This morning people awoke to discover “Lizard Squad” trending on Twitter. For video game players who have not heard the name since several alleged Lizard Squad members were arrested several years ago, this probably came as a shock.
Lizard Squad was a hacker group that saw a lot of public activity around 2014 and 2015. The group specifically targeted video game services, disrupting both PlayStation Network and Xbox by taking the networks of both systems offline. They also targeted individual games’ online services, including Call of Duty, FIFA, and Destiny. Once, the group even sent a bomb threat to John Smedley, then the head of Sony Online Entertainment. The identification of the groups’ methods and members (allegedly) came at the hands of a hacker group formed specifically to restore the gaming networks in time for Christmas.
While members of Lizard Squad were arrested, several did not face jail time due to factors including their home country, the nature of the crimes, and their ages (those who were teenagers). This upset many, including victims like Smedley, who declared one hacker would “get what was coming to him.” Since then, aside from former members offering their DDoS expertise for sale (and being arrested for it), Lizard Squad has largely been out of the public eye. They are trending now because of one Lin Wood, a lawyer from Alabama. Wood has, through a series of tweets sent very early in the morning, implicated Lizard Squad in a blackmail scheme that is, to put it lightly, out there.
Wood claims that Lizard Squad hacked into an “elite” intelligence agency (one of the FBI, MI6, CIA or others, although which is not specified) and stole video evidence of individuals being forced to commit rape and murder. The only individual named in Lin Wood’s claims as being blackmailed is Chief Justice John Roberts, and Wood urges President Trump to investigate, claiming to have the encryption key to an encrypted video file of the blackmail. The sort of DDoS attacks Lizard Squad was often involved in could certainly lead to jail time, but this accusation is of something much larger than anything they’ve publicly admitted to before.
As of this article, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that Wood’s claims are factual. Many have responded on Twitter with derision, declaring the series of tweets to be a conspiracy theory. Considering Wood is part of several lawsuits attempting to overturn the presidential election where Trump lost, it’s understandable that many are dismissing his claims. Further distancing the claims from credibility is the fact that Lizard Squad, by its own admission, committed crimes like DDoSing Blizzard seeking thrills, not for a political agenda.
It should be noted that DDoS attacks are serious business in video games. One DDoS attack locked players out of EVE Online for nine days straight. But this is several degrees more serious, and many, many degrees removed from anything that makes sense. Without any sort of evidence (and none has yet been provided), and considering the astoundingly bizarre nature of the claims, all signs point to Wood’s accusations holding no water.
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