Agencies and ISPs: Trusting a team effort

An attack on Public Access Network Corp., a New York-based Internet service provider known familiarly as Panix, is making some ad agencies think twice about how they house their clients' Web sites. The attacker tied up Panix servers by sending scores of requests with unusable return addresses. Agencies should plan for the possibility that their sites can be paralyzed, experts say. TN Technologies, a unit of True North Communications, is handling the uncertainties by forming a partnership with Internet Service provider UUNET Technologies. Implicit in UUNET's sales pitch is the assurance that major players like UUNET, which has 4,000 customers, are at the core of the Internet and cannot be brought down like a house of cards overnight.