LIZARD SQUAD is Back. Planning XBL Attack. "Biggest attack yet". [UP: XBL/PSN Down]

Cappa said:
I'm not going to be one of those idiots who make this a OMG XBL IS THE BEST EVARRRRRR but when my primary gaming system was the 360 I recall maybe once I had connectivity issues that weren't my own Internet related..... This is what the third or fourth time in the ps4s lifespan that psn has had issues?

The reason for me that it sucks is because it's my primary system now and I hate this is a reason I would consider to get an xb1
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You said you weren't claiming XBL was better... then went on to heavily imply that XBL is better? :P

I could say exactly the same thing if I moved from PS3 to X1, for whatever that's worth (nothing)
 
Copen said:
So you're cherry picking then? You're cherry picking out the parts of the TOS and your argument that fits your narrative? You specifically said were not entitled to any compensation what so ever for down time and like I said down time is down time be it a day or a year I quoted you and your words. Your argument is based around down time no matter the reason or length gets no compensation. So saying it being down indefinitely then entitled you to compensation in any form IS you contradicting yourself.
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It really isn't. The Terms of Services you agreed to have one part for downtime, and one part for a discontinuation of service. Where that line goes, as in, if the service is discontinued if it is down for a year is a valid source of discussion. However, I never did discuss it. I have not said any of the things you're saying I have. You started with a reducto ad absurdum, reducing my argument to the absurd, by saying "oh yeah, so it can be down forever and it's not their fault?!", to which I replied that that wouldn't be downtime, that would be a discontinuation of their service. That's covered by a different section of the TOS. Other than that, I haven't said anything to it, because you've not asked me about anything like that, but instead try to ridicule my argument by reducing it to the absurd. That won't work, because it was never what I said to begin with. So please come off it.

stemkb said:
SCE have partnered with Amazon Web Services for their PlayStation Network. AWS is consistently ranked higher than Microsoft's own Azure network. No easy push over. They must have discovered a weak link in the chain somewhere. Perhaps the way PSN is linked.
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I'm assuming here that since the service isn't their own, they won't be free to use it as dynamically as Microsoft can. What I mean is that I'd assume Microsoft has a more robust load-balancing for their authentication, whereas we can now see that the auth servers lie behind a distinct prolexic-address (blackhole.prolexic.com), which seems to be where traffic stops.
 
Live Free or Die said:
They just posted on their official blog.
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Air Zombie Meat said:
They just did apparently. A bit late but better than never.
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Yes, I see they released something just as I posted, but the problem with that statement is they didn't say anything we didn't already know, or that the company hasn't stated ad nauseum on Twitter. Unfortunately, by repeating the "Thanks again for your patience" line so many times, it comes off more like an automated reply from a bot than a human being communicating with consumers.
 
What the hell did I miss? I went to bed right after I saw Playstation's tweet about PSN coming back online. I checked on my Vita and it was working. Why is it down again??? Do we know?

Are those Lizard assholes at it again?
 
Lrrr said:
Yes, I see they released something just as I posted, but the problem with that statement is they didn't say anything we didn't already know, or that the company hasn't stated ad nauseum on Twitter. Unfortunately, by repeating the "Thanks again for your patience" line so many times, it comes off more like an automated reply from a bot than a human being communicating with consumers.
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What exactly are you expecting them to say that they haven't already?
 
NoFaceNico said:
Sony should really give out some free stuff to make up for this.

... not that I play online or was planning on buying anything from PS Store any time soon, I just want some free shit.
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No, I hope that they don't give out any sort of compensation because giving out anything will make the assholes DDoS more for "results." The same way Kim gave them the Mega coupons yet here we are again.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of them are expecting stuff out of this now especially since they sounded like they wanted to get hired for doing this.
 
Baldwin_the_First said:
I feel for those who were alone on Christmas and all they wanted was to drown in games and be with online friends at the very least to forget about it.
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Well put. Not only that, but the countless number of kids who had been waiting for weeks to play with their new device. Opening up and diving into my games on Christmas morning remain some of the most awesome memories I have. This really is shameful.

And I think the point some of you are missing in regard to "PSN vs XBL" is that it seems the former is more often plagued with problems. Whether that perception is fair/accurate is unclear but it definitely exists. I don't know why and I don't know how but it just seems that way. I can think of no other online service/store front that has this many issues and downtime.
 
Caja 117 said:
It doesnt, but it does state that they are not legally liable for any type of service interruption, meaning they have no obligation to compensate customers, as I said before if they do so, its as a Thank you, but not because they are under any obligation to do so. this is/should be the same for any Service of this nature, be it Online shoping, Video Gaming or Banking.



In the TOS everything is covered under "does not warrant that the service and content will be uninterrupted, error-free or without delays" that includes Downtime for Maintainance and Because of outside factors.



I dont think under any law such thing is possible given the nature of this interruption, unless the company was found that it was negligible trough the whole issue. (but most of my Knowledge of Internet TOS comes from Electronic Banking, so Im not sure how different is for Entertaiment)
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If it's not specifically covered in the contract it can't be implied. And it states nowhere that if their network is attacked or hacked they aren't responsible or accountable to their paying customers. Why doesn't it state that? Because nobody would agree to it and so here we are.
 
Copen said:
If it's not specifically covered in the contract it can't be implied. And it states nowhere that if their network is attacked or hacked they aren't responsible or accountable to their paying customers. Why doesn't it state that? Because nobody would agree to it and so here we are.
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That's not how legal contracts work. You don't have to state specifics. Sony state that their services might be down, to put it in layman's terms.
 
stemkb said:
SCE have partnered with Amazon Web Services for their PlayStation Network. AWS is consistently ranked higher than Microsoft's own Azure network. No easy push over. They must have discovered a weak link in the chain somewhere. Perhaps the way PSN is linked.
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Working for a company who is a heavy user of both, I would personally disagree; that said, a big factor (I would think), is that MSFT is integrated and Sony is not. It's probably far easier for MSFT to redeploy-optimize resources (personnel and network hardware), especially over the holiday period, to work on fixing network issues than it is for Sony to work with Amazon to get this done.
 
SpasilliumX11 said:
So good

HMk3g5Q.jpg
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Hahahaha. That's amazing.
 
Septimius said:
Very fair questions. It depends. One scenario might be that all the PSN servers are behind one route in. This means that if you try to log in, or if you try to access something, you're going the same way through the network. If I then attack the PSN auth servers, I can fill up the links for all other services. Then you'd place a restriction on the amount of bandwidth for one service, or one address. That would mean the attack couldn't stop all other services you're running, but log in would still be down.

The problem is that you need to block traffic from those that are attacking. Reflective NTP attacks were all the rage half a year ago. You could get any server or router or anything that would help other devices sync what time it is (NTP-protocol) to spam whatever you wanted. Basically, you told a server "hey, this address wonders what time it is". Actually what you did was say "So, you can tell me what time it is, right? But, where do you get the time you know it is from? Can't you tell me the 300 servers you know of that you get the time from?" and pretend it was sent from, say, PSN. Then routers, servers and other things all over the world would start telling PSN "here are all the servers I know of:". You'd amplify what traffic you can create by sending one tiny packet to one server and have it send a lot, lot more back to what you were attacking. But the internet is basically closed down for that type of attack now. Or, it should be.

Botnets are what's being used now. You infect machines, or take over hardware, and you abuse it to do your bidding. People provide botnet attacks for money. That's why this is completely ridiculous. If you have a small amount of cash, you can likely shut down a small service for a few hours. You just place an order on a dodgy web page. You don't need to know what you're doing at all. The "organisations" that have these botnets just keep harvesting bots. Fending off these attacks is hard. An easy attack to fend off is to just look at all the packets that comes in and realize"oh, they all say "HELLO I AM AWESOME" (just as an illustrating example)", and stop all packets that say that. But it's likely randomized, and even disguised as "proper traffic". That makes it very hard to stop. You can then start looking for "OK, who's trying to log in five hundred thousand times per second?" and start blocking them. The more you think, the more the counterpart reacts. The internet will always have capacity to overload a service. That's why DDOS can always happen.

We scan for botnets on our network and we find them. They're easy enough to spot. I don' work with that, but I wish other organisations would do the same. There are so many things that are being used in botnets. Getting rid of that is really the only way to stop DDOSes. Or at least severely cripple them. That's when people have to use their own machines to attack. That's when they're easier to catch. Now it's nearly impossible to catch them, since it's never the attackers machine that does the attack.



This didn't really answer my question, and it seems you work in a more peripheral part of networking, not directly handling DDOSes yourself. No criticism meant.
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Where are most of the botnets located?
 
*Splinter said:
What exactly are you expecting them to say that they haven't already?
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I don't expect Sony to repeat the same line over and over. If you peruse social media (which is already a cesspool of idiocy), you'll see that doing so is having a negative effect.
 
bananafactory said:
It's like someone intentionally crashing a semi into your home then blaming the construction guys because they aren't repairing it fast enough. And the XBL comparisons is just your richer neighbour who also had a semi crash into his house having more money to hire more and better people to rebuild it.
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To be fair. one of the reasons I have chosen the 360 and XB1 over the PS3 and PS4 is exactly this reason. Shit happens, but Microsoft seems to be able to roll with it and get back going sooner and easier.

I'm guessing it has to do with the many years in which Microsoft charged for this service, which provided the groups responsible for it a budget and am date to make it worth the money. Sony jumped in late, and was forced to give away games to convince their customers to buy in, which limits the budget they can put towards online services.

Since Games With Gold, XBL has not been as pitch perfect as it once was, either. If companies want to offer me games by subscription, then just do that. Tying them to online access is just awful.
 
Lrrr said:
Yes, I see they released something just as I posted, but the problem with that statement is they didn't say anything we didn't already know, or that the company hasn't stated ad nauseum on Twitter. Unfortunately, by repeating the "Thanks again for your patience" line so many times, it comes off more like an automated reply from a bot than a human being communicating with consumers.
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I guess they want to avoid setting specific time stamps on when things are done because they dont know 100% for sure, and if they miss those deadlines, people would be even more angry.
 
psn said:
Sooo, just tell me how often PSN was down because of DDOS?

And then decide if it is worth to expand your server farm for billions of $ just in case some ppl decide to attack it again. And guess what? Next time they just use twice as much infected hardware to attack..

I've had less problems with PSN this year than I had with Steam this year. Is this a thing now? Because I have problems - everybody has them? There are thousands of people here that rarely have any problems but just ignore them. People who actually have problems are the only ones who count.
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Steam is a pos and is always down every other day. Itd pretty embarrassing. But I love it.
 
Lrrr said:
I don't expect Sony to repeat the same line over and over. If you peruse social media (which is already a cesspool of idiocy), you'll see that doing so is having a negative effect.
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I'm critical of Sony of this whole thing but what else do you expect them to say? Their blog post pretty much just said what we've all known. I'm sure that's all there is to it. I know you want some sort of time table. Hell we all do.

But that's all they are ever going to say. I said this from the start. Also anything they said would have a negative reaction.
 
esmith08734 said:
So I got a new PS4 for Christmas. I haven't turned it on since I got it. Will I need PSN to get started?
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You should be able to play your games but any trophies you earn won't carry over since you aren't signed in to your system.

However, you can try using this trick here to see if you can log in to your console, then you should be good to go.
 
Jest Chillin said:
Your definition of down time is incorrect. In order for there to be "down time" there must be "up time." If there is no "up time" then there can be no "down time" only a lack of services that are advertised as being provided for a fee.
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Some people CAN get online and use services other like me can't so in the TOS down time is implied even if you haven't signed in for over a year. You were on and now you're not so I have the correct definition of what down time is. My issue is the scenario that Sony owes nobody anything because of what's happened I find that comical. In the world we live in the customer is always right and the fact is were paying for a service we are not getting and once you get past all the legal jargon bullshit that is the core issue. Sonys always had some sort of TOS yet they're sued anyway there's always a loop hole for an attorney smart enough to find it so Sonys TOS isn't iron clad and infallible. I'm not asking for compensation I'm merely stating that if enough time goes by customers asking for compensation isn't unreasonable under any circumstances.
 
Lrrr said:
I don't expect Sony to repeat the same line over and over. If you peruse social media (which is already a cesspool of idiocy), you'll see that doing so is having a negative effect.
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They're not going to go into a technical step by step of what they're doing. Their blog post says everything, the network is under attack and they are working hard to fix it.

I don't really know what else people expect them to say.
 
Lrrr said:
It's unbelieveable that PSN is still down. If Sony would, at the very least, release a proper statement detailing why its network is having trouble coming back, and staying, online, it would help alleviate some of the anger you see building in consumers. Does no company involved with gaming have a proper PR division anymore?
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Lrrr said:
I don't expect Sony to repeat the same line over and over. If you peruse social media (which is already a cesspool of idiocy), you'll see that doing so is having a negative effect.
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Right, but you already criticised them for saying nothing. So ruling out 'nothing' and what they've already been saying, what exactly are you hoping for them to say?
 
One of the reasons you have so many Zombie PC's are the many, many PC's out there that have not upgraded from Windows XP (or even Windows 95!!). Anti-Virus won't prevent system vunerabilites from being hacked, as those systems don't get MS updates. Sadly, the users never upgraded to Windows 7/8 or switched to Linux OS versions that were are still being patched.

PC's aren't the only threat...there are distributed systems that are vunerabile, including printers!!! (yes, the ones that run mini web servers and are "cloud aware").

The current infrastructure is an issue. You have a small number of servers that serve millions of game consoles/PC's. It's easy to point a Zombie network of millions of PCs to a small number of DNS, and harder to defend against. As many of the Network Engineers here have said, companies can't plan for attacks of that size on the current infrastructure (they plan for normal issues, not maximum bandwith usage...same as the cable companies, who promise full internet, but presume you're not using yours 95% of the time).

What's the answer? It has to be something scaleable, but without the costs associated with mega servers. I'd like to toss this out to NeoGaf's NE's, though...

Why not use something like Blizzard's WOW/Starcraft II/Diablo III's system of torrent to download system updates/Licenses? Sony could offer discounted PSN for users who contribute bandwith as well. This would make it difficult for the Zombie PCs...you'd have millions of PC's out there they would have to try and DDOS, instead of just a few centralized servers. In effect, instead of the one "doorbell", you'd have a massive game of "Whack-a-Mole"!

This would change the game for guys like the LizardSquad (and don't doubt this for a second...you'll have copy-cats of those guys if the LS make out like Bandits). It would cost incredible amounts of money to DDOS all the IPs that would be involved in Torrent distribution. It would also tick off the Record companies and the Movie Producers, but that's a side benefit!
 
Dominican Power said:
Where are most of the botnets located?
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A botnet means what "bots" you control. "My botnet" would be the network of things I could command. If I worked to gather a botnet, I'd likely start scanning stuff for weaknesses and use it to get access. Then that would be in my botnet. Or I could start spreading a virus that makes other people's computers into bots I could use. "Where" isn't really relevant, in terms of the internet. Of course, if I knew that a cheap router was being made and sold in one country that had a severe flaw, I'd likely start going through IPs in that country. But I don't really know if there's any geo-differences in botnets. A botnet is identified by it being random hardware and PCs being used to attack a common target.

JohnF76 said:
One of the reasons you have so many Zombie PC's are the many, many PC's out there that have not upgraded from Windows XP (or even Windows 95!!). Anti-Virus won't prevent system vunerabilites from being hacked, as those systems don't get MS updates. Sadly, the users never upgraded to Windows 7/8 or switched to Linux OS versions that were are still being patched.

PC's aren't the only threat...there are distributed systems that are vunerabile, including printers!!! (yes, the ones that run mini web servers and are "cloud aware").

The current infrastructure is an issue. You have a small number of servers that serve millions of game consoles/PC's. It's easy to point a Zombie network of millions of PCs to a small number of DNS, and harder to defend against. As many of the Network Engineers here have said, companies can't plan for attacks of that size on the current infrastructure (they plan for normal issues, not maximum bandwith usage...same as the cable companies, who promise full internet, but presume you're not using yours 95% of the time).

What's the answer? It has to be something scaleable, but without the costs associated with mega servers. I'd like to toss this out to NeoGaf's NE's, though...

Why not use something like Blizzard's WOW/Starcraft II/Diablo III's system of torrent to download system updates/Licenses? Sony could offer discounted PSN for users who contribute bandwith as well. This would make it difficult for the Zombie PCs...you'd have millions of PC's out there they would have to try and DDOS, instead of just a few centralized servers. In effect, instead of the one "doorbell", you'd have a massive game of "Whack-a-Mole"!

This would change the game for guys like the LizardSquad (and don't doubt this for a second...you'll have copy-cats of those guys if the LS make out like Bandits). It would cost incredible amounts of money to DDOS all the IPs that would be involved in Torrent distribution. It would also tick off the Record companies and the Movie Producers, but that's a side benefit!
Click to expand...

There are many reasons, but all in all, even if we had this system in place, PSN would still be down today. You can't authenticate via "torrent network". It's the auth servers that are down.
 
*Splinter said:
His argument is clear and very simple to understand. Either read it again slower or stop wilfully misinterpreting it trying to win an Internet 'point'
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I didn't misinterpret anything I quoted his words which were nobody is entitled to any compensation for down time. Which would include PSN never coming back up. You read it slower so you can understand mm kay. I obviously have a different opinion and it won't change so let's leave it at that. It's okay that my opinion differs from yours right? Is that okay?
 
Copen said:
If it's not specifically covered in the contract it can't be implied. And it states nowhere that if their network is attacked or hacked they aren't responsible or accountable to their paying customers. Why doesn't it state that? Because nobody would agree to it and so here we are.
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You are just been in denial:

19.Limits on our liability and your rights
As far as permitted by law, we are not responsible or liable for nor do we give warranty or representation in relation to:
(i)The quality, functionality, availability, completeness, accuracy or performance of the SEN or its products;
(ii)Any errors, bugs or viruses in, or malicious use of, the SEN or its products;
 (iii)Inability to purchase or use any products available via the SEN;
(iv)The activity and shared materials of other SEN users or hackers;
(v)Services and/or products provided by third parties;
(vi)Incompatibility of products with Sony systems licensed for sale outside of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Russia and Oceania;
(vii)Loss of data, loss of or damage to software or hardware or unauthorised access to your SEN account as a result of using or accessing the SEN; and
(viii)Your Internet connection, including connection, data and roaming charges and any failure to have sufficient bandwidth to download or stream products from SEN.

This is Europe TOS, USA TOS is less similar but it does cover the same, it doesnt need to have the wording "DDoS by the LizardSquad" to be valid, interruption of service, Bugs, Virus, Etc are words used for this.
 
bananafactory said:
They're not going to go into a technical step by step of what they're doing. Their blog post says everything, the network is under attack and they are working hard to fix it.

I don't really know what else people expect them to say.
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"Whoops! Sorry! It was unplugged here! Our bad!"

People are idiots. They think bitching will get them what they want since it has worked in the past elsewhere.
 
test_account said:
I guess they want to avoid setting specific time stamps on when things are done because they dont know 100% for sure, and if they miss those deadlines, people would be even more angry.
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Boke1879 said:
I'm critical of Sony of this whole thing but what else do you expect them to say? Their blog post pretty much just said what we've all known. I'm sure that's all there is to it. I know you want some sort of time table. Hell we all do.
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You are both wrong. I don't want Sony to provide a timetable; in fact, I think that's the worst thing they could do at this time. That said, they really need to stop with the "Thank you for your patience" line because it's only serving to make their consumers angrier since that's all we've been hearing for nearly two days.
 
Petrae said:
Anecdotally speaking, it's already cost Sony a sale. Talking with a family member today over lunch, he backed out of buying a PS4 from Best Buy after hearing about this PSN crisis. I can't say that I blame him.

He wanted to upgrade to play a better version of Dragon Age Inquisition, but instead will continue to play the 360 version, he said.
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Too bad. His loss...
 
Lrrr said:
You are both wrong. I don't want Sony to provide a timetable; in fact, I think that's the worst thing they could do at this time. That said, they really need to stop with the "Thank you for your patience" line because it's only serving to make their consumers angrier since that's all we've been hearing for nearly two days.
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People have serious issues if a company saying thank you for your patience is actually making them angry.
 
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