Who Were Those Masked Hackers?

• Position: Computer hackers attack web sites - Brief Article

The latest innovation in hacking gives major Web sites too much of what they usually crave: hits. In what appeared to be a coordinated attack last month, hackers crippled the world's largest e-commerce hang-outs--including Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Buy.com, and CNN.com--by bombarding them with so many commands or requests that the sites ground to a virtual standstill.

The anonymous attacks did not introduce viruses or steal information like credit-card numbers. Nor did they appear to have been motivated by blackmail or other monetary purposes. But no one knew for sure why the assaults were launched. Internet security experts speculate that they may have been staged to protest the increasing...