On Tuesday, it was announced that Austin Thompson, age 23, the mastermind behind the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on several gaming servers and sites globally, as well as the DerpTrolling Twitter account, would serve 27 months (two years and three months for my fellow mathematically challenged brethren) in prison. He will also be paying out $95,000 to Daybreak Game Company for his actions.
For context, just shy of six years ago, a group called DERP went on a rampage. They were handing out DDoS attacks across gaming sites and servers on a global scale. The group managed to shut down League of Legends servers and websites including Dota 2, Club Penguin (rest in peace), World of Tanks, Battle.net, and EA.com in a single day (during the holidays in 2013). He also doxed PhantomL0rd, a popular streamer whom he would harass on Twitch. A little less than a week later, Thompson was visited by the feds and leaped out the window to escape. He would go on to plead guilty to damaging a protected computer in November 2018.
He often used the DerpTrolling Twitter account to publicly announce his attacks and brag about them. He details the entire day of December 30, 2013 (the day of the attacks) through tweets about which servers and sites he hit and when. It also includes back-and-forths with PhantomL0rd’s Twitter account. When asked why he was taking down sites and servers, he responded, “for the lulz.” He also was driven partially by a dislike for companies he believed were too hungry for power and money.
After a disappearing act by Thompson, DERP kept active until the arrest on him was made last year. Thompson signed a plea agreement that took responsibility for all of this. He begins his sentence on August 23. Another hacker off the streets. Hopefully, we can all play our games a little more peacefully.
