Vic: Chinese hackers circulate email on how to hack film website

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2009
Vic: Chinese hackers circulate email on how to hack film website

MELBOURNE, Aug 1 AAP - Instructions educating Chinese citizens on how to sabotage the
Melbourne International Film Festival are being circulated around the world, organisers
say.

In the latest attack on the festival's website, online ticket sales were shut down
after Chinese hackers on Saturday booked out all film sessions through to next Thursday.

It is not the first time hackers have broken into the website, but the first occasion
ticket sales have been compromised.

Hackers replaced festival information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans
soon after the launch of the 2009 festival.

Six Chinese-language movies have also been pulled out of the festival, leaving organisers
with a logistical headache and the fear that Chinese film- makers will boycott the festival
in future.

The hijacking comes as part of a mounting campaign against the festival's screening
of The 10 Conditions of Love, a documentary about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

China has accused Kadeer of being behind this month's violence between Muslim Uighurs
and Han Chinese in China's western Xinjiang region that left nearly 200 people dead.

Kadeer has denied instigating the riots.

Festival director Richard Moore told AAP he had been alerted by a minority Chinese
student living in the US that instructions on how to sabotage the festival were travelling
fast.

"It's a very, very concerted and pointed attack," Mr Moore said.

"Everyone's watching this - it's totally global."

The email provides instructions for loading tickets into "shopping carts" from the
festival's website, and Chinese are being urged to teach others how to "purchase" MIFF
tickets online.

The circulating email reasons MIFF should be sabotaged "because the festival invited Kadeer".

Online sales represent 65 per cent of all tickets bought, Mr Moore said, with the weekend
being the period of "maximum traffic".

"We knew there would be another attempt," he said. "There will be a decline in sales
as a result."

Kadeer is scheduled to attend a question-and-answer session after the screening of
The 10 Conditions of Love on August 8.

Security remains a priority, organisers say. "We've been in constant liaison with the
police. We're monitoring it," Mr Moore said.

Film buffs can still buy tickets at the festival's box office or over the phone.

AAP ees/jhp

KEYWORD: FESTIVAL UPDATE

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