Unhappy with a perceived lack of updates to PC sensation Minecraft, a group of gamers initiated a distributed denial of service attack on the game's servers earlier this week. A DDoS attack floods a target server with so many requests for information that it can't handle the load and prevents legitimate requests (i.e. players) from gaining access.
According to game creator Markus Persson, such attacks are usually performed with trojans secretly hidden on other people's computers. So not only are the hackers targeting Minecraft, they're using other players'computers to do it.
Why attack Minecraft? A group claiming responsibility for the attack appeared on 4chan (so you know they're cool)claimingthey had over 80,000 hijacked computers ready to initiate another attack should Persson not update the game quickly. Ironically, the attack forced Persson to upgrade his servers and put him behind schedule, possibly delaying the demanded updates even more.
Let's break down the reasoning: You buy an indie game created by a single person. The game gains popularity, allowing said individual to expand his business in order to provide you with more content. He has promised you additional content available on Halloween,but you grow impatient anyway, so you initiate a massive attack that delays the very updates you're demanding? Classy.
[Source: http://notch.tumblr.com/]
Oct 27, 2010
Hilarious Minecraft cover framed and mailed to beloved indie game designer
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