Chang Chi-yuan (張啟元) last month hacked Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp’s (台灣高鐵) online ticketing system, tweaking the refund process to return NT$200,000, police said yesterday.
Chang used his cellphone to purchase a NT$40 ticket from Nangang Station to Taipei Railway Station, then immediately requested a refund, police said.
A company employee noticed the abnormal refund amount and reported the incident to the Taipei office of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, police said.
Photo courtesy of Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau
An affidavit on Wednesday said that Chang admitted to making the changes and seeking the altered refund, but added that he hacked the system to prove that it was vulnerable.
“Had I received the NT$200,000, I would have returned it to the company,” the affidavit read.
Chang was released on bail of NT$100,000 after the office charged him with alleged breaches of the Criminal Code, police said.
Chang is a self-proclaimed “white hat” hacker, a computer security expert who specializes in testing systems for vulnerabilities.
Chang last year reportedly hacked the Apple Pay system and purchased 502 iPhones for NT$1, while in 2013 he drew the attention of Facebook after using a loophole to delete posts by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg.
In 2015, Chang was sued by a local bus operator after infiltrating its online system and buying a ticket for NT$1. While Chang returned the ticket and warned the company of the weakness in its system, the company pressed charges.
Chang was sentenced to 60 days in prison, which was commuted to a NT$60,000 fine.
Chang yesterday wrote on Facebook that he despaired of being Taiwanese after his most recent run-in with law enforcement.
He said that he did not want to admit to being Taiwanese.
“I have already given up on Taiwan,” he wrote.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
RSS