Pro-Democracy Hackers Infiltrate Chinese TV Station

On August 1, residents of Wenzhou, a city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, saw their normal Wenzhou Television programming interrupted by caustic messages in stark yellow text appearing on a black background.

One message, emblazoned across the top of the screen, declared, "Damn the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpieces: China Central Television, Peoples' Daily" -- the first a broadcaster, the latter a newspaper, and both generally acknowledged to toe the party line -- as well as "the Propaganda Department and the State Radio and Film Administration," both agencies that exercise government censorship.

Wenzhou Television could not be immediately reached for comment.