Hacker plan: take down the Net Associates tell feds Coolio started last months Web attacks; teens New England home searched, computers confiscated By Bob Sullivan ) MSNBC March 1  He took down Yahoo, the worlds most popular Web site, and started a rash of attacks on the Internets biggest companies. Authorities still dont know for sure whos responsible. But investigators have been told that he is Coolio. And according to one associate, he wanted to use the power hed amassed  over 1,000 so-called zombie computers  to cripple the entire Internet.

SEVERAL SOURCES HAVE come forward to tell MSNBC  and say theyve told the FBI  that Coolio (a 17-year-old New England high school dropout who regularly gets high by drinking cough syrup) attacked Yahoo and several other Web sites last month. Furthermore, they say, Coolio was seeking to bring down the entire Internet. Why the accusations? In part, they say, because Coolio had much more ominous plans.

The FBI has not made any arrests in connection with the Web outages that hit Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, CNN, Buy.com and several other sites beginning Feb. 7. And the FBI wont offer any details about its investigation other than to say it is ongoing. Coolio to face defacement charge But MSNBC has learned that several of Coolios associates are cooperating with federal authorities and have named the teen-ager as the culprit in the original attacks. MSNBC has also learned that the FBI executed a search warrant at Coolios New England home and has confiscated all of his home computers in connection with their investigation of the Web attacks.

Coolio is not the only suspect; investigators believe there were at least one and perhaps several copycats involved in the flurry of attacks. Someone using the name Coolio took credit for defacing RSA.com and Dare.org in recent months. There is much evidence that that Coolio is in fact the 17-year-old identified by MSNBCs sources. Despite the accusations by associates, MSNBC has not obtained evidence directly tying Coolio to the February attacks.

And a school-aged friend of Coolios interviewed by MSNBC said the teen-ager has denied any involvement in the attacks  both to the FBI and in private conversations. During that interview, the source claimed Coolio was in the room. Someone in the room could be heard saying, I didnt do it. But MSNBC could not positively identify the speaker as Coolio. Still, several friends and associates from the Internet chat room #goonies have told MSNBC they believe Coolio is responsible.

He did it, said one. He talked about doing it before the fact, he named Web sites that would go down before they were mentioned on the news, and he left, in his own estimation, no trail of his doing it.

I seriously doubt if there will ever be enough hard evidence to obtain a conviction for this, as he is rather good at what he does.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 02, 2000