'Cyberpunks' Target Congress

THE DAILY FED

'Cyberpunks' Target Congress

Apparently the hacker or hackers, identifying themselves only as a "gang of cyberpunks dedicated to the eradication" of congressional computer systems, routed their e-mail messages through other computers to hide their identities. Because the source of an e-mail message can be disguised, a computer expert told the Post that "there is no way . . . for the machine receiving a message to know if the person listed in the message is really the person who sent it."

While the FBI's Computer Crime Squad is investigating the e-mail threats, Capitol Hill systems administrators are setting up a filter to prevent the messages from getting through to their targets.