17-year-old Guangzhou boy Xiao Fan was taken to court for hacking into a government website in Guangzhou. A reporter from Guangzhou Daily interviewed this young hacker before judgment was pronounced.

Cause: QQ Account Stolen

Xiao Fan used a computer for the first time when he was nine years old. After his parents divorced, lonely Xiao Fan began to surf the net. In 2002, Xiao Fan’s first QQ account was stolen. At that moment, he “admired the hacker instead of being angry. I was eager to learn their skills at that time,” he told the reporter.

At the end of 2004, Xiao Fan met his master B who helped him to join “Campus Hacker Ally”. In order to gain the trust of other members, Xiao Fan once successfully hacked into a famous website after two-days.

Now, Xiao Fan ranks fourth in the Statistics Website of Hacked Websites in China for bringing 684 websites down.

Development: Addicted to Hacking

“I tried to quit after taking 666 websites down, but I couldn’t stop.” Xiao Fan said.

“I wanted to take revenge on my teacher who had always criticized me for being late in front of my classmates, so I decided to infiltrate the Guangzhou Education Bureau website.” Xiao Fan told the reporter. After one-year study in Xin Xiang, Henan Pronvince, Xiao Fan hacked into a government website twice on August 11th and 15th 2007. He finally got caught by the police in Huadu, Guangzhou, at the end of August.

Result: Lenient Judgment and a Determination to Establish a Website Security Company

Xiao Fan argued that he didn’t mean to defy the security of the government website or be destructive. “I informed the web administrator about the bug by e-mail when I infiltrated the website for the first time, but I found that the bug was still there four days later, so I tampered with the homepage out of anger.”

The court administered lenient treatment to Xiao Fan who is now back home. He told the reporter that, he had entered into a local vocational school to study internet knowledge. “I am confident for my future and I’ll study hard. I will open a website security company after my graduation,” he said.