Never mind that no independent Internet traffic monitoring service or security expert had even noticed that any sort of cyberattack had occurred.

	See also:
•	The Dark Side of Hacking Bill
•	Fear and Lockdown in America
•	Hack a PC, Get Life in Jail
•	Cybercrime Bill Ups the Ante
•	Everybody's got issues in Politics

The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center warned of the impending widescale hacker attacks in an alert issued on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, according to wire reports, Richard Clarke -- the Bush administration's top official for cyber-security -- said, "There was a real spike in Internet traffic at odd hours. It was clearly unusual because it was five-times and seven-times normal, but it didn't take anything down."

Perhaps there may have been a brief rise in Internet traffic early Tuesday morning -- but it was a mere blip on the screen if anything, security experts said. But the general consensus is that Monday's alert was a self-created crisis caused by an over-reactive, publicity-seeking government agency, sparked by the idle online conversations of a band of young and aspiring "hackers" who had threatened to attack U.S. sites in retaliation for the Aug. 1 arrest of 14 Italian hackers in Milan.

"It is bizarre," ventured Vern Paxton, senior scientist with the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California. "And if there were political cyberattacks, then they appear miserably unsuccessful. What sort of politically motivated attacker targets East Coast sites at 2 a.m., EDT?"

The "enemy" combatants appear to be a half-dozen, evidently clueless Italian youngsters who couldn't even sort out the time difference between Italy and the East Coast of the United States.

Last week, Italian police arrested 14 local hackers, acting on tips received from American officials. The Italian hackers are charged with attacking U.S. government sites, including those belonging to the Army and NASA.

And some published news reports indicated that the NIPC's hack attack alert on Monday was based on information provided by Italian authorities.

Italian computer security experts said that they had noticed "vague threats" about retaliatory hacks, but dismissed them since the threats appeared to be originating from youngsters.

"There was some talk on Italian Internet chat channels about DOSing and defacing American websites last week in response to the Milano arrests," Augustine DelFalco, a security consultant based in Rome, said. "But to me it was apparent that the conversations were being conducted by young teenagers. It's odd that such nonsense should concern your government."

"At one point, the kids said they would attack at 9 in the morning, when the American business was just getting started," DelFalco added. "Young children who perhaps didn't know of the time difference?"

George Smith, editor of virus and computer security information site vMyths, wondered whether the "spike" in Internet activity that Richard Clarke alluded to occurred before or after the NIPC issued its warning.

The Associated Press story, Smith said, gives the impression that the alleged attack occurred a few hours after the NIPC posted its alert.

"Knowing the average cyber-ankle-biter, people known to stay up at odd hours, it's not at all unreasonable to entertain the idea that the NIPC alert might have precipitated some nincompoops who had nothing better to do with their time except create a statistical blip in someone's Internet monitoring service," Smith said.