In line with the student protestors, the Asian branch of the largest international hacker organization, Anonymous Asia, has been continuously hacking into the government website since July 30. On the afternoon of August 3, after the collapse of the negotiation between students and the Ministry of Education, Anonymous Asia attacked the ministry’s website, Ma Ying-jeou’s news website (ma19.cc) and hung2016.com.

Storm Media reports, Anonymous Asia started their Anonymous #OpTaiwan movement on July 31. They first attacked the websites of the presidential palace and the Ministry of Education using distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and forced the sites to shut down for five hours. Anonymous Asia threatens there will be even larger-scale actions in the future.

On the morning of August 2, the hackers started their second attack. The objectives included the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of National Defense, the National Academy for Educational Research and the pro-KMT TV station, CTiTV.

The Executive Yuan stresses that the textbook controversy should return to rational discussions. Causing malfunctions to the government website may succeed temporarily, but will also affect the rights of the general public looking for information on government resources. This doesn’t necessarily help win the public’s support and sympathy.

Translated by Sarah Grasdijk
Edited by Olivia Yang

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