Remember, there has been much talk lately by the government of the necessity of monitoring, tax, regulating -- CONTROLLING -- the internet.

Remember, I said pre-Y2K, if we squeak through Y2K, which so far we have, look for increased government initiatives to nail down our positions as as niggers (regardless of race) on the government plantation.

Remember the Hegelian principle of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. As applied to politics: CREATE a problem (the GOVERNMENT behind the bringing down of major internet sites?) Offer a SOLUTION to the government caused) problem that all the sheeple are crying about. The solution, not coincidentally, increases government control, and not incidentally, causes MORE problems, which the government is only too happy to offer solutions for. Rinse and repeat.

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 10, 2000

Answers

Note that these are MASSIVE, SIMULTANEOUS attacks on MANY sites. Not to say that a group of (private) hackers may not be able to do it. But what entity has, without question, the resources to do it?

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 10, 2000.

You know after today, I want any good guy to get up and wave a america flag an say I'm a good guy. WE DON'T KNOW NOTHING!

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), February 10, 2000.

Silliness.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), February 10, 2000.

NWO ---Faction 1 vs. faction2....???????

-- Bob Dunn (superprimate@webtv.net), February 10, 2000.

And, now A(A@AisA.com), they know [that] you know! Hum!

Early on, among other things, the NSF - helped - build in redundancy. While, for the short term, a facade of 'CONTROLLING' is possible, due to redundancy [countless inter-connects within the internet-work], economics and logistics of full scale, long term 'CONTROLLING' seem unlikely.

Any takers?

-- bbccp (bbccp@prodigy.net), February 10, 2000.

Sure, I am willing to believe the guv did it. But, they are playing footsie with the Chinese so what is the difference. If that is what is happening, and I don't think it is, it would blow up in their faces. I believe in conspiracies. It is a human thing. But remember they are humans like us and they are subject to glitches and covering their butts like anyone else. Money always wins, but sometimes those who think they have it don't. Conspiracies don't always work because crooks can't trust each other...after all, they are crooks and liars.

-- Kyle (midtnbuddy@juno.com), February 10, 2000.

I'm curious as to why the rest of the world hasn't experienced the hacking problem we have this week. There are so many possibilities. But one that is haunting me, being as I have become so leary of our govenment, is the involvement of the FBI.

Back in the fall they were warning the public of hacker software packages that were emerging. I wonder if they did an early campaign to set the seed in everyone's mind to explain computer failures, therefore, justifying government involvement. Possible diversionary tactics from some of the more serious issues. The theory might work since this mass hacking is happening all over the world.

It'll will be very interesting to see if power grids, airports, water treatment plants, etc., get hacked. The possibilities for hackers are endless. But if I were a group trying to set up a situaton requiring government intervention I would hit a little less harmless sites, like Amazon, Yahoo, etc.

Just curious as to who the real hackers are.

-- Trish (adler2@web.tv), February 10, 2000.

Maybe little Billy Gates has a NEW product underwraps that will protect all those poor e-businesses! Remember this is the NWO now and it IS run behind the sceens by the BIG corporate boys! It would still be the `break it-to fix it for ya` idea but with the NWO theme in it. hummmm? :} [hey, it`s early and i dream far out. lol]

-- mutter (murmur@ya.com), February 10, 2000.

I doubt that MS has sufficiently good security products to halt the denial of service threats...look at their extremely poor security record...the latest is a patch for Windows 2000, which hasn't even come out yet!

Yeah, the US Gov. could be the attacker, but I doubt it. My personal suspicians are foreign nationals, possibly with some covert foreign government support. The attackers could be located in the US, or outside... Now, who is upset with the US? Consider: Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, China, N. Korea, Russia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon (unlikely), India, Serbia...as well as various rebel organizations (Columbia comes to immediate mind...).

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), February 10, 2000.

Just don't forget, there really ARE roving bands of idiot kids who live to do stuff just like this. We have all seen them. I think you're giving way too much credit to the gov here. Every government agency I know of is run poorly. This is the work of bored teenagers , moronic Hacks, plan and simple.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), February 10, 2000.

Every interview with the swat team DOJ chief on this affair alludes to, if only their department would receive billions more, all these bad things will stop.

Follow the trail. Who benefits from these attacks? The perpetrators- what material benefit do they receive? The enforcers-- they stand to be allocated billions and billions more in tax dollars.

-- Kangaroo (Kanga@roo.pouch), February 10, 2000.

It seems to be the high-tech equivalent of breaking in and trashing a business because one of their part-time workers gave you the finger at the mall last week. Cyber-vandalism--probably as Kritter said, bored teenagers--or adults with bored teenage mentalities.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 10, 2000.

It would still be the `break it-to fix it for ya` idea but with the NWO theme in it. hummmm? :} [hey, it`s early and i dream far out. lol]

-- mutter (murmur@ya.com), February 10, 2000. "

"We need to destroy the village, to save it"

-- John Galt (still@doom.er), February 10, 2000.

We will never get to the bottom of this. It`s not a kid in his basement. Either the "perps" are also the "investigators" or the "investigators" are in collusion with the "perps." Either scenario, CEO Janet Reno will continue in her present capacity.

-- NoJo (RSKeiper@aol.com), February 10, 2000.

Almost every major (and minor, for that matter) hacker attack I've seen, encountered, or read about in the past has come with a claim of responsibility. Rather like the IRA acknowledging that yes, the car bomb was ours and for such-and-such a reason. Has anyone claimed responsibility for these latest mega- attacks? I've not heard of any, and that makes me wonder  a lot. The answers could include embedded/ router problems, I suppose, as someone on another thread has suggested. It could be an attack by a, shall we say, highly organized offshore political entity that might have reason to want to prove to the US government that it has a certain capability. Or any of half a dozen other scenarios my fevered brain can imagine. Does any of this make sense, or has there been that public claim of responsibility by the previously unknown Black Death to E-Commerce Revolutionary Peoples Party?

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), February 10, 2000.

Would doub't that the gov has anything to do with the hacker attacks, other than trying to stop them. Ask yourself what the gov would have to gain, and what they have to loose. The American public wouldn't tolerate the internet going down, would give politicians too much of a constituent type headache, not good in an election year.

Would bet that the attacks are a warm up for something of greater scale, kind of a test run for the biggie. There are a few other gov's that would like to see the US dominance and economy brought to its knees. Think we should be paying a little more attention to russia and china.

-- suzy (suzy@nowhere.com), February 10, 2000.

But Suzy, the government has everything to gain. They want to 'control' the web to the nth degree, just like everything else. Now with the hack attacks, Reno/Rhino will ride to the rescue, with new laws to save the public from those bad hackers. New laws requiring all the software to be changed, including the browsers, so that all users of e-commerce must arrive with their unique e-commerce IDs. No one will be able to access ebay, amazon, etc., without being clearly identified (your papers, please). But, alas, just like gun control, only those criminal hackers will have the guns! All law-abiding surfers will have to have unique totally tracable e-commerce IDs, but the hackers will ride free!!! Fed goal accomplished!!

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), February 10, 2000.

Well, if they have to create an Internet Police Force what better way to fund such an operation than with an Internet tax? And of course once they get their foot in the door...

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 10, 2000.

I am another who starts to worry when the gov. starts pushing warnings to the public, i.e. hackers. My paranoid brain starts to wonder what they are going to use it for. If their concern were truly for the public, we would be hearing on the news the things we are reading about here. I think it's called "shadowing" in the movies. In "Ghostbusters" the characters snack on sta-puff marshmallows during the movie so at the end the giant sta-puff marshmallow man would be somewhat familiar to us. Kind of reminds me of the original Star Trek series, if there was a new face on the show, you could bet your tri-corder they'ed be toast before the credits rolled.

-- grannyclampett (notress@pass.ing), February 10, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

As a longtime operator (1995) on the Internet Relay Chat [IRC] help channel Efnet #mIRC, I live in the playground where these Denial of Service [DoS] Attacks are hatched. Whenever the newest exploit is born, they like to come first to #mIRC to test it out. They get both the thrill of watching the newbies drop like flies, and the challenge of trying to knock out the seasoned veterans. Since we're the people who are usually the first to invent appropriate defenses against these attacks, we're the litmus test for the newest exploits.

In my experience (thouogh some fellow #mIRC operators would disagree with me about this), I would say that it is a mistake to pin the blame on so-called "skript kidz" with the idea that the worst offenders are children. The most notorious offenders often turn out to be adults. Although children are amazingly bright when it comes to learning how to use their computers, it's an unfair slur on them to assume that unknown attackers are children.

I would not be surprised to learn that government sources were responsible for last week's attacks upon prominent e-commerce sites. This first occurred to me last week when I heard someone's explanation of the "innocent third party" method of lining up an army of computers to send packets. Someone in the Department of Defense suggested that it might turn out that even they themselves might turn out to have been recruited into such work.

For me, a red flag went up, upon hearing this. It reminded me of the days of "plausible deniability" during the Reagan Administration's Iran Contra fiasco. One had to wonder which was worse: that the government would knowingly engage in such behavior, or that they could be oblivious to it when it is happening on their own doorstep.

Of course, if any of these packets should be traced back to government computers, they can howl that they are the "innocent third party." Never mind that this would be an admission of gross incompetence. But, even if the implantation of scripts is found to originate from government computers, the same excuse will be made, and probably believed.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), February 14, 2000.