PhantomL0rd's Response to DERP Attacks
Last night, things got serious after a hacker group under the name of DERP started DDOS’ing the game servers of any game the professional streamer PhantomL0rd tried to play and stream.
The situation escalated rather quickly, as someone called the police to “report a hostile situation” and sent them to Phantom’s house, where 6 policemen took action and, according to Phantom’s Facebook Post:
just had an automatic pointed at me, put hand cuffs and sat in the back of a cop car as I watched as 6 policemen go through my whole house…”
After the whole situation happened, James “PhantomL0rd” Varga decided to make a rather lengthy video explaining the situation to his fans, and probably, to respond to the many messages he got by us, the press, without having to write the same message over and over again.
In case you don’t have a free hour to watch the whole video, let me summarize it for you.
Basically, he streams for a living, that’s his job; so, all he has to do is basically start playing games and live-stream his sessions over Twitch to get a paycheck, not to mention viewers’ donations. So yesterday was going to be exactly as every other day.
He started streaming his League of Legends session, when suddenly, a wild DERP appeared. This person, or group, started claiming to take down the game servers of any game Phantom tried to stream. They claimed to do that over Twitch and Twitter. Phantom tried to play other games, having the exact same effect.
Then, DERP made a prank phone call to the police, something that the police didn’t take as a prank at all; they took the call with the seriousness of the situation they got described. So, they sort of went all SWAT on Phantom.
DERP only said “police may be coming," something that Phantom took seriously, so he went outside his house, where he noticed a pizza delivery boy acting “strange” while pointing at him; so he walked down a hill and then spied three police cars and about seven police officers that were nearby, to then notice one police officer who was leaning against a tree while pointing his gun straight at him.
You could clearly see how intense this gun is, I wasn’t scared. I knew what was going on. I was aware of the full situation. I was ready to explain all of this...
Phantom wanted to explain the situation, but the officer made him turn back and walk backwards with his hands where the officer could see them, so then, Phantom got the handcuffs put on, while around “13 to 15 officers arrived”. Phantom tried to explain the situation to a “big white guy” police officer, but he didn’t put any interest into it, and put him into the police car.
He didn’t give a fuck what I was saying...
Minutes later, they opened the car door and let Phantom out.
I later found out that the threat was something like a hostage situation, that I was holding five people hostage. That’s why they were that serious. I realized in the car that I have respect for the police. I’m a pussy. If shit would happen like that, no fucking way. Those people can do that. I just talk about dicks on the internet. A huge respect came out in that car...
All the “evidence” of what I just explained is in the video above, where Phantom shows videos and photos of what happened, and then, he apologizes to everyone--even though he did nothing wrong--about the situation.
The thought is still out there though, after this, Phantom has gotten thousands of new followers, and nothing is being said, despite some questions we have; there most likely won’t be any response to them, but still, it is quite interesting how many new followers he got after this situation...
What do you think about this whole thing?
JohnHeatz
I'm a gamer, a software developer, and the founder of GamersSphere.com. I can always be found either playing games, or writing new articles about the gaming industry.
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I only heard about this today (yes I am slow) and ended up here from Google. It's all very strange event, thanks for breaking it down.
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While it's certainly possible that it was staged to gain viewers, that sort of stunt could easily backfire and won't end up giving him a long-term bump in viewers.
The technique of calling emergency responders as part of a prank is called swatting and it's increasingly common. (According to Wikipedia, it's been done to quite a few celebrities.) I believe at least a few states have laws that require perpetrators to pay the cost of the response. -
totally agree with you, but on these sort of jobs, the paycheck will come by measuring viewers, among other factors, so, at least, he'll be getting quite a nice paycheck whenever the one that shows this peak appears :P
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This seems real and fake at the same time, like Katy Hollingsworth said. Strange.
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Sorry. The comment post thing got stuck or something.
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has been happening lately...oh well!
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140.000 people watching someone else play a game. Do that many people even watch Katie Couric's new show?
Da dum tish! -
hahahaha! Might be, even though, they weren't even watching him play as DERP was taking down every single game server on which Phantom tried to play
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Jeff_2216December 31, 2013, 7:12 pmRegarding the fact that the police let him go as evidence that this is fake. What exactly do you think the procedure is if the police get a tip of a crime, come to your house to investigate and find absolutely no evidence of said crime? What probable cause would they have to detain him further against his will?
Should we question every article that increases your readership as possibly fake? -
Well the thing that has me confused is that those servers and websites did go down. So whether it was staged or not, that actually did happen. The police thing is hard to confirm unless it was on the news of someone that lived by could confirm it and all that.
It's really hard to believe but it's also possible. lol Stupid internet. I wouldn't be surprised if PhantomLord was Derp. =p -
the DDOS attacks are totally possible, hell! I know a bunch of people that can cause servers to go down by DDOS'ing them. But, as mentioned, that peak on views, he got, is quite suspicious, along with the whole deal with the police...at the end of the day, those 140.000 viewers are going to get him quite a good paycheck next time it arrives...
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Gabriel_7864December 31, 2013, 1:09 pmAre you kidding me? They DoX'ed PhantomL0rd's personal information, all those game servers were DDoS'ed and he has video proof and you still don't believe it?
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Unfortunately, the pieces of this puzzle do not particularly match together; a boost this big is quite important, to go from 8,000 up to 140,000 viewers thanks to a situation like this is something to keep in mind.
As mentioned by Katy, if someone calls the police saying that someone has 5 people hostages and that he/she is armed, they won't just let you go as soon as they finish checking your house, the procedure is different, which hints at a staged scene.
Unfortunately as well, Phantom doesn't reply to emails, and even though it is totally understandable, when a situation like this happens, those responses would make a huge difference... -
Honestly? This sounds super fake. I don't really think the police just LET YOU GO if you're supposedly holding five people hostage, even after they search your house.
Pretty sure this wouldn't be a "LOL sarry guys" incident either. I seriously doubt if this really happened he'd be laughing about it the next day. -
exactly my thoughts, it all seems sort of...staged, and given the fact that his statistics on viewers increased on more than 1000% the thoughts of different people about this being all an advertising campaign are quite possible.
Unfortunately, I haven't received any response from Phantom after my emails to him...at least, not yet. -
Yeah I am feeling this was a advertising campaign. Everything just seems fake and doesn't seem to add up.
