The federal investigation into last week's attacks on major Web sites has reportedly turned to at least one anonymous programmer believed to have written software that may have been used in the assaults. A programmer known only as "Mixter," who . . .

The federal investigation into last week's attacks on major Web sites has reportedly turned to at least one anonymous programmer believed to have written software that may have been used in the assaults. A programmer known only as "Mixter," who says he resides in Germany, has not been publicly accused in any of the cases and denies any responsibility for the "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attacks. Mixter is part of a small group of underground programmers who say they create assault technologies that can be used in testing to improve Internet security.

The recent attacks have renewed controversy over this practice, raising questions about whether these programs increase the potential for misuse when they are posted publicly online. In an interview Wednesday with CNET News.com at the height of last week's shutdowns, Mixter explained his actions and philosophy on technological security.

Mixter: I am in fact the author of the programs called TFN and TFN2K, but not of Trinoo. The original Trinoo was made some months earlier than the first TFN, but unlike TFN, (it's) not distributed publicly...Stacheldraht isn't written by me. There have been many false rumors about this. There is another German hacker who goes by the name "Randomizer" who wrote that one.

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