[dropcap size=small]A[/dropcap]s most of you know, Playstation Network and Xbox Live have been down for the past few days, just in time to ruin Christmas for all of you who received/purchased an Xbox One or Playstation, 4 or were looking to hide away from awful relatives in your favorite RPG/FPS/FIFA/NFL/NBA/MLB title. I sympathize greatly with you all; I’m one of those poor saps who got a Playstation 4 this weekend (thank you Chase Reward Points) and was unable to connect to PSN.
The question immediately was: Who is responsible for taking down these networks? With Sony on the list of victims, blame quickly shot at North Korea, but a group calling themselves “Lizard Squad“ claimed responsibility for the ‘attacks’; I say ‘attacks’ because it wasn’t the kind of attack these systems have suffered in the past. No personal information was leaked and no internal systems were accessed. All it took for LS to take down these networks was exploiting a weakness in the login protocol that allowed them to artificially inundate the servers with logins, bringing them to a grinding halt and keeping others from logging on.
Once the culprits were identified, the next question became: Why do this? Browsing through their Twitter feed(s) there is no agenda, no reason for the attacks other than “we can, so we did.” It seems the driving force behind Lizard Squad is their own publicity. All of the retweets and favorites include bragging about how they got mentioned in a segment on national news stations.
This is where we are left: How do we fight against these self-promoting scoundrels? The answer I propose: Whenever we hear others in the community talking about Lizard Squad, inform those of what Lizard Squad really is –a group of amateurs who wreak havoc for their own self fulfillment –and we stop talking about them. I was conflicted in even writing this article because I don’t want to add to their publicity, but if their goal is to make a name for themselves, that’s where we attack them: we smear their name and make sure they are forgotten. This post will be removed once PSN and XBL services are fully restored.
Sony and Microsoft are working to get the systems up and running ASAP, with some users being able to log on but many still unable to access online features of their systems. We will keep you updated on system status changes as they come to us. Other than that, hit the ‘nog and enjoy the week leading up to the debauchery filled festival that will be New Years Eve. Happy Holidays.
