Kim Dotcom Strikes Deal With Lizard Squad to Leave PSN, Xbox Live Alone

Following the outage of the Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live networks on Thursday, for which hacker group Lizard Squad took credit, Internet tycoon and founder of Mega, Kim Dotcom, took to Twitter to try and strike a deal.

If Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia on Twitter) was actually behind the disruption, which it claims to be a DDoS attack, then it appears that Dotcom was successful in his endeavour.

Kim Dotcom offered Lizard Squad 3,000 premium Mega Lifetime vouchers for stopping the attack. Dotcom initiated the conversation with "Hi @LizardMafia, I want to play #Destiny on XBOX Live. I'll give your entire crew Mega lifetime premium vouchers if you let us play. Cool?"

Dotcom further tweeted and asked the Mega management to "approve 3000 @MegaPrivacy premium vouchers for @LizardMafia if they stop attacking XBOX Live and PSN immediately." He also posted the conversation thread between him and Lizard Squad agreeing to the deal and tweeted "A Christmas Miracle. How @MEGAprivacy saved @Xbox & @PlayStation from the @LizardMafia attack. Enjoy your games! :-)".

After the transaction was done, Lizard Squad claimed it had stopped the attacks and tweeted "Thanks @KimDotcom for the vouchers-you're the reason we stopped the attacks. @MegaPrivacy is an awesome service." The hacker group added that they stopped the attacks nearly 2 hours ago and "the current downtime is just the aftermath."

After seemingly getting results with his method, Dotcom tweeted "Obviously, diplomacy works. I recommend that the U.S. Government gives it a try. #MakeLoveNotWar #UseMegaVouchers." He also specified that the offer for free Mega premium accounts would be revoked if the hacker group attacked PSN and Xbox Live again - the private conversation thread between Lizard Squad and Kim Dotcom also reveals the accounts would be converted into Lifetime accounts only if the networks are left alone. "Remember... Lizard Squad only gets the benefit of free Mega premium accounts if they don't attack Xbox Live & PSN again. #ThatsTheDeal"

Both the game networks should soon be accessible as Lizard Squad claims the attacks have now stopped. However, at the time of writing, only the Xbox Live service was up and running (status page), with Sony's status page for PSN showing the service was still offline.

Apart from sharing the private conversation thread, Dotcom took further credit for the resumption of services in a tweet, saying, "Xbox Live and PSN services coming back. Many regions fully restored. Full recovery imminent. Enjoy your gaming holidays. You're welcome :-)". He apparently also received a lot of messages on his Xbox Live account once services resumed, and modestly asked people to stop. "Wow my MEGARACER account is getting spammed with 'Thank you' messages on Xbox Live. STOP! Haha I'm happy you're happy!"

Wow my MEGARACER account is getting spammed with 'Thank you' messages on Xbox Live. STOP! HahaI'm happy you're happy!

Reports speculate that the attack on the gaming networks of Sony and Microsoft was a retaliation for airing the controversial movie The Interview, the former on its own seetheinterview.com site, and the latter on Xbox Video. Though it seems this is not the case based on Lizard Squad's tweets, which indicate the group seems to prefer Nintendo.