Anti-Smoking Hacker Stubs Out UK Govt. Sites Source: Newsbytes Publication date: 2000-08-16

An anti-smoking hacker is reported to have taken down at least nine British government Web sites in the last 24 hours, Sky News reported this morning.

The hacker, who calls himself "Herbless," took down several local authority Web sites across the UK, including Dumfries & Galloway, Sheffield and Swindon. Others are reported to be on his target list.

Sky TV news said that Herbless' aim with the Web site hacks is to stimulate some thought into anyone who is aware of his actions.

Herbless, meanwhile, told the satellite TV news station that he is exploiting a previously unknown weakness in Windows NT. He has also apologized for hijacking the government Web sites, which he said are more of a target than most others.

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=12925289&ID=cnniw&scategory=Internet

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 16, 2000