A 14-year-old junior high school student in Taipei was identified by police on Wednesday as the individual responsible for altering a government Web site notice on the suspension of work and school when Typhoon Fanapi hit Taiwan this past weekend.
The student, identified only by his surname, Wu (吳), copied the typhoon-day notice on the Web site of the Executive Yuan’s Central Personnel Administration (CPA), changed it, and published it on his own site, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said.
CONFESSION
Wu confessed that he changed the CPA’s announcement on Sept. 19 that schools in certain cities and counties in Taiwan “will be closed for one day” because of the typhoon, to read “closed for one year,” the police said.
Under CIB questioning, Wu admitted that he had uploaded the altered CPA web page to the Web site twft.co.cc/class.html, which he had registered in a foreign country, police said.
After the false notice appeared on the student’s Web site, it was copied on several blogs and other Web sites, including Plurk, police said.
JAIL TIME
Wu said it was a prank that he did purely for fun, but said that he deeply regretted his actions.
Captain Lee Si-ho (李西河) of the CIB said Wu could face a prison sentence of between one and seven years for his actions, which included forging a government Web site and spreading false information.
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