China on the hunt for Taiwanese Hacker

China is searching a man who has allegedly spied on sensitive government data after hacking into its computers on the country's mainland, reported The Global Times of China state on October 30, 2007.

The newspaper established that Lee Fang-rong of Taiwan was the alleged spy who was responsible for a series of assaults on the computer systems of the Chinese government. 20-year-old Lee has been accused of installing Trojan programs onto the computers of certain diplomatic, economic and military institutions in order to capture classified data.

Spokeswoman Jiang Yu, on behalf of Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a statement that China had clear laws that prohibited such criminal activities related to computers. AHN published Yu's statement on October 31, 2007. Hacking problem is a world issue that has not even spared China, Jiang added.

The Global Times reported that although Lee was staying in Taiwan, but he possibly conducted the hacking crime from Moscow where he had been residing previously.

Military analyst Andrew Yang of Taipei-based Chinese Council on Advanced Policy Studies, thinks the attack could be an intention to warn Taiwan, and that Beijing wants to tell Taipei about its successful seizure of information relating to Taipei's spying operations. AHN published this in news on October 31, 2007.

Meanwhile, The Taiwan Affairs Office of China said on October 31, 2007 that following the report of The Global Times, it was collecting further details in connection to the incident. International Herald Tribune published this on October 31, 2007.

Taipei Times in Taipei reported that Sandy Yen of Democratic Progressive Party said through an October 31, 2007 press release that by making the accusation, Beijing was lowering its own dignity.

Yen said that while they knew about various international complaints of Chinese hacking activities, they also found through a research that 33% of computer viruses in the world were creation of Chinese hackers.

So Yen asked how China could charge other people of committing similar thefts of confidential data or of damaging them.

Meanwhile, China faced severe criticisms from United States, Britain and Germany for alleged hacking into their military and government networks.

Related article: China’s Best Initiatives To Deal With Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 11/16/2007