I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

"HOT ON THE TRAIL OF 'MAFIABOY" read a headline on technology news site Wired.com on February 15, 2000.That was the day Mafiaboy, my online alter ego, became a household name. Before that moment, I was just an ordinary kid growing up in a Montreal suburb. I hung out with friends, went to school, and played basketball. I was a fifteen-year-old grade ten student living in my father's house. Then I suddenly became international news.

In February 2000, the FBI named me, Maflaboy, as a suspect in a series of online attacks that had targeted some of the giants of the internet, including Yahoo.com, eBay.com, CNN.com, and E*TRADE.com. Their websites had been slowed or had completely ground to a halt as a result of massive denial-ofservice (DoS) attacks. Just like you would jam a phone system with a barrage of calls to prevent anyone else from getting through, someone had bombarded their web servers with so many requests that they were unable to serve content to visitors.