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Hacktivist group ‘Anonymous’ posted Taiwan flag, national anthem on Chinese government site

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Anonymous, a decentralised international hacktivist group, hacked into a Chinese government tourism promotion website and uploaded, among other things, Taiwan’s national anthem, flag, and pro-Taiwan independence banner, Taiwan News reported Thursday.

On Thursday, Reddit user “Allez-opi omi,” who in July posted a previous Anonymous hack on an official Chinese website, uploaded links to ten pages the group created on the China Cultural Center’s website. The post’s title on social media was, “Anonymous hacking group inserts Taiwanese national anthem into a Chinese governmental tourism promotion website!”

The first link features the recognisable Anonymous logo, a black suit and a question mark. The second link opens an audio file with Taiwan’s national anthem playing.

The third link shows Taiwan’s national flag, while the fourth shows a banner supporting Taiwan’s independence. Fifth, a meme from December of last year depicts China’s CCP Chairman Xi Jinping’s head superimposed on the body of an Apple executive introducing the COVID-19, COVID-19 R, COVID-19 Pro, and COVID-19 Pro Max, rather than the latest iPhone 13 models.

The sixth is a meme that makes fun of Rob Monster, the CEO of Epik, a domain registration site that hosts far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist content. This is followed by a photograph of Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist in Wuhan who was the first to warn about the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

According to Taiwan News, “The eighth is another meme that calls on people to fight the coronavirus like Bruce Lee. Second to last is a meandering manifesto that the website had been hacked after a printer had been exposed on the Shodan search engine.”

The manifesto’s authors claim to represent Anonymous Malaysia before accusing a “Instagram/TikTok influencer” of being a “serial rapist.” However, Allez-opi omi told Taiwan News that the defacement was carried out by the main Anonymous group, while Anonymous Malaysia was only responsible for creating the document about the influencer.

This is not the first time Anonymous group has aimed at China. In June 2020, Anonymous campaigned “Delete TikTok now,” the account affiliated with Anonymous tweeted on July 1, “if you know someone that is using it, explain to them that it is essentially malware operated by the Chinese government running a massive spying operation.”

About the author

Brendan Taylor

Brendan Taylor was a TV news producer for 5 and a half years. He is an experienced writer. Brendan covers Breaking News at Insider Paper.







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