Did ‘Tiananmen’ hack at Japan’s Tokyo University aim to block access from China?
Officials are investigating if resentment towards the growing number of Chinese students at Japan’s most prestigious university was a factor
The discovery of a subtle yet incendiary digital message buried deep within the source code of a University of Tokyo website has prompted an investigation into whether hackers sought to block access from China – or send a pointed political message.
The hidden characters, written in kanji, were found embedded in the pages of the university’s Graduate School of Frontier Science website, including its English-language entry page and an admissions information section.
“Inserting these characters in the code is being seen as creating a barrier to Chinese students accessing the pages,” the professor told This Week in Asia, speaking on condition of anonymity. “That is just speculative at the moment, but the university is looking into that possibility.”
According to a report on Saturday by Japanese newspaper the Mainichi Shimbun, the website was launched for the 2023 academic year, and the contentious lines of code were discovered in November.
