The Extra Life charity sounded like a great idea. Gamers would stream themselves playing video games for 25 hours straight, taking donations for children in need of medical care the entire time. The official charity would be November 2, taking advantage of the extra hour from daylight savings to hit the 25-hour stream time. While gamers could sign up to do streams whenever was best for them it was understandably a moment many people were waiting for out of a sense of solidarity and unity.
And then the official website for Extra Life went down during the charity streams.
It did not take long for officials at Extra Life to speak out, exposing the site’s problems not as technical issues but as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The same announcement expressed both dismay and mild disbelief that someone would actually attack a charity.
While the streams hosted directly on the Extra Life website were interrupted, many more were being streamed through other services, allowing the charity itself to continue. In addition, the event director, Jeromy Adams actually took a very poignant message from the hacker attack, one which speaks for itself.
As frustrating as this is for everyone involved, it pales in comparison to what the kids we’re trying to save go through. That reality, for me personally, is about the only thing keeping me somewhat calm right now.
