Internet pest puts words in Clinton's mouth

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

That his own sexual predilections were revealed to the world by a cyber-gossip and then chronicled in an explicit report first released on the Web only made his comment all the more intriguing.

Then the truth emerged: a prankster had managed to circumvent filtering software to speak as if he were the President in an Internet interview.

Mr Clinton had given his first live online interview to CNN, which was confident that it had the technology to stop interference with its website for the duration. Instead, pranksters had a field day, posting ribald remarks that were attributed to Mr Clinton and asking impertinent questions. One, in a reference to Mr Clinton's attempts to blur the truth about whether there was, or "is", a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, asked the question no professional interviewer has dared: "Can you define 'is' for us yet?"

A CNN spokesman said that Mr Clinton did not see the question, but the security breach was now being investigated. He insisted that the website had not been "hacked".

Hackers were also the subject of a White House summit yesterday after a spate of attacks on Internet sites such as Yahoo!, eBay, Buy.com and ETrade. Mr Clinton was meeting executives from technology companies, academics, officials from the National Security Agency and even a hacker known as "Mudge" to discuss ways of tightening security on the Web.

http://www.fbi.gov/nipc/welcome.htm FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Centre

www.hackernews.com/ Hacker News Network, "Rumours from the Underworld"

www.cert.org/ CERT Co-ordination Centre: examines Internet security risks

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