Ransomware Encourages Victims to Subscribe to PewDiePie

AlphaAtlas

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PewDiePie's battle with Bollywood star T-Series has pushed some of his more enthusiastic fans to extremes. A group of hackers used printers to promote their favorite YouTuber last year, and more recently, they hacked their way into Smart TVs, Chromecasts, and Google Home devices. Now, recent reports claim that new strains of ransomware are encouraging users to subscribe to PewDiePie. The "PewDiePie ransomware" released last year didn't even bother to save encryption keys, which means whatever user data it targeted was gone for good, while a new strain that popped up this January runs in Java to make detection more difficult. However, instead of asking for a ransom, the later program simply offers a link to PewDiePie's subscription page. It claims that public keys will be released if PewDiePie hits 100 million subscribers before T-Series, while the user's data will never see the light of day again if T-Series hits that mark first. ZDNet says the software was "put together as a joke," but still managed to infect a few users, and that the code is now publicly available on GitHub. Thanks to AceGoober for the tip.

Check out a demonstration of the ransomware here.

Both ransomware strains show the level of idiocy the competition for YouTube's top spot has reached. While T-Series fans have remained mostly quiet most of this time, a portion of PewDiePie's fans appears to have lost their minds and engaged in media stunts bordering on criminal behavior... The message itself has become a meme, and not in a good way.
 
I think this jerk needs to change his name to "pigpie" but that would insult pigs, but so what?
 
So internet users are acting like goofy kids about a goofy YouTube trend? And why are some of you "outraged" about this guy? Pretty easy to avoid. Funny who gets the concern face from concerned internet and those who get a free pass to do absolutely anything.
 
This is out of his control, I honestly don't see what he could do here...

I suppose he could ask google for an official letter, saying that they will block and ban his account if his fan base does not stop, let him make a video out of that, and hope that the fans stop on the basis that they are "hurting" him.
 
Pewdiepie very likely has exactly nothing to do with this.
He has some 80? 90? million followers on YT.
It should not be hard to believe that some of them are just flaming assholes.

I don't think I've seen more than 12 seconds of his stuff ever but I've read several interviews.....I highly doubt he has anything to do with this or would condone it. I am not sure he even gives a shit about his sub number or beating T-Series. He comes across in print as a decent guy. Perhaps his YT persona is different. /shrug

I have seen a LOT of other channels try to use this 'battle' to try and get attention for themselves. This is likely more of that. Just attention seeking idiots.
 
Pewdiepie very likely has exactly nothing to do with this.
He has some 80? 90? million followers on YT.
It should not be hard to believe that some of them are just flaming assholes.

I don't think I've seen more than 12 seconds of his stuff ever but I've read several interviews.....I highly doubt he has anything to do with this or would condone it. I am not sure he even gives a shit about his sub number or beating T-Series. He comes across in print as a decent guy. Perhaps his YT persona is different. /shrug

I have seen a LOT of other channels try to use this 'battle' to try and get attention for themselves. This is likely more of that. Just attention seeking idiots.

I looked him up again yesterday after hearing his name come up on a podcast. He just passed 90m. I don't much care for his style, but I also don't hold him accountable for anything his fanbase does. Just because his name is on it, doesn't mean it's his.
 
I don't care for him but this literally is out of his control.
How is it out of his control? Maybe he needs to take a hiatus. Maybe he needs to change his name. Wouldnt you feel a little bit weird if a mass murderer referenced you? Like you had a bit of blood on your hands?
 
How is it out of his control? Maybe he needs to take a hiatus. Maybe he needs to change his name. Wouldnt you feel a little bit weird if a mass murderer referenced you? Like you had a bit of blood on your hands?

well unless he's asked his Fans to do this, it is out of his control...

Your question is just odd, chances are there is a murderer with the same name as you, did you know that was in your control, right?
 
How is it out of his control? Maybe he needs to take a hiatus. Maybe he needs to change his name. Wouldnt you feel a little bit weird if a mass murderer referenced you? Like you had a bit of blood on your hands?
That's complete silliness.

And...for the record...I would not give half a crap if some mass murderer referenced me somehow. I'd sleep soundly and not be bothered. Not that that has anything at all to do with the conversation though.

I cannot control what others think.
I cannot control what others do.
I am responsible for my actions and words, not for those of others.
 
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Thing is, if everyone capitulates and he hits his 100mil number, all that tells the dipshits who did this is that the strategy works... Then what, more ransomware for some other youtuber? It's like negotiating with terrorists, you don't do it or it just encourages more.

And he may not be responsible, but he could take action. He could threaten to delete his channel unless the hackers immediately cease their actions and release the keys. Of course, a competing youtuber could do this against him, and if he did that they win (if he deletes the channel)... ugh.
 
How is it out of his control? Maybe he needs to take a hiatus. Maybe he needs to change his name. Wouldnt you feel a little bit weird if a mass murderer referenced you? Like you had a bit of blood on your hands?


WTF ?

He should do something that would cost him millions and lots of trouble because of the actions of some random people on the internet who invoked his name?

Please tell me you are not serious.
 
So I take it this won't stop till well after someone comes up with a 'Kill yourself, live on YouTube, to help PewDiePie beat T-Series' challenge.
 
How is it out of his control? Maybe he needs to take a hiatus. Maybe he needs to change his name. Wouldnt you feel a little bit weird if a mass murderer referenced you? Like you had a bit of blood on your hands?

And there it is...right on queue. Geez you kids on the left are so predictable. Let us not pretend you care one bit about the people murdered, but instead only want to exploit this for your personal leftist outrage industry. Please link to all the times your called for islam to take a hiatus when their agents murder people on an almost daily basis. I won't hold my breath. Again. We all know you could care less about people dying, and this is nothing more than warped virtue signaling to score a political "win" for your belief system.
 
So I take it this won't stop till well after someone comes up with a 'Kill yourself, live on YouTube, to help PewDiePie beat T-Series' challenge.

How do you not see that is the entire point? You guys are so terrified of free will. Why pick on PewDiePie? Why not pick on YouTube? It should be banned for facilitating such behavior. In fact why don't we ban the internet? It is only common sense. How we can still be having this debate in this day and age is terrifying.
 
Thing is, if everyone capitulates and he hits his 100mil number, all that tells the dipshits who did this is that the strategy works... Then what, more ransomware for some other youtuber? It's like negotiating with terrorists, you don't do it or it just encourages more.

And he may not be responsible, but he could take action. He could threaten to delete his channel unless the hackers immediately cease their actions and release the keys. Of course, a competing youtuber could do this against him, and if he did that they win (if he deletes the channel)... ugh.

Do you know how much money this guy makes? If someone said they were gonna pee in sandpits if the Patriots lose you wouldn't tell Robert Kraft to threaten to bulldoze gillete stadium.

Just attention seeking idiots.

I mean the way I see it is they are being paid to produce a persona that is stupid as fuck, but it doesn't make me think they're stupid.

It's like snoop dog, In Hiz Songs He Be talking like Dis but when Snoop goes to the Porsche dealership and there's no cameras suddenly his vocabulary and grammar have improved dramatically

Makes you wonder who is stupid, the "stupid" people we laugh at on youtube, or is it me working hard for pennies?
 
The whole thing is a big meme at this point, it's no different than what happened to Pepe the frog. The creator never had the intention of it being associated with racists but it ended up going that way because memers take shit too far sometimes. The internet is an easy place to have a collective of idiots and unfortunately they gravitate to personalities. The only way PDP can distance himself from them would be to completely change his style and content of comedic videos but then they'll just gravitate to the next internet personality.
 
Well Bollywood ppl are cheating as well on their own end with their subscriber numbers.

Might as well cheat back.
 
Ok, what the heck is a pewdiepie? I am terrified to even google it for fear of getting some reprehensible disease or infection.
It's the Youtube and Gamer name for a Swedish man in his 20's that held the record of most subscribers on youtube. He was always a bit on the weird side and had a flair for the dramatic early on which got him his fanbase. Then he started into other commentary and comedic videos, mostly continuing to rely on shock value. His videos are a bit of an "aquired taste" and tends to be more popular with the under 25 crowd.

His reputation took a hit a couple years ago when he pulled a social experiment where he hired a service that would do just about anything for money. The service ended up painting a sign with a racist slur on it then recorded it. Pewdiepie in his naivety decided to film it and actually post it along with his obvious negative reaction. Although he never condoned their actions and implied this was more of "just how far people will go for a buck" type of thing, the easily offended people of social media decided to pull the whole thing out of context and permanently brand him as a racist.

What cracks me up is that people continue to use this one isolated event to continue to go after him and demand he be shut down as some hate monger. The New Zealand shooter quotes his name, and the blue checkmarks of twatter come out and demand he be censored and removed from the internet despite the guy offering up an immediate public post condemning the criminal and offering condolences to the victims. He's just another naive celebrity that made a stupid mistake in a long history of celebrities making stupid mistakes.
 
By way of ransomware maybe, but voluntary ? not even for all the money peeonpie have ever made.

He's 29 years old and he's a self-made multi-millionaire

Yes that's true, but IMO he might as well have made all those money by peddling drugs,,,,,,, absolute no respect from here, to him or his followers.
 
By way of ransomware maybe, but voluntary ? not even for all the money peeonpie have ever made.



Yes that's true, but IMO he might as well have made all those money by peddling drugs,,,,,,, absolute no respect from here, to him or his followers.

Sooooo....You don't like him because he is successful and you don't like his content?

I find him annoying as shit, but "might as well made all those money by peddling drugs" is a bit extreme and well, I can't even take you seriously after that.

He is self made, I have respect for that, even if I don't like his content. This hate someone just because they "made it" that people are all about today I just don't understand.
 
Sooooo....You don't like him because he is successful and you don't like his content?

I find him annoying as shit, but "might as well made all those money by peddling drugs" is a bit extreme and well, I can't even take you seriously after that.

He is self made, I have respect for that, even if I don't like his content. This hate someone just because they "made it" that people are all about today I just don't understand.

People like that blame everyone for why they are stuck in dead end jobs. Which is not a state of mind people look for when looking to hire or promote someone. I worked in a production setting for 10years, not anyones fault but my own.

pewdie, i dont care for him but i put him in the same category as comedians. Some I love to watch, others I can't stand. I hate them because I don't like them, I just don't watch them.

If getting rich with twitch and youtube is so easy anyone can do it, why are we going to work? Pride must be worth more than millions of dollars. People are just becoming a bunch of jealous crybabies.

And yea, can't blame the guy for what other people do. We need to stop blaming people other than the ones committing crimes. Like why is it okay for us to go after pewdiepie because someone used his name, but we should leave gun manufacturers alone because what a person does is their own decisions?
 
That's complete silliness.

And...for the record...I would not give half a crap if some mass murderer referenced me somehow. I'd sleep soundly and not be bothered. Not that that has anything at all to do with the conversation though.

I cannot control what others think.
I cannot control what others do.
I am responsible for my actions and words, not for those of others.

You can't control what others think, but you can have an effect on how others think.
If you are a boss, some position with power, or influence on another then you can control what other do. You tell your employees that work starts at 8am.

Edit: Misread the context of what was written.
 
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You can't control what others think, but you can have an effect on how others think.
If you are a boss, some position with power, or influence on another then you can control what other do. You tell your employees that work starts at 8am. Guess what? You just controlled what other do. Your a parent.
You must not have kids. Guess what? You are responsible for your kids actions.

There is a huge difference between personal interactions and nonpersonal interactions, and how much influence you truly have.

There is absolutely no way pewdiepie can have personal interactions with even one thousandth of his subscriber base.
 
You can't control what others think, but you can have an effect on how others think.
If you are a boss, some position with power, or influence on another then you can control what other do. You tell your employees that work starts at 8am. Guess what? You just controlled what other do. Your a parent.
You must not have kids. Guess what? You are responsible for your kids actions.

Hold on a minute, are you saying his 90M followers might as well be his kids? That's a bit of a reach. Sure what the does may have some influence but he shouldn't have to go on the internet and tell his followers to stop killing people. You don't see Smith and Wesson telling people to stop using their guns for murder. He already showed sympathy for the victims he's not responsible for his followers actions. Unless of course he directly instigated a mass shooting then by all means lynch him.
 
Hold on a minute, are you saying his 90M followers might as well be his kids? That's a bit of a reach. Sure what the does may have some influence but he shouldn't have to go on the internet and tell his followers to stop killing people.

Yeah he's like a really big DAD.
 
And there it is...right on queue. Geez you kids on the left are so predictable. Let us not pretend you care one bit about the people murdered, but instead only want to exploit this for your personal leftist outrage industry. Please link to all the times your called for islam to take a hiatus when their agents murder people on an almost daily basis. I won't hold my breath. Again. We all know you could care less about people dying, and this is nothing more than warped virtue signaling to score a political "win" for your belief system.
I'm glad I'm not as cynical as you. I have the tiniest bit of faith left in the human race.
 
are they selling PewDiePie Battle T-shirts yet so that the fan-base can buy them thereby paying him to advertise for him for free? Stupid Society, when will you learn?
 
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