Forwarded From: William Knowles <erehwon@kizmiaz.dis.org>
BEIJING (AP) [1.8.99] - A 13-year-old computer hacker in China's Inner
Mongolia region illegally accessed an information service network using
his father's name, state media said Friday.
Computer crimes, some involving the Internet, have soared in recent years,
with hackers taking advantage of China's fragile security measures to make
havoc with computer systems.
Nearly 100 cases of computer hacking were uncovered in 1998, an increase
of about 30 percent over the previous year, the China Daily reported
Friday.
Last month, a court sentenced to death two brothers who used a computer
network to transfer the equivalent of $31,700 from a bank to their own
account, the newspaper said.
Because the boy in Inner Mongolia was under age 14, police could not
prosecute him and instead ordered his parents to keep a closer eye on him,
the Xinhua News Agency said.
The teen-ager used his father's name to connect to an information network
and set up a page called ``Hacker'' free of charge at a Web site based in
the southern city of Guangzhou in early October, Xinhua said.
He also manipulated computer codes to take control of managers' accounts
in a multimedia telecommunications system in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia's
regional capital, Xinhua said.
-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 16:54:43 1999