PARIS, Feb 10 (AFP) - Investigators probing the Web whodunit will have to inch their way through a dank subterranean world whose denizens range from bored teenagers and break-in artists to professional crooks and secret agents.
Headlines around the world have blamed "hackers" for the assaults this week that have temporarily disabled such stars of the Web as Yahoo, ZDNet, CNN and Amazon.com, sowing distrust about the glamorized concept of e-business.
However, hackers themselves are furious at being tagged with the crime. They hold themselves to be an elite tribe of individuals, committed to the freedom of cyberspace and the intellectual challenge of infiltrating computer defenses, often leaving behind a cheeky message to taunt their target.
Hacker sites and chat rooms derided this week's offensive on Wednesday, which submerged Websites with massive, simultaneous requests - rather as if a coordinated network of telephone callers swamped a company's switchboard.
Software to run these requests is available on dozens of sites on the Internet. Other than possessing a reasonable knowledge of the topography of the Internet, the assailant only has to infiltrate a number of servers - big computers that act as mailing centers - so that they can be used as launch pads for the operation.
"We feel sorry for the major Internet commerce sites that have been inconvenienced," said hacker site The Hacker Quarterly. "But we cannot permit them or anyone else to lay the blame on hackers... the ability to run a program (which is all this is) does not require any hacking skills."
Genuine hackers often inspire respect from security agencies for their skills. Some of them, like poachers who become gamekeepers, are even hired by companies to test their computer defenses.
Hackers talk sniffily about "crackers" or "packet monkeys" - teenage boys, for the most part, who use a cheap computer and a modem to harness vast volumes of packet-switched data to swamp a Website.
Brian Martin, a writer for Hacker News Network, blamed "pathetic kids" for this week's vandalism, telling them to seek help offline. "There is no grace, no skill and no intellect behind these attacks. You are not a hacker and you do not deserve respect for your childish actions," he wrote. "You are no better than the twisted individuals who spray a crowd of innocent bystanders with a machine gun, only to nick your intended target."
Delving deeper into the strata of computer crime are crooks, terrorists and the secret services, which are increasingly interested in exploiting the Net for lucrative or political gain.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says computer-related crimes are surging as more and more companies do business online, exposing confidential files to the risk of infiltration. Unwary e-shoppers, too, are being conned by the fraudulent.
In the biggest known crime so far, a thief last December stole 300,000 customer credit-card files from an Internet music company, CD Universe, and threatened to post the data on a Website unless the firm coughed up $100,000.
With the Internet becoming an increasingly important part of the economy, it is only logical that intelligence services should devise ways of crippling on-line communications and business. Taiwan and China are said to be among the vanguard in preparing for this kind of warfare.
An April 1998 report prepared for the Chemical Manufacturers Association by former officials from the US Secret Service and the CIA's counter terrorism center also gave a stark warning on terrorism. "The Internet - and the window to it, the computer terminal - have become two of the most important pieces of equipment in the extremists' arsenals, not only allowing them to build membership and improve organization, but to strike alliances with people and groups, even a decade ago, that they might never have known about or been able to easily communicate with," it said.
