Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 09:06:33 +1100 (EST)
From: Grant Bayley ([email protected])
Subject: Re: "Hacker Havoc Reveals Risks"
I was somewhat disappointed to read Joanna Glasner's article classing the activities of the last few days as a "hacker" problem ("Hacker Havoc Reveals Risks," 10.Feb.2000). In the absence of information from either the target, the source, or someone in between, it's a denial of service attack at its lowest level, presumably meant to sabotage some aspect of the respective businesses hit by it in this instance.
One might logically ask why you didn't call the (still unknown) perpetrators of these denial of service problems "attackers" and"saboteurs". After all, these are the likely terms you'd attach to the acts of someone if they'd gone and simply cut the fibre optic lines into Yahoo, for example, which would have achieved a similar result. Might this be another classic misuse of the word "hacker", and one that in this case can't be substantiated by you until the FBI brings some particular person identifying themselves as a hacker or a group doing the same to justice?
