Hacker attack underlines Web role in China scandal

A massive hacker attack has crippled an overseas website that has reported extensively on Chinas biggest political turmoil in years, underscoring the pivotal role the Internet has played in the unfolding scandal.North Carolina-based Boxun.com was forced to move to a new web hosting service Friday after its previous host said the attacks were threatening its entire business, website manager Watson Meng told The Associated Press. He believes the attacks were ordered by Chinas security services, but it isnt clear where they were launched from.The assaults on Boxuns server followed days of reporting on Bo Xilai, formerly one of the countrys most powerful politicians, who was fired as head of the mega-city of Chongqing and suspended from the Communist Partys powerful Politburo amid accusations of his wifes involvement in the murder of a British businessman.The scandal has deeply embarrassed Communist Party leaders obsessed with controlling their image and imposing strict secrecy over their inner workings.Six years ago, when Shanghais powerful boss was toppled, Chinese social media was in its infancy and months went by with no word on the case against him.Today, the dynamics have changed, and when the government fails to release information about a key political development, the online rumor mill goes into overdrive, with Chinas half-a-billion Internet users taking to blogs, foreign news sites, and most significantlyWeibo, Chinas hugely popular version of Twitter. People on Weibo used to care mainly about lifestyle issues, but this time were seeing it play an unprecedented role in spreading political information and opinion, said Zhan Jiang, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies Universitys School of Mass Media.The first whiff of the Bo scandal came when his former right-hand man, ex-Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, breached protocol with a surprising Feb. 6 visit first reported in Weibo postings to a U.S. Consulate in a neighboring city. There were rumors of a spat with Bo, but neither Chinese nor U.S. revealed any details of the consulate visit.At the time, Bo admitted to not properly managing his staff, but it appeared he would keep his job and remain a candidate for the partys all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee when a new generation of leaders is picked this fall. But then the scandal caught fire with suggestions online that Wang was spreading the word about the alleged involvement of Bos wife in the death of Briton Neil Heywood, a business consultant with close ties to Bos family.Those suspicions first appeared in a brief posting in early March by a reporter from the Southern Weekend newspaper group, who said hed received the information via a Feb. 15 text message from a telephone number used only by Wang.