Hackers day turns into damp squib

Sources suggested that up to 6,000 sites could fall victim to the hackers' japes. Zone-H, an Estonia-based "IT Security Information Network" that logs digital attacks said it expected more than 20,000 attacks to take place today, Sunday July 6th.

A check on their site to see how its all going shows, erm, the site is down... Although founder, Roberto Preatoni, told CNN this was because of the number of visitors checking on the hackers' progress.

Hackers were invited to join in the fun through a web site, defacers-challenge.com, which appeared briefly until downed last Wednesday. The grand prize for the top hacker was supposed to be 500Mb of online storage. Hardly a significant enticement, but, ah, the glory.

The US Department of Homeland Snooping played down the threat, saying it did not consider it worth warning the public about.

And it seems thay were right. Graham Cluley, spokesman for UK-based security firm Sophos, told CNN the subversive event seemed to be "a damp squib". µ