other... maybe it was a zombie game and my brother wheeled out the PS3 he got them, we stuck the disc in and it said "Must update system to 2.41 to play this game, please wait...." and it took 30 mins or so

        That was enough of a nightmare for us to make sure the games were loaded and ready to play on christmas eve for ever after.

        As for wanting your kids not to be gamers ....... hahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahah report back when you tried stopping them

  12. Tigra 07

    No...

    If you looked on Twitter first before hitting publish you would have seen a branch of Anonymous (@FinestSquad) taking credit for the attack on lizard squad, including getting their twitter taken down, revealling the DDOSsers identities, and also getting a few of them arresed. All cited and listed on their handy informative website

  13. Craig Foster

    Slack Sony

    Note that the "PSN Status : Offline" message last modified date is Dec 25th.

    It's like they shrugged their shoulders and decided to leave it until Monday when their holidays end.

    At least XBox Live updated every half a day or so.

  14. EzJ

    Incorrect

    I was disconnected from PSN twice Christmas day for minutes. Apart from that, psn has been fine. I'm online as I type this and so are many of my friends. The author is talking rubbish.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Incorrect

      Or it didn't break everywhere at the same time?

      Or it only affected sign-on (as per the article) so anybody already signed in would be unaffected?

      A DDoS attack often doesn't totally take down a service, it just makes it very slow for normal users in some regions.

      Your "Works for me" just means it worked for you, not for anybody else.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Call me a tinfoil hat but...

    Isn't it just possible that Kim Dotcom is Lizard Squad? Fighting the media at night, bribing himself to stop during the day? Maybe he is not even aware of his alter ego.

  16. Mr Templedene

    This is why

    I was advising my friends to set up consoles before Christmas, to avoid disappointment. Not sure how many bothered to take my advice.

    Some of them handwaved me away saying, oh I don't understand it all, the kids can do it.

    Even if there had been no hack, the sheer load on the servers would probably have brought them down anyway.

    And lets face it D-DOSing these server on Christmas day isn't exactly a challenge.

  17. Shady
    Joke

    Nintendo are strangely silent....

    ... maybe they orchestrated the attacks to prop up boxing day sales of the Wii U.

  18. razorfishsl

    So he bent over paid a ransom ... and thinks it is something to boast about?

    1. Scroticus Canis
      Holmes

      "So he bent over paid a ransom ..." - Codswallop!

      Don't talk rubbish, he couldn't bend over with all that suet and lard in the midriff even if he wanted to. As to the ransom, who knows?

  19. BitDr

    Connecting the dots...

    All three thousand of them. Lizard squad gets 3000 vouchers from Kim Dot com to stop their attack on the game networks, and three thousand tor relays then spin up to try to take down tor.

  20. stringyfloppy

    <<Lizard Squad – which claimed responsibility for the attacks...>>

    Lizard Squad didn't "claim responsibility." They "admitted guilt."

  21. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    So greasy...

    A) Who takes down a game network over Christmas, for any reason? Bah humbug.

    B) Who decides they will bribe said greasy DDOSers? (This is not nearly as bad as the actual DDOS'ing though.)

    C) Finally, it makes Lizard Squad double-greasy that they would accept this payment, then just start DDOS'ing again like 1 or 2 days later!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like