The founder of a domestic hacker website has criticized a CNN report that claimed he was employed by the Chinese government to attack a United States government website, a Beijing newspaper reported today.

CNN claimed the central government has employed and paid several young operators of a website to "attack the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon" in a report named "Chinese hackers: No site is safe" on March 7, Global Times said.

The CNN report said the interviewees, identified as Xiao Chen, admitted "they have hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information," and was "paid secretly by the Chinese government" after doing so.

Xiao, the co-founder of Zhejiang-based website Hacker4.com for computer fans to exchange information, said he never said this to the journalist, said the Global Times, which is affiliated to People's Daily.

Shanghai Daily checked Hacker4.com and found most of its information concentrates on providing tips on how to prevent hacker attacks. It publicizes the loopholes of operating systems and teaches users how to recover from cyber viruses.

"The whole CNN report was groundless," Xiao Chen told the Global Times. They apparently wrote that for certain purposes, Xiao added. He spoke to Global Times to "clarify the case" after seeing the CNN report.

A journalsit from CNN sent more than 20 e-mails to set up an interview with Xiao, saying he just wanted to introduce his website, said Xiao in the report.

But the journalist kept asking whether he had accessed the Pentagon's website and if the Chinese government paid them.

He denied answering any questions like that, the Global Times report said.

"I have never had access to any overseas website, let alone attacked one," Xiao told the newspaper.

The US Department of Defense claimed Chinese hackers always attacked its government website in the Chinese Military Report on March 4. However, US-based information security system company Symantec reported that most hackers were in the United States and China is one of the victim countries, the Global Times report said.

(Shanghai Daily, March 11, 2008)