Lizard Squad Bomb Threat Diverts Sony Exec's Plane To Phoenix 131
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.
Re:Aaaand there goes the lizard squad (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
I can't mod this + enough.
There seems to be a sort of collective dismissal of the power of government in hacker circles, as if the fact that some faceless bureaucrat in a lowly department failing to deploy a firewall to protect trivial information, or the FBI wasting billion$ on a worthless systems upgrade, were representative of the technological competency of the whole of the US gov't.
I doubt that's the case.
What people fail to understand is that the government is *huge* and as easy as it is to find laughable examples of waste, abuse, and outright incompetence, that's only one end of the bell curve.
The OTHER end has incredibly competent people, giant fat gobs of money, and a wealth of resources that beggar the imagination (ie if they need something and cannot ask for or buy it, they can resort to overt legalities like subpoenas, or not-so-legal methods like property condemnation, deportation, or IRS audits) to compel behavior in pursuit of their goals. Further, the great bulk of the US populace (ie not the very vocal 0.01% on internet chat boards) is IN FAVOR OF LAW AND ORDER, full stop, and will cheerfully volunteer cooperation to "the authorities" however they can. The US federal gov't has tremendous credibility with most of the population.
My point is enthusiastically reiterating the OP: it's one thing to hack some nerd-gamer servers, but when you attack the infrastructure of the US (and make no mistake, that's what this was) you will come to the attention of the 'sharp, pointy' end of the bellcurve.
Good luck with that.
Re:Anonymous is not amused. (Score:2, Interesting)
You are correct. http://www.gamerheadlines.com/... [gamerheadlines.com]
Re:Aaaand there goes the lizard squad (Score:5, Interesting)
The US federal gov't has tremendous credibility with most of the population.
Oops. You were actually doing quite well until you screwed-up by blurting-out the above load of nonsense: as gullible and dumb as most of the population is, Uncle Sam hardly has "tremendous credibility with most of them."
Re:US Code, Title 18, Part I, Chp 40 844 -Penaltie (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
The real hack (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Aaaand there goes the lizard squad (Score:4, Interesting)
That's assuming that they have jurisdiction. If Lizard Squad is not in the US... Well, better hope their country is on good terms with you guys and is willing to hand them over.
Re:The real hack (Score:5, Interesting)
Its pretty easy - Smeadly said he was going offline on a flight that had no wifi on twitter and that he was heading back to San Diego - he also said this on twitter. So all you have to do is figure out what convention Smeadly was at yesterday - so you know the originating city - and I'm guessing maybe there were a couple flights a day from there to SD.
Its a guess, but its a pretty educated one.
This is like first level private eye stuff here - people really assume everything they do is private, and then they give people clues publicly where they are without a second thought - and then it looks all hackerish like these guys have l33t skills.
Re:Aaaand there goes the lizard squad (Score:3, Interesting)
as gullible and dumb as most of the population is, Uncle Sam hardly has "tremendous credibility with most of them."
Sure he does. You think people don't worship federal law enforcement? Look at the coverage of, say, the Boston bombing; the media and the general public were all lining up to praise any officer who was involved in that situation. Same with Sandy Hook, same with "sabu" and Anonymous, same with every story that gets publicized.
Police abuses are currently part of the national dialogue thanks to what happened in Ferguson, MO. But it took that event, a racially charged shooting, to get national attention and wake people up. Eric Garner being choked to death by NYPD didn't really get much press. The poor child who was disfigured by a SWAT flash-bang in Georgia didn't really get much press. It's just now coming out today that LAPD left an asthmatic man to die while he begged for help, that was almost a year ago and didn't get much press.
The population adores the federal government. The population thinks the NSA spying is all well and good and that Snowden is a traitor.
Congress has one of the lowest approval ratings in history, and yet incumbents continue to be re-elected over and over. Yes, the population is surely gullible and dumb, but to say that Uncle Sam hardly has credibility with them is a farce. The people love their Uncle.