CNN: Taiwan downplays China TV hacking (excerpt)

September 26, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) TAIPEI, Taiwan --Taiwan has downplayed an allegation by Beijing that a Taiwanese broadcast operation was used by the Falun Gong to hack into China's TV satellite systems.

Following an emergency meeting Wednesday morning, Taiwan telecom official Lin Chingh-chich said Beijing's accusation "is a bit far-fetched."

China claimed the source of the hacking was on Yangming Mountain, outside the capital of Taipei, where several television and telecommunications companies have installed satellite dishes and other equipment.

But Lin was skeptical that China would be able to accurately pinpoint the source of the hacking, saying that the area from which the attack could have originated includes all of Taiwan and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean.

"This happened several days ago, and it's difficult to locate the source," said Lin, director of the radio spectrum management department at the Directorate General of Telecommunications.

He added that the hacking could have been done from a vehicle with mobile broadcasting equipment.

China had demanded that Taiwan track down and punish the alleged hackers, and warned that failing to take measures to prevent such broadcasts would further hurt already difficult relations.

Taiwan has stepped up searches on Yangming Mountain and other areas in Taipei, but officials are asking for more information from China.

Broadcast from Taiwan

Beijing is set to handover technical data showing that a pirate broadcast operation indeed emanated from northern Taiwan and replaced regular TV programming with images of the Falun Gong.

[...]

Government spokesman Chuang Suo-hang alleged Chinese hackers have targeted Taiwan, and have broken into 42 government computer systems and 216 Taiwanese Web sites from November 2001 to July 2002.

"It happens all the time," he said noting that documents and information were stolen from the sites in some cases.

Pirate broadcasting on radio and television was common in Taiwan until the mid-90s when the government relaxed regulations, opened new frequencies and handed out more broadcasting licenses.

Dissidents, independence activists and other groups would interrupt broadcasts and disrupt signals.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, and political relations remain tense between the rivals.

'Propaganda'

Chang Ching-hsi, a Falun Gong member and economics professor at the elite National Taiwan University, said, "I don't know anything about this [...]"

Falun Gong has made a practice in recent months of hacking into local TV feeds and broadcasts, often broadcasting transmissions to tell the benefits of the group and persuade the citizenry that Chinese authorities have treated it unfairly.

[...]

Last week, 15 people convicted of breaking into a cable system to show Falun Gong videos were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

The sentences were among the longest yet imposed in the campaign to crush the spiritual movement, which had millions of followers before it was banned.

Thousands of Falun Gong followers have been detained since the group was outlawed in 1999.

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/25/taiwan.falungong/index.html