hydrarchist writes: "Italian police have identified six members of a hacker group charged
with
attacking thousands of Web sites in 62 countries, replacing official
home
pages with anti-globalization slogans, finance police officials said
Tuesday. The group is one of the most important to be discovered in
terms
of the number and significance of its targets, officials said. The
hackers, all students between the ages of 15 and 23, began their
attacks
last July during the G8 summit in Genoa, which led to
anti-globalization
demonstrations. Hackers placed the slogan "Hi-Tech Hate" on Web sites,
police said. However, the attacks did not cause much monetary damage,
so
the hackers are not expected to be severely punished.

Italian Police
Nab
Hacker Group

Students vandalized sites around world, including Pentagon and NASA,
but caused little damage.

Philip Willan, IDG News Service

ROME -- Italian police have identified six members of a hacker group
charged with attacking thousands of Web sites in 62 countries,
replacing
official home pages with anti-globalization slogans, finance police
officials said Tuesday. The group is one of the most important to be
discovered in terms of the number and significance of its targets,
officials said.

The hackers, all students between the ages of 15 and
23,
began their attacks last July during the G8 summit in Genoa, which led
to
anti-globalization demonstrations. Hackers placed the slogan "Hi-Tech
Hate" on Web sites, police said. However, the attacks did not cause
much
monetary damage, so the hackers are not expected to be severely
punished.

In the United States, hacked sites included those of the Pentagon, the
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, courts, and
numerous
universities including Harvard University, Columbia University, and
Cornell University, police said.

The group also attacked government Web
sites in Europe and South America, the finance police said in a
statement.
The Anti-Technological Crime Unit of the finance police handled the
investigation.

Prolific Vandalism

In Italy the group hacked sites of
the
health and defense ministries, the Senate, media organizations, the
Internet provider Italia On Line, the Left Democrats Party, and pop
singer
Claudio Baglioni.

The investigation began in August, when the crime
unit
became aware of an attempt to penetrate the Web site of MB Service Srl,
an
Italian software company, police said. Investigators followed the trail
to
a Hi-Tech Hate hacker and subsequently tracked down the other five. The
students lived in different parts of Italy and kept in contact via the
Internet, investigators said.

"This was one of the most prolific hacker
groups ever seen in terms of the number of its attacks. They were very
expert," Giancarlo Samele, a member of the Anti-Technological Crime
Unit,
said in an interview. "We don't have an estimate of the financial
damage
caused, but it should not be very high. These were not really malicious
attacks."

The hackers are likely to escape with suspended prison
sentences
because they have no previous convictions and their attacks did not
cause
serious damage, Gianluigi Chiapponi, the Ravenna prosecutor
coordinating
the case, said at a press conference. Source: PCWORLD."