The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today said it indicted three suspects in connection with an “internal breach” of Radio Taiwan International’s (RTI) Web site in September.
On Sept. 11, RTI reported an online attack in which the banner on its Web site was replaced with the People’s Republic of China flag.
Former RTI engineer Wu Cheng-hsun (吳政勳), former section chief Yue Chao-chu (岳昭莒) and a third man named Huang Fu-lin (黃富琳) were today indicted on charges including interfering with computer systems.
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said they are seeking prison terms of three years for Wu, two-and-a-half years for Yue and a similarly severe sentence for Huang, as their actions were intended to provoke cross-strait tensions.
Following the incident, RTI convened a personnel review committee and decided to dismiss Wu, while Yue was disciplined with a major demerit for negligence in supervision and failing to stop the misconduct.
Yue has since voluntarily retired.
Wu began working at RTI in May as an engineer in the online media division and was responsible for Web site maintenance and information security audits, the indictment said.
Yue was head of the division and managed the Web site’s original source code, it said.
Huang had previously worked for RTI as a system maintenance contractor and knew both Wu and Yue, it added.
The investigation found that in June, Wu, Yue and Huang conspired to attack the RTI Web site, with Wu allegedly providing the site’s highest-level administrator account without authorization, enabling Huang to access the backend, delete logs of Wu’s activity and provide technical assistance.
The three also formed a Line group, prosecutors found.
Yue knew of Wu and Huang’s actions, but failed to report the matter or intervene, they said.
On Aug. 20, Wu interfered with the parameters of the RTI Web site, changed its Japanese main page so that it showed simplified Chinese or garbled characters, and interrupted the Web site's signal, prosecutors said.
On Sept. 11, 18, 19 and 20, he changed RTI's main site and replaced the Web site with the book cover of The 'Retaking the Mainland' by Taiwanese Government: The Concept of Chinese Unification by the ROC, and changed the banner to the People's Republic of China flag as well as the US flag.
On Sept. 24, prosecutors said that Wu used the Line group to send RTI’s original source code to Huang from inside the RTI office without authorization.
Prosecutors said they searched Wu and Yue’s residences on Sept. 26, with Wu showing no remorse and even logging onto the RTI system two days later to remove a URL.
Wu and Yueh claimed they acted as they suspected Chinese capital was interfering with the RTI Web site, prosecutors said.
Wu's actions damaged RTI's credibility and disrupted its operations, prosecutors said, while local media reported that Wu claimed he did so to "unveil loopholes" in the broadcaster's system.
However, the images that Wu put on the Web site raised tensions across the Taiwan Strait, posing danger far exceeding general criminal offenses, prosecutors said.
Wu's plan to attack the site on Oct. 10, Double Ten National Day, carries great symbolic meaning, they added.
RTI is a national radio broadcaster with Taiwan’s only international radio programming, which relies solely on government funding and is designated as key national infrastructure, they said.
Internal hacking at RTI could have a significant impact on national and public interests, as well as public confidence, they said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS