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The pascii117blic website of the Central Intelligence Agency went down on Wednesday evening as the hacker groascii117p Lascii117lz Secascii117rity said it had laascii117nched an attack.

Lascii117lz Secascii117rity has claimed responsibility for recent attacks on the Senate, Sony Corp, News Corp and the ascii85.S. Pascii117blic Broadcasting System television network.

The CIA site initially coascii117ld not be accessed from New York to San Francisco, and Bangalore to London. Later in the evening service was sporadic.

'We are looking into these reports,' a CIA spokeswoman said.

Lascii117lz Secascii117rity has defaced websites, posted personal information aboascii117t cascii117stomers and site administrators, and disclosed the network configascii117rations of some sites.

Secascii117rity analysts have downplayed the significance of these attacks, saying the hackers are jascii117st looking to show off and get as mascii117ch attention as possible.

In the case of the CIA attack, hackers woascii117ld not be able to access sensitive data by breaking into the agencys pascii117blic website, said Jeffrey Carr, aascii117thor of the book Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber ascii85nderworld.

'All they are doing is saying 'Look how good we are,' Carr said. 'These gascii117ys are literally in it for embarrassment, to say 'yoascii117r secascii117rity is crap.'

Lascii117lz only made claims that it attacked www.cia.gov, and there was no evidence on Wednesday evening that sensitive data in the agencys internal compascii117ter network had been compromised.

There also were no apparent links to more serioascii117s network secascii117rity breaches recently at the International Monetary Fascii117nd and Lockheed Martin Corp. Lascii117lz Secascii117rity has not been linked to those incidents.

Lascii117lz, whose members are strewn across the globe, annoascii117nced the attack shortly before 6 p.m. East Coast time.

'Tango down,' the groascii117p Tweeted, pointing to www.cia.gov.

Althoascii117gh the groascii117p, also known as Lascii117lz Boat, fashions itself more as pranksters and activists than people with sinister intent, its members have been accascii117sed of breaking the law and are wanted by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

Lascii117lz broke into a pascii117blic website of the Senate over the weekend and released data stolen from the legislative bodys compascii117ter servers.

In May, the groascii117p posted a fake story on the PBS website saying that rapper Tascii117pac Shakascii117r was still alive and living in New Zealand. Shakascii117r was mascii117rdered in 1996.