Hacker collective LulzSec has set up a telephone hotline to take requests on the next target for their "Lulz cannon", the DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack method that has brought down an ever-increasing array of websites.
A few fortunate callers to 614-LULZSEC or 732-993-7703 reached "Pierre Dubois and Francois Deluxe" (most likely pseudonyms), but most were treated to a recorded "busy raping your Internet" voicemail message. Halfway through the day, the group tweeted "Our number literally has anywhere between 5-20 people ringing it every single second. We can forward it anywhere in the world. Suggestions?"
This led to overflow calls being routed to secondary "phone cannon" targets for additional lulz ("magnets.com representative just confirmed 200+ calls a minute to their customer support."..."FBI in Detroit just got hundreds of calls. That woman was mad.").
The seemingly irrepressible group has possibly even taken the CIA's website offline; at about 5:50pm EDT, @LulzSec tweeted "Tango Down - cia.gov - for the lulz." Repeated attempts to navigated to the official Central intelligence Agency website were unsuccessful, although the website did start to load -- very slowly -- after a few hours of downtime.
A Reuters' request for official comment was met with a simple "we are looking into these reports," from a CIA spokeswoman.
LulzSec has had a meteoric rise to the headlines over the past month, with high-profile DDoS attacks on the websites of PBS (where the group posted a fake "Tupac Shakur Alive and Well and Living in New Zealand" news article), SonyPictures, and the United States Senate.
In recent days, the group has been toying with gamers, first going public with a previous hack of developer Bethesda's servers, and then spending much of Tuesday messing with online multiplayer games such as Eve Online, League of Legends, Minecraft, and gaming magazine The Escapist (one very positive response : "Boyfriend unable to sign on LoL, forced to hang out with me! Thanks@lulzsec ; )"
The reasons? "For the lulz", is the standard response for LulzSec, although hints of minor idealist tendencies do emerge. The PBS hack arose from a "Frontline" story that painted Wikipedia and PFC Bradley Manning in a negative light, and the Sony Pictures hack may or may not have been a reprisal for the company's lawsuit against a PS3 modder.
A few fortunate callers to 614-LULZSEC or 732-993-7703 reached "Pierre Dubois and Francois Deluxe" (most likely pseudonyms), but most were treated to a recorded "busy raping your Internet" voicemail message. Halfway through the day, the group tweeted "Our number literally has anywhere between 5-20 people ringing it every single second. We can forward it anywhere in the world. Suggestions?"
This led to overflow calls being routed to secondary "phone cannon" targets for additional lulz ("magnets.com representative just confirmed 200+ calls a minute to their customer support."..."FBI in Detroit just got hundreds of calls. That woman was mad.").
The seemingly irrepressible group has possibly even taken the CIA's website offline; at about 5:50pm EDT, @LulzSec tweeted "Tango Down - cia.gov - for the lulz." Repeated attempts to navigated to the official Central intelligence Agency website were unsuccessful, although the website did start to load -- very slowly -- after a few hours of downtime.
LulzSec has had a meteoric rise to the headlines over the past month, with high-profile DDoS attacks on the websites of PBS (where the group posted a fake "Tupac Shakur Alive and Well and Living in New Zealand" news article), SonyPictures, and the United States Senate.
In recent days, the group has been toying with gamers, first going public with a previous hack of developer Bethesda's servers, and then spending much of Tuesday messing with online multiplayer games such as Eve Online, League of Legends, Minecraft, and gaming magazine The Escapist (one very positive response : "Boyfriend unable to sign on LoL, forced to hang out with me! Thanks@lulzsec ; )"
The reasons? "For the lulz", is the standard response for LulzSec, although hints of minor idealist tendencies do emerge. The PBS hack arose from a "Frontline" story that painted Wikipedia and PFC Bradley Manning in a negative light, and the Sony Pictures hack may or may not have been a reprisal for the company's lawsuit against a PS3 modder.
