The fact that every bit of infrastructure is being "attacked" at once suggests that it is not a DDoS attack to me.
If the price starts going down, everyone will rush to their favorite bitcoin related site to see what is going on, even if they are not planning on panic selling. Would you say you have checked bitcoin related sites 5 times more than usual today? 10 times?
If the regular users of a site all decide to use it five to ten times more than usual, it is very likely to cause some slowdown.
On the other hand, if a single bitcoin related site was experiencing problems, that is when I suspect a targeted attack.
Lastly, the only thing that mtgox announcing that they have been DDoSed in the past tells us is that they are willing to announce the fact that they are being DDoSed. This would seem to make it less likely that they are being DDoSed in the absence of such an announcement.
If the price starts going down, everyone will rush to their favorite bitcoin related site to see what is going on, even if they are not planning on panic selling. Would you say you have checked bitcoin related sites 5 times more than usual today? 10 times?
If the regular users of a site all decide to use it five to ten times more than usual, it is very likely to cause some slowdown.
On the other hand, if a single bitcoin related site was experiencing problems, that is when I suspect a targeted attack.
Lastly, the only thing that mtgox announcing that they have been DDoSed in the past tells us is that they are willing to announce the fact that they are being DDoSed. This would seem to make it less likely that they are being DDoSed in the absence of such an announcement.