U.S. Congressmen Accuse China of Hacking Their Computers

By STEVEN SCHWANKERT, I
DG News Service\Beijing Bureau
June 12, 2008

Two U.S. Congressmen on Wednesday accused China of hacking their office computers, possibly compromising information on Chinese dissidents, the Congressmen and news reports said.

Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf said from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, "in August 2006, four of the computers in my personal office were compromised by an outside source. This source first hacked into the computer of my foreign policy and human rights staff person, then the computers of my chief of staff, my legislative director, and my judiciary staff person. On these computers was information about all of the casework I have done on behalf of political dissidents and human rights activists around the world."

"In subsequent meetings with House Information Resources and FBI officials, it was revealed that the outside sources responsible for this attack came from within the People's Republic of China. These cyber attacks permitted the source to probe our computers to evaluate our system's defenses, and to view and copy information. My suspicion is that I was targeted by Chinese sources because of my long history of speaking out about China's abysmal human rights record," he continued, according to a transcript on Wolf's Web site. the rest