Lulzsec Hacks Bethesda

[JET1971]

newsroom is slow on the weekends isnt it... And I was trying to warn escapist members to do the same thing as bethesda is now advising.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.291117

 

[Firetaffer]

'You're Welcome'

They certainly have quite the god complex to say that just because they didn't do all the harm they could have.

I may not be a hacker, but I don't use my, say, chemistry knowledge to synthesize nitroglycerin and then demand people thank me for not throwing it at their houses.

I think it's more in the line of:

You synthesize nitroglycerin, throw it through someone's house. The person finds out it was all a setup, and the house owner was hooked up to a machine in a similar vein to Inception. No actual damage was done, but there is a known weakness. They did not take any data to their advantage, therefore not really doing anything bad, apart from delay Skyrim.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Why are they so obsessed with game related stuff. I think the hackers are just a bunch of fanboys. God, fanboys with hacking skills... the world was not ready.

 

[ChocoFace]

Seems like we have a few misguided people here.

"I wish anon would hack them" - lulzsec is basically part of Anonymous(all it takes to be among them is be anonymous, duh). Anonymous is not really a group with a definite long-term aim, they do things "for the lulz" just as much.

"If there's no point, why do it" - you don't really understand what the phrase "for the lulz" means, do you?

I'm not in any way defending LulzSec and wish they hadn't done it. I just think the abovementioned opinions would disappear.

 

[SonofaJohannes]

Gee, those guys sure do love hacking, don't they?

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

We actually like this company and would like for them to speed up the production of Skyrim

And so they proceed to hack their system. This would seem counter productive, right?

Their motive was to tell other hackers that have discovered weaknesses with Brink that Lulzsec is the king of the sea. Admittedly, it is. Anonymous may be a contender but they're more or less a band of internet rebels rather than internet pirates as Lulzsec attributes themselves to. Basically, they want to make sure everyone knows that their boat is bigger than everyone elses.

OT: It is only a matter of time before they stop, whether voluntary or involuntary. It is merely a matter of patience on our part before the time arrives when it comes to an end and it is a matter of virtue on the part of the enforcement until they are caught.

 

[Johnson McGee]

I may not be a hacker, but I don't use my, say, chemistry knowledge to synthesize nitroglycerin and then demand people thank me for not throwing it at their houses.

I think it's more in the line of:

You synthesize nitroglycerin, throw it through someone's house. The person finds out it was all a setup, and the house owner was hooked up to a machine in a similar vein to Inception. No actual damage was done, but there is a known weakness. They did not take any data to their advantage, therefore not really doing anything bad, apart from delay Skyrim.

The point I was trying to make was that everyone is better at something, and that being good at hacking doesn't give them a license to lord it over everyone else and flaunt the law.

I wonder if Lulzsec's member(s) were ignored as children. It seems to me this is a case of them thinking negative attention is better than no attention.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

So... wait a second. They hacked Bethesda websites because they wanted them to speed up production of Skyrim? I know I'm not the only one who's saying "What the fuck?!" to this? This is like me hacking UPS because I want them to get my Gamestop order in faster. I mean come on now! I think we all had our fun and this shit is starting to get old. On second thought, scratch that. There was never really any fun in this to begin with. The only thing getting accomplished here is the companies involved being hurt and in turn unable to produce quality products. In my eyes, these "Lulz Boat" assholes are the epitomy of fucking stupid.

 

[freaper]

Anon does shit for the lulz too. But most of the time it's worth something.

I'm just hoping they get bored before attacking other good producers.

 

[Gitty101]

I wish they'd just go off and die somewhere... This is getting rather annoying. It's just a matter of time before they're tracked down, I just wish the authorities would hurry up about it.

 

[ishist]

You people are ridiculous. Did you read the response from Bethesda? It amounted to "Oh, we hadn't noticed that vulnerability in our security, we're going to fix that now." Lulzsec didn't break anything, they didn't steal anything, they didn't even bring down the servers, they brought a vulnerability to light that very may well have been exploited at a different time by malicious hackers who want your CC data so they can steal your money. But Oh! Lulzsec Should be Lynched and burnt at the stake and disembowled and such for.....for....because!

 

[Therumancer]

I think the obvious point is being missed here. Brink is a game that by all accounts is a second rate rip off of "Team Fortress". Like almost every other attempt to do something that isn't an RPG, Bethesda has basically produced a second rate product. I think what the Lulzboat is doing is nuking "Brink" as a way of saying "let this die, and invest the effort in what your really good at.

See, by giving back the information that they took from all of Bethesda's other products everyone knows what they got, and information protection services can go to work. With Brink it's a little more difficult because it's unknown how much they walked away with, and if they still have their fingers in it.

If people stop playing Brink and the product dies, with Bethesda pulling out the support, that's more effort that can go into their other projects. Supporting something like Brink probably involving a lot of time, effort, and resources on their part (though I could be wrong about that).

At least that's what they seem to be saying, it's not *just* "we hacked you because we liked you, now tighten up your security" there is actually a point being made here.

Truthfully I'm hardly the only Fallout/Elder Scrolls fan who hasn't wanted to give Bethesda a kick in the keister and get them to keep focusing on the games that I actually want to play, even when it comes to Elder Scrolls spin offs and so on, they have a really bad tendency of producing a sub-standard product outside of their core "sandbox RPG" format.

 

[UltraXan]

ehhhhh... I'm starting to wonder when they are gonna try to hack Valve. I just hope Gabe is aware of what's going on and hunkering down.

 

[Low Key]

I think Bethesda has a good enough sense of humor to put a top hat somewhere in one of their games because of this.

After reading the press release, it looks like a VOIP vulnerability. Another reason why VOIP phones suck and you should never get one.

 

[Duskflamer]

I think Bethesda has a good enough sense of humor to put a top hat somewhere in one of their games because of this.

They should put it in the heart of some extremely hard to break into facility, and then give it some silly effect.

 

[lovest harding]

If they want to enhance security so much and are willing to hack for free, why the hell not just inform Bethesda upfront and simply not take anything instead of turning this into we're going to hack and take stuff for the lulz, then return what was taken saying that they like the company?
I fail to see how this is the best way to inform a company of it's website security issues.

I call bullshit on them just wanting to help their security anyway.
Look at their track record and tell me, honestly, that all they want to do is help companies they like.

People regularly tell companies that their security is lacking. Most companies choose to brush off such comments as fear-mongering or bs.

I'm starting to realize that all of these operations are actually for the overall betterment of the internet. People are starting to pay attention to security, instead of simply assuming that their personal information is completely safe in the hands of a company. Companies are starting to actually listen when people tell them that they are not as invincible as they claim that they are. While I don't agree with them releasing the information that they've managed to get from these sites, overall they are doing something that will hopefully make the internet safer overall. Because they are posting the methods they use to gain access to each of the sites, you better believe that security techs are trying to update their sites ASAP to prevent such breaches from affecting them as well.

I have to disagree that companies would act like that in the current environment (but that's just differing opinions) and unless I see specific evidence of a company after the PSN attack literally ignoring a threat like that I'm inclined to believe that the companies wouldn't just chalk it up as nonsense.

You're giving them more credit then they deserve. They didn't go out searching to fix security issues. Their names and what they've come to claim about themselves (they do it for the lulz). They hack places and then when they hack some place they 'like' they backtrack and say they did it for some noble reason (and then say, in Bethesda's case, that they'll give all the info back because they don't want to mess with the Skyrim development, which if they honestly cared about they shouldn't have touched Bethesda to begin with).

There may be a positive from what's been happening (tighter security), but I would never in a million years give these people the credit. It may spawn from their actions, but they aren't creating the changes, they're creating the environment that calls for a reaction. And we've seen what's happened in a similar situation with game pirates (horrible DRM that only hurts honest customers).

 

[lovest harding]

I think the obvious point is being missed here. Brink is a game that by all accounts is a second rate rip off of "Team Fortress". Like almost every other attempt to do something that isn't an RPG, Bethesda has basically produced a second rate product. I think what the Lulzboat is doing is nuking "Brink" as a way of saying "let this die, and invest the effort in what your really good at.

See, by giving back the information that they took from all of Bethesda's other products everyone knows what they got, and information protection services can go to work. With Brink it's a little more difficult because it's unknown how much they walked away with, and if they still have their fingers in it.

If people stop playing Brink and the product dies, with Bethesda pulling out the support, that's more effort that can go into their other projects. Supporting something like Brink probably involving a lot of time, effort, and resources on their part (though I could be wrong about that).

At least that's what they seem to be saying, it's not *just* "we hacked you because we liked you, now tighten up your security" there is actually a point being made here.

Truthfully I'm hardly the only Fallout/Elder Scrolls fan who hasn't wanted to give Bethesda a kick in the keister and get them to keep focusing on the games that I actually want to play, even when it comes to Elder Scrolls spin offs and so on, they have a really bad tendency of producing a sub-standard product outside of their core "sandbox RPG" format.

So if I go in to a store and decide that that store is selling things I don't think they should I can steal that item (or how about the human resource files, so I have all the stores employee information?) to make the point that it isn't worth selling?

You know what would be as effective? Standing in front of their offices and yelling profanities about how the game sucks!
Hacking Bethesda like this isn't going to make Bethesda look at their games and go, "You know, we got hacked for this game and despite it earning us money we're going to stop making discs and will no longer support the IP at all."

 

[Therumancer]

I think the obvious point is being missed here. Brink is a game that by all accounts is a second rate rip off of "Team Fortress". Like almost every other attempt to do something that isn't an RPG, Bethesda has basically produced a second rate product. I think what the Lulzboat is doing is nuking "Brink" as a way of saying "let this die, and invest the effort in what your really good at.

See, by giving back the information that they took from all of Bethesda's other products everyone knows what they got, and information protection services can go to work. With Brink it's a little more difficult because it's unknown how much they walked away with, and if they still have their fingers in it.

If people stop playing Brink and the product dies, with Bethesda pulling out the support, that's more effort that can go into their other projects. Supporting something like Brink probably involving a lot of time, effort, and resources on their part (though I could be wrong about that).

At least that's what they seem to be saying, it's not *just* "we hacked you because we liked you, now tighten up your security" there is actually a point being made here.

Truthfully I'm hardly the only Fallout/Elder Scrolls fan who hasn't wanted to give Bethesda a kick in the keister and get them to keep focusing on the games that I actually want to play, even when it comes to Elder Scrolls spin offs and so on, they have a really bad tendency of producing a sub-standard product outside of their core "sandbox RPG" format.

So if I go in to a store and decide that that store is selling things I don't think they should I can steal that item (or how about the human resource files, so I have all the stores employee information?) to make the point that it isn't worth selling?

You know what would be as effective? Standing in front of their offices and yelling profanities about how the game sucks!
Hacking Bethesda like this isn't going to make Bethesda look at their games and go, "You know, we got hacked for this game and despite it earning us money we're going to stop making discs and will no longer support the IP at all."

I'm not defending this paticular act. Understand something, when it comes to the Sony situation specifically I have no sympathy for them because as far as I am concerned they stole from their customer base by removing the "other OS" option. Bethesda on the other hand did not do anything of the sort. I am simply explaining why I think they did it, and what their message actually was.

Understand something also, you are 100% correct that a company isn't going to stop doing something they can make money off. On the other hand if you can prevent them from making money, or actually cost them money, then you can hurt them and force their hand. In fact money is the only way to really hurt a business or corperation short of outright physical assault/terrorism. Lulzsec understands this which is why they went after *user data*, they idea is to get those players to stop playing the game, or making it inconveinent or scary for them to do so, scare off enough of the players, Bethesda loses money on the product, and shuts it down.

I'm not saying it's going to work either, simply that this is their avenue of attack, they agree with your assessment which is why they did what they did. They were just straightforward about their motives. They turned over all the data for the other users, but they didn't do it for the Brink servers and users. Everyone is going to go through ID protection after this of course so there is going to be little overt damage now, but every Brink player now knows that Lulzsec is hanging over their head, everything that goes wrong will be blamed on them, and people will be in constant fear that no matter how many times they change their info Lulzsec might be watching.

The point here is clarification since I think some people were missing the point, not approval.

 

[AsurasFinest]

You people are ridiculous. Did you read the response from Bethesda? It amounted to "Oh, we hadn't noticed that vulnerability in our security, we're going to fix that now." Lulzsec didn't break anything, they didn't steal anything, they didn't even bring down the servers, they brought a vulnerability to light that very may well have been exploited at a different time by malicious hackers who want your CC data so they can steal your money. But Oh! Lulzsec Should be Lynched and burnt at the stake and disembowled and such for.....for....because!

Yeah because hacking into companies, stealing information and not publishing the information they got because they "like" the company in question is not a problem!Right?

How about I do the same to you, steal every bit if information about you, blackmail you for money, but gurantee you that I will not tell your mum about the magazines under your bed, well because I "like you more than the other people I've done this to and that one piece of information not being used against you should make up for this