Hackers plan global game of 'capture the flag'

If everything goes as planned, for 72 hours next February hackers from all over the United States will hit targets across the Internet in the largest mass attack to date.

But the affected systems won't be corporate Web servers or networks, they'll be computers set up and maintained by other hackers as part of a capture-the-flag game. When the digital dust clears, the team from either the East Coast or the West Coast will be named winner.

"We have people take over someone's box and play the game from there," said "D.D.," a member of the Seattle-based security group Ghetto Hackers, which kicked off a smaller version of the game, Root Fu, at the Defcon hacking convention here on Friday. "In terms of our machines, we are pretty confident that we can contain it." The Ghetto Hackers have run the smaller capture-the-flag-type game, where eight teams hack each other on a closed network, for three years at the convention.

Next year, the group of hacking hobbyists hopes to take the game global. Dubbed Mega Root Fu, the new game will be the first large-scale hacking contest played over the public Internet. The group is allowing teams throughout the United States to sign up at its Web site and hopes to have a thousand players come February.

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