Canoe

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hackers attacked the White House Web site Friday, resulting in massive slowdowns, said the Bush administration and a company that monitors the Internet.

The perpetrators sent an enormous amount of data toward the White House site, leaving it completely blocked or difficult to access for about six hours. The White House said no information on the site was altered or destroyed.

The connection between the White House's Internet service provider and www.whitehouse.gov became clogged with data in what is commonly called a "denial of service attack," said Jimmy Orr of the White House media affairs office.

"We're not going to speculate as to where it came from, but it's something ... we're looking at," said Orr.

Keynote Systems of San Mateo, Calif., a company that monitors Web site performance, said that around 7 a.m. EDT the site began experiencing problems, which lasted for about six hours.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 05, 2001