] The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco
] Systems network in which an intruder seized programming
] instructions for many of the computers that control the
] flow of the Internet.
]
] Now federal officials and computer security investigators
] have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was
] only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single
] intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in
] which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated.

] As the attacks were first noted in April 2004, a
] researcher at the University of California, Berkeley,
] found that her own computer had been invaded. The
] researcher, Wren Montgomery, began to receive taunting
] e-mail messages from someone going by the name Stakkato -
] now believed by the authorities to have been the primary
] intruder - who also boasted of breaking in to computers
] at military installations.
]
] "Patuxent River totally closed their networks," he wrote
] in a message sent that month, referring to the Patuxent
] River Naval Air Station in Maryland. "They freaked out
] when I said I stole F-18 blueprints."