'Coolio' not a suspect in DoS attacks - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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'Coolio' not a suspect in DoS attacks

October 13, 2000
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/-Coolio-not-a-suspect-in-DoS-attacks-/0,139023165,120102968,00.htm

WASHINGTON -- Federal Bureau of Investigation agents investigating last month's Web-site attacks said they don't think a 17-year-old New Hampshire youth whose name surfaced as a suspect is responsible for the incidents.

The young man, who goes by the online handle "Coolio," became a suspect last month after someone using that moniker claimed credit for several Web attacks. Los Angeles police questioned him recently in connection with attacks on an antidrug site that officers there run, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said. The youth acknowledged hacking into that site and at least 100 others, the spokesman said. Local prosecutors are still considering charging him with computer crimes unrelated to last month's attacks on major commercial Web sites such as those operated by eBay and Yahoo according to the spokesman. The youth's name couldn't be learned.

Investigators carried out a search warrant on the youth's home last month and confiscated several computers that were examined by the FBI. Federal investigators believe that other hackers may have used the name Coolio. As for who is responsible for the denial-of-service attacks, officials said that they have "promising leads" and that prospects are improving for arrests in the case. The leading theory remains that the initial outages beginning Feb. 7 were coordinated by an individual or a group and were followed by copycat incidents.

One federal law-enforcement official said the FBI fieldwork was "focused in the Atlanta and Boston field offices." Gail Marcinkiewicz, spokeswoman for the Boston FBI field office, wouldn't confirm that, saying only that the division had made no arrests in the case.