Hacking military computers 'not a hack job'

There is no way hackers - including those from China - can access top-secret data by penetrating the firewalls of military or government networks, an acclaimed Internet scientist said yesterday.

Professor Fang Binxing, former director of the national computer network emergency response team, said there is no scientific basis to blame either China's military or the government for hacking other nations' networks because most of them are "out of reach".

The foreign media, quoting insiders in overseas intelligence services, have recently claimed that hackers, who appeared to be based in China, had repeatedly infiltrated military networks and government computers in more than 100 countries.