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Chinese hackers call truce
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CHINESE hackers, engaged in a “cyberwar" with their counterparts in the United States, boasted on Wednesday they had defaced 1,000 US Web sites, but called a truce to the conflict, according to a Chinadaily.com.cn report.
Tit-for-tat defacements across the Pacific linked to China-US tensions have caused untold damage to Web sites in both countries.
A statement by the Honker Union of China, carried by Chinese portal Chinabyte, said that having attacked 1,000 Web sites, their goal had been reached.
“Any attacks from this point on have no connection to the Honker Union," the statement said.
US hackers launched hostilities after an April 1 collision between a US spyplane and a Chinese jet fighter, which crashed into the South China Sea, killing its pilot.
They broke into hundreds of Chinese sites, leaving messages such as “We will hate China forever and we will hack its sites".
In response, the Honker Union -- an informal network of Chinese hackers -- announced on May 1 it would launch its own electronic graffiti blitz.
Companies on both sides of the Pacific have been scrambling to patch up security systems and to temporarily shut down Web sites deemed a security risk.
Two international Web sites which record and archive cases of hacked Web sites reported hundreds of defacements of Web sites ending with China's “.cn" domain since April 1.
Sino-US tension has been building since the spyplane collision.
Tension was exacerbated by US arms sales to Taiwan and tough comments by US president George W. Bush on defending Taiwan and a US decision to grant a visa to former Taiwan “president" Lee Teng-hui.
At least half a dozen high-profile Web sites in the United States had been defaced by apparent Chinese hackers, an Internet security expert in the United States said last week.
One message said: “Don't sell weapons to Taiwan, which is a province of China."(SD-Agencies)
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