Kim Dotcom Tried And Failed To Stop The Attacks On The PlayStation Network And Xbox Live

Kim Dotcom, an internet entrepreneur who became famous after authorities raided his New Zealand mansion in 2012 for running a file-sharing site called MegaUpload, attempted to restore service to Sony and Microsoft's online gaming networks Thursday night - by bargaining with the hacker collective allegedly attacking the networks.

Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live service have been down for over a day. A hacker group called "Lizard Squad" has claimed responsibility for the attack. Lizard Squad is supposedly flooding Sony and Microsoft's servers with bogus traffic in what's called a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

Kim Dotcom tweeted he'd give members of Lizard Squad a free premium subscription to his new encrypted file-sharing service MegaPrivacy if they agreed to end the DDoS attacks. The tactic worked, but only for a few hours.

Here's how it all went down:

On Thursday night, Dotcom tweeted that he would give a free lifetime premium subscription to MegaPrivacy to members of Lizard Squad if they agreed to stop the attack.

Lizard Squad agreed. Kim Dotcom then boasted he ended the attacks in a series of tweets. But a few hours later, Lizard Squad was back at it. Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network are still down as of Friday morning.