If you follow competitive Dota very closely then you probably already know that some serious shit has been going down ever since the start of the G-1 League western qualifiers.

We've now had three series in row where one of the teams have suffered what many are claiming are DDoS attacks. While I'm still somewhat skeptical of individual players being DDoS'd, the fact remains that during the past three best-of-three matches in the G-1 one or more players have had their internet connection completely shut off only to mysteriously return after the completion of the series or the postponement of the match.

I was up at the wee hours of the morning to watch the series between Kaipi/Empire and Qpad/Dignitas so I got bare witness to this myself. I spent both matches reading twitters and checking steam page and both PieLieDie from Kaipi and Sneyking and Fogged from Dignitas were all completely cut off from rejoining the games or communicating with their teams or the tournament organizers until after the completion of both series. It was very a very strange thing to watch with players discussing possible courses of action in the game chat as well as claiming they were aware of the previous attacks and had taken precautions only for them to fail.

There's a lot of speculation as to what the fuck is happening and why. The prevailing theory seems to be that the malicious party is scraping player IPs off of Skype, or perhaps even Steam Friends, but the motives as to why are still unknown. Several people have pointed towards Dota 2 Item and real money betting sites as possible motivation for trying to rig games through attack, though I put little stock in this theory as Kaipi was clearly the underdog in their match up but were still targeted. It could be that these people are just out to ruin Dota 2, though I'd certainly like to believe there isn't anyone out there spending the time and resources necessary to ruin something as benign as a fucking competitive gaming tournament for no apparent reason.

Whatever you believe, the fact remains that if actions isn't taken soon the whole western qualifier is going to go down the shitter real fast. While Kaipi was able to clean up their series down a man, the game between Qpad and Dignitas was postponed until further notice. With more G-1 games scheduled throughout the week, including a match-up with winner of the aforementioned series, it's unknown how these attacks will affect the qualifiers or what actions will be taken to prevent further attacks.

Truly it is a sad day when even video games are not safe from bitter people with stellar upload rates.

I'll observe this with a detached interest similar to the one I have for EVE Online.

I think Curse, a League of Legends team, got attacked a while back. It wasn't during tournament play, but it was while members of the team were streaming. It probably has no connection to this, but it still came to mind.

There are ways for individuals to avoid being DDoS'd. If they are playing at such a high level they should be aware of this kind of thing.

Streamers have been DDOSed like this for a while now. It really doesn't take that much for some kid to spend $20 a month on these shady shell booter sites to press a button. It's not some special collaborated effort. It's just trolling at this point.

Wow, that is all kind of messed up.

What a stupid and hateful thing to do.

It's happening again right now. Dignitas said they just got new security but it apparently doesn't work.

This is a rescheduled match too, so I don't know what the fuck is going to happen if this one goes ass up.

Yeah, I was watching both matches yesterday morning (even watched it happen to EG the night before). It's nothing new as far as popular video game streamers/dudes go; Athene and Kripp both got DDoS'd constantly when Diablo III first launched. Kripp actually lost a hardcore char or two because of it. He eventually did some shit (switched ISPs before finally using the Destiny guide I believe) and fixed it, but it's something that any streamer with any amount of popularity should take some precaution and do.

It's so easy to gain access to a botnet now (Bitcoin farming bros) that if somebody wants to target you, you're going to feel it unless you do something about it.

If it becomes more widespread, players will probably start using VPNs.

coughRiotGamescough

@Sweep follow the money.

They should hire Kripparian to run DDoS security during events. =P

Bwahahaha.

I laughed more than I should have.

Next up, you'll be seeing "RP SALE NOW" plastered on streams, and Tobi's voice is going to be replaced with an endless loop of the same phrase.

Same thing has been happening to the Starcraft 2 scene for a long time, though luckily not as much for tournaments. A lot of streamers are having this happen to them, especially the more independent streamers that don't have tech people to help them. They will be streaming fine and playing then suddenly their connection just drops, then they will restart, it will work for 15 minutes then will drop again. This will happen over and over until they give up. Once they give up mysteriously their internet is suddenly fine. So far it is suspected that they are using the Skype exploit to get people's IP addresses then DDoSing them using that info. The guy who runs all the technical stuff for Team Liquid has been helping people deal with the issue (from the sounds of things you basically have to do everything through VPN to be safe).

@fireprince: To be honest if they just put up a 3 second loop of Tobi screaming "BLACK HOOOOOOLLLLEEEEEE!!!!" the I'd be happy with that.

It's kind of sad how the actual problem for most of these players is that they are using Skype which is how their IPs get exposed.

Skype is great for making a call to your mom, but not really the thing you want to be using as a competitive gamer. There are any number of services which are better for that and don't expose your IP to hackers/DDoSers/etc. Sadly, it appears the tournaments are the reason they are forced to use Skype as the admins, etc, all use it.