To sell your services as an arsonist. Being able to point to a big successful attack helps professional DDoSers sell their services.
more cynically, to sell fire-safety insurance
I always wondered if the NSA and Cloud flare do stuff like this with websites not behind cloud flares umbrella.
"Make em offer they can't refuse."
Most DDoS for hire services are on CloudFlare and they refuse to drop them. You're at least in the right ZIP code.
But wouldn't they need to telegraph the attack in advance to customers? Taking credit after the fact is risky as many competitors will also take credit
Yes, that is part of it. They tell potential clients, "On May 27th, I'm going to take down the Internet Archive". Then they do it, and then go back to their clients and say, "now that you've seen my work, do you want to pay me?".
I wonder where we can find a middleman for that kind of service. Criminal groups would be pretty stupid not paying a middleman to do the checks and filtering.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to take down a target with few eyes on it? Since you're not paid, why deal with the risk of an attack that will make the news?
Making the news is the goal. As long as a few people can verify it was you, word will get around about the person who can take down big targets, and will cite the news articles as part of the proof.
Isn't word getting out about you bad though? As it puts you in the spotlight of law enforcement?
I don't understand, what prevents them from running to your competition if you dont mark your brand?
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Precisely no honor amongst thieves.
Probably no good reason. In technical terms, some asshole is dicking around.
Because the orphanage refuses to use cloudflare.
Precisely this. There's a reason cloudflare was part of the CIA's incubator. Totally organic growth
and didn't have government and spook hands all over it /s.