Someone hacked printers to advertise for Pewdiepie

[BcrdRqs]

Source: Wired

 

As the "battle" between the YoutTube channels of Pewdiepie and T-Series for the channel with the most subscribers on YouTube is entering the final phase, (yesterday the minimum difference was less than 15000 subscribers), fans of the Swedish comedian and video game commentator are desperately trying to keep the gap alive with various stunts.

 

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As T-Series encroached on PewDiePie’s number of subscribers, the Swedish star’s fans engaged in a series of stunts to drum up support, including buying billboard adsand hanging up flyers. These antics often have the added benefit of garnering attention not just for PewDiePie himself, but also for the people who carry them out: PewDiePie has featured some of his fans’ work in his enormously popular videos.

 

The most recent and tech-related one is encouraging people to subscribe to Pewdiepie via a printed message sent to 50000 vulnerable printers over the internet. 

 

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That brings us to today’s “hack,” which isn’t really a hack at all, since it doesn’t involve breaking into anything. A self-described “huge” PewDiePie fan and university student says they exploited tens of thousands of internet-connected printers earlier this week to spit out a message telling people, in part, “PewDiePie is in trouble and he needs your help to defeat T-Series!” The incident was first reported by The Verge. It’s worth noting this isn’t the first time printers have been hijacked in this way.

The Hack

An anonymous Twitter account, @HackerGiraffe, popped up Thursday to take credit for the pro-PewDiePie propaganda (though it's possible someone else could be responsible for it). In a direct message, the hacker says they first obtained a list of vulnerable printers from Shodan, a search engine for internet-connected devices. They then wrote an automated script that causes each affected printer to spit out their message, one after another. The anonymous giraffe says they carried out the attack via open 9100 network ports. Essentially, these ports are accessible via the open internet, instead of protected behind a router firewall. (This is what facilitates printing remotely.) The hacker didn’t really need to “hack” anything in order to access them. “The only thing people can do is close their ports, because this isn't a vulnerability,” writes @HackerGiraffe. “It's just that these protocols don't have options for authentication.”

Who’s Affected?

The hacker says he crafted a list of over 800,000 vulnerable printers, but they only targeted 50,000 in order to “test if this would actually work.” They said they witnessed some errors, but that they believe around 48,000 printers were affected. There are a good number of pictures of @HackerGiraffe’s printout on Twitter, though there’s no way to verify exactly how many printers were really impacted.

How Serious Is This?

In this case, the hacker appears not to have any malicious intent, which is the good news. They claim their motivation is not only to support PewDiePie, but also to warn people about the dangers of leaving their network ports open on the internet. “I killed two birds with one stone, raised awareness for this issue and helped PewDiePie get a slight edge,” writes @HackerGiraffe.

 

Here is the message:

 

 

 

 

Personal opinion:

It seems like a funny and unique way to encourage people to subscribe to Pewdiepie. (And someone has already realized that this way of message delivery could even be abused as a new way of advertisement, see Forbes)

Additionally, raising awareness for such vulnerabilities without causing real damage is always a good thing. Although in this case I am not certain to which degree this justification of the perpetrator is just pretext. 

 

Finally, I for myself would like to encourage people of the LTT community to subscribe to Pewdiepie. His content might not be to the taste of everyone, but he is definitely someone who representing the YOU in YouTube (especially in comparison to a channel like T-Series) and is to some degree something like the figure head of the YouTube community. So trying to keep his channel on the #1 spot as long as possible seems like a good and entertaining idea.

[Fnige]

wat... also he'll always be (most likely) the most subscribed non-company youtuber out there

[Tech_Dreamer]

Something something Lasagna ..

[PCGuy_5960]

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

Something something Lasagna ..

Witch?

[Speed Weed]

Pewdiepie will going to bail the hacker that hacked the printer if he/she get caught.  

[The Benjamins]

I still don't know what T-Series is, and why would I sub to PewDiePie?

[Velcade]

Damn printer ink is the most expensive thing on the planet.  Don't mess with my printer man, c'mon.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, The Benjamins said:

I still don't know what T-Series is, and why would I sub to PewDiePie?

Can gladly say I still haven't watched PewDiePie ever.... unless you count that weird cameo he did on South Park.

 

Also never heard of T-Series deal... meanwhile all the channels I like will never get anywhere near as big and that's part why I like them in a way lol

[XR6]

7 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Can gladly say I still haven't watched PewDiePie ever.... unless you count that weird cameo he did on South Park.

 

Also never heard of T-Series deal... meanwhile all the channels I like will never get anywhere near as big and that's part why I like them in a way lol

Same here except I used to watch him up until about 2015. That's when his channel sort of shifted into the weird mess it is now and I lost interest in it. 

[samcool55]

13 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

I still don't know what T-Series is, and why would I sub to PewDiePie?

T-series is basically VEVO from India.

It grows fast because it seems like youtube in india is starting to take off. Linus recently said a surprisingly big amount of viewers are from India so it's not just indian content that seems to be popular.

[LukeSavenije]

15 minutes ago, Velcade said:

Damn printer ink is the most expensive thing on the planet.  Don't mess with my printer man, c'mon.

Not true. Its just the 4th most expensive fluid on earth. And costs like 3,3 cents to manufacture (or 33, not sure)

[Deus Voltage]

22 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Anything with Ben Shapiro should be avoided like the plague

[GoldenLag]

im pretty shure people are subbing to Pewdiepie to try and keep the plattform in the community'ses hand. even if it just an illusion of control. 

 

companies are the ideal content creators as they dont do anything controversial, have consistent upload sqedual. perfect for advertisers. we will see multiple companies rise in subcount as youtube will widely promote their content. 

 

that is partially why i support the efforts of keeping him on top even though it will probably be an neverending uphill battle as i wouldnt be surprised if T-series top out at around 120 million subscribers

[DarkBlade2117]

24 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

I still don't know what T-Series is, and why would I sub to PewDiePie?

I just subbed to go along with the meme

[Radium_Angel]

Hardly "hacking" he used the existing LPD, typically enabled by default on HP printers, to, you know, print over the internet, which is what it was designed for.

[GoodBytes]

Oh no, people are dying of starvation, but who cares when some YouTuber needs subscribers!!!! First World Problem.

May I ask, who the heck cares of who is on top?

 

Make good content instead of begging for subscribers. As for the fanboy who is doing this hack, wasting valuable resources, because his favorite YouTuber is being beaten by someone who makes better content to get more subscribers: For shame. You always have competition in life. You can try and suppress competition but it will come around, it finds ways.

[GoldenLag]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Make good content instead of begging for subscribers. As for the fanboy who is doing this hack, wasting valuable resources, because his favorite YouTuber is being beaten by someone who makes better content to get more subscribers: For shame. You always have competition in life. You can try and suppress competition but it will come around, it finds ways.

last time i checked Pewdiepie didt beg for Subscribers. iirc he might have asked for some a moth or two ago though i dont pay attention to him enough to know. afaik this is more of community thing........

 

Pewdiepie will be toppled, but quite a few people dont want it to be a company it seems. though that is my take on it. this will last untill tuesday next week when he will be toppled for good. 

5 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

May I ask, who the heck cares of who is on top?

at least a fair ammount of people wanting views because of these news

6 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Oh no, people are dying of starvation, but who cares when some YouTuber needs subscribers!!!! First World Problem.

ill give you a moment to guess who directed the buzz around "T-series vs pewdiepie" to a very similar subject.....

[Velcade]

15 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

Not true. Its just the 4th most expensive fluid on earth. And costs like 3,3 cents to manufacture (or 33, not sure)

OK tough guy

[Enstage]

37 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

And costs like 3,3 cents to manufacture (or 33, not sure)

It can cost either depending on the quantity....

[BcrdRqs]

15 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Oh no, people are dying of starvation, but who cares when some YouTuber needs subscribers!!!! First World Problem.

Just FYI, Pewdiepie is addressing such problems as well and is using the current attention spike to not only raise awareness but also funds for poor children in India.

 

 

15 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Make good content instead of begging for subscribers. As for the fanboy who is doing this hack, wasting valuable resources, because his favorite YouTuber is being beaten by someone who makes better content to get more subscribers: For shame. You always have competition in life. You can try and suppress competition but it will come around, it finds ways.

He is neither begging for subscribers, nor trying to suppress his competition. It is primarily the community which tries to keep him at the #1 spot. Someone bought for example an ad on the biggest billboard in the center of New York city and other YouTubers like Boogie2988 and MrBeast also participate.

 

In the near future he will be topped for sure, but why not try to delay this as long as possible.

[LukeSavenije]

12 minutes ago, Enstage said:

It can cost either depending on the quantity....

Well, the stupid security chip helps a lot... 

[Theminecraftaddict555]

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

BONUS MEME REVIEW INTENSIFIES

[Theminecraftaddict555]

18 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Oh no, people are dying of starvation, but who cares when some YouTuber needs subscribers!!!! First World Problem.

May I ask, who the heck cares of who is on top?

 

Make good content instead of begging for subscribers. As for the fanboy who is doing this hack, wasting valuable resources, because his favorite YouTuber is being beaten by someone who makes better content to get more subscribers: For shame. You always have competition in life. You can try and suppress competition but it will come around, it finds ways.

I feel like Pewdiepie is just poking at T-series for sh*ts and giggles rather than trying to beg for subs using their name. and I'm not sure if I would consider "T-series" to have  "good/better content" considering that all they do imo is upload indian MV and movies (that they didn't originally make from what I have seen). 

 

I highly doubt his channel will suffer if T-series makes it to the top. 

[Arika]

holy shit, who cares who has the most subscribers on youtube? and why the the fans on both sides losing their collective shit about it?