Valid point and a great quote. It's just hard to believe such people exist outside the realm of comic books.

There's something that's just...well, for lack of a better word, special, about being the on the same playing field as everyone else, but working under a completely different set of rules and deciding for yourself how the game is scored.

The best example I can give is how my brother used to grief Counterstrike on TK-enabled servers - he didn't do this by killing his own teammates, or by cheating against the other team. Rather, he would lure his teammates into killing him often enough that they got auto-banned from the server; his rationale was that everyone was too freaking good at CS anyways, might as well make the game more interesting and difficult for himself, at least. :)

When you decide for yourself which game you're actually playing, sometimes the lulz are just too tasty to resist...

That said, DDoSing a bunch of game servers for games that are completely unrelated and haven't done anything in particular worthy of retaliation is moronic. There's no poetry there, just a bunch of children playing around with the 2011 equivalent of AOHell (and yes, I realize that most of them are probably to young to even know WTF I'm talking about).

The clinical term is "Antisocial personality disorder" and such people need help.

Think of the Lulzsec activities as more of an art than an act of vandalism. (Most taggers/spray painters feel the same way, and are also known to deface their own stomping grounds)

edit to the downvoters: I'm not defending their actions, just putting myself in their frame of mind

The do because they can. and the immense butthurt of the gamers is music to their ears.

The internet brings out the worst in people.

Pseudo-anonymity brings out the worst in people, rather. (Or: If there is no risk of being punched in the face or otherwise given a strong physical disincentive, then behavior tends to deteriorate.)

Pseudo-anonymity also brings out the best in people, such as unbounded creativity. The spread is very large.

they are also called trolls, sometimes they have a lighter, sometimes they don't.

It's seems like they are almost a caricature. Maybe they really are, or see my conspiracy theory

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2655040

Agreed. It looks very much like a front, or weird viral/marketing operation. Not sure it is by a government but that'd be possible. They piss off literally everybody, and don't even have the remote resemblance of anything like ethics. Smells like a caricature.

They hack company after company in such a short time, are very vocal and cocky about it, but still manage to not make mistakes and get caught. "Too good to be true" rings a bell?

Maybe they're trying to lure people in somehow? I couldn't even guess what the goal is, but it's weird.