Customs Computers Go Down
U.S. Customs computers were down for about five hours, due to virus, leaving international travellers standing in long lines as agents resorted to primitive processing technology: paper.
The longest lines were at Miami International, the Associated Press reported, but processing was also delayed in other major entry points, such as New York's airports and Los Angeles International, where agents turned to a back-up computer system.
Customs agents in New York, however, were forced to process passengers by hand.
Numerous computer networks were compromised or shut down, albeit temporarily, by the Zotob bot attacks this week on Windows 2000 PCs -- including an hour-long tools-down shut-off of the production lines in all U.S. Daimler/Chrysler auto plants -- but it couldn't be confirmed if Customs' problem was connected to the bots.
According to Netcraft, a U.K.-based Web performance tracker, Customs runs its Springfield, Va.-based Web site off Linux servers using Apache software.
Its back-end software, however, may run under an entirely different operating system.