GMS Server Status Discussion 2012-01

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOIC

yes.

I'm aware of what LOIC is. Perhaps I should have worded my question better. Rather than is it possible, is there any reason why it could not be a DDoS attack?

I doubt that it is a DDOS. Anyway in previous incidents the server could be brought down by sending a certain packet which presumably is being kept secret. I think the person doing the crashing is a single individual, but of course many cheaters are taking advantage to dupe, though they are not responsible for the crashes.

Any particular reason why you doubt it's a DDoS attack? Previous incidents with server crashes could have been done by sending a packet but those methods have long since been patched (to my knowledge). Also, it doesn't appear to be a server crash in any case as it seems that channels aren't all crashing simultaneously. They appear to be going down very rapidly at approximately the same time but not at the exact same moment (which would be what a server crash would do). Also, a server crash would not take down the login server in conjunction to the game servers and obviously, unless 100+ people are devoting nearly 24 hours a day to this, channel crashes should be ruled out. So unless the particular group in question somehow has a method to crash the login server as well as a new server crash to take down all channels in a given world very rapidly or has 100+ people devoting literally all day to coordinating channel crashes perfectly, is there any plausable explanation for this other than it being a DDoS attack?