On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Josh Rowe wrote:

> Attack On Internet Called Largest Ever
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A828-2002Oct22.html
>
> "The heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated
> attack ever, starting late Monday, according to officials at key online
> backbone organizations.

largest == media hype.
sophisticated == all 13 roots were attacked at the same time.
ever == google couldn't find any previous reported incidents.

Rest of the article is mostly correct.

-- 
                             Bruce Campbell                            RIPE
                   Systems/Network Engineer                             NCC
                 www.ripe.net - PGP562C8B1B             Operations/Security