Hackers deface Library of Congress site

Hackers Monday night took down the Library of Congress' Thomas Internet site (thomas.loc.gov) for more than an hour, disabling the central point on the World Wide Web where citizens and officials can search for and read congressional documents.

The site was down from approximately 6 p.m. to 7:20 p.m. before the Library was able to restore the original home page. LOC staffers are now "in the process of reviewing the Library's network and computer security measures and procedures," according to a LOC statement.

The hackers, who claimed to be "from a little country in Europe," inserted on the defaced site the code they said they used to break into the Library's Unix server. They also included links to several sites, including the one dedicated to freeing Kevin Mitnick (www.freekevin.com), a hacker sentenced to a prison term last year on charges of computer fraud. Mitnick is scheduled for release later this week.