Two Chinese schools suspected of online attacks

Computer experts,including investigators from the National Security Agency,have been working since then to pinpoint the source. Until recently,the trail had led only to servers in Taiwan.

Tracing the attacks further,to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school,is a breakthrough. Evidence acquired by a US military contractor faced with the same attacks has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class,taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school. The revelations were shared by the contractor at a meeting of computer security specialists.

The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School,according to people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the inquiry.

Jiaotong has one of Chinas top computer science programs. A few weeks ago its students won a computer programming competition organ- ised by IBM beating out Stanford and other top universities.

Lanxiang,in Shandong Province,is a vocational school established with military support which trains some computer scientists for the military. The schools computer network is operated by a company with ties to Baidu,Chinas dominant search engine and a competitor of Google.