“In August 1999, University of Washington researcher David
Dittrich discovered that machines on the university’s network had
been invaded by a new type of attack program that harnessed
thousands of compromised computers to launch denial-of-service
attacks against targeted systems.”
“According to Dittrich, the DDOS attack tools were developed
by people who initially sought to take over channels on Internet
Relay Chat. “They did it to see if they could do it and because it
was easy enough that they could,” said Dittrich.”
“Dittrich said he traced the initial DDOS agents to a small ISP
in Texas that provided the connection to a master machine that was
controlling the agents. He noted that most ISPs are often unwilling
to investigate DDOS intrusions and are often eager to quickly
reestablish intruders’ accounts.”