Hackers strike Peru's national election office February 15, 2000 Web posted at: 10:58 p.m. EST (0358 GMT)

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Computer hackers broke into the national election office's Web site and altered a list of polling officials assigned for the upcoming presidential vote, authorities said Tuesday.

Newspaper reports said the list was replaced with insulting taunts written in Portuguese and directed at the government's Web page designers.

Jose Portillo, the national election office chief, said at no time was the office's central computer system, used to tally votes, in danger of a security breach.

"The elections information for April 9 is very difficult, almost impossible, to modify," Portillo told reporters. "The security of the information is guaranteed."

Authorities said Brazilian hackers broke into the Web page on Sunday.

Transparencia, a private election watchdog group, said the incident shows the election office's computer system is not impervious to tampering and that the attack creates doubts about the election's outcome. President Alberto Fujimori's opponents say they fear that electoral fraud will carry him to an unprecedented third consecutive term.

Fujimori, who first came to power in 1990 and won easy re-election in 1995, has a wide lead in most polls over his closest rivals. But opponents contend that his candidacy violates the constitution, and they accuse him and the National Intelligence Service of waging a systematic, illegal campaign of spying, dirty tricks and harassment to gain an unfair advantage before the vote.

The U.S.-based Carter Center and French-based International Federation of Human Rights both issued reports in the last week sharply critical of Fujimori's re-election campaign. Among other criticisms, the election observers said Fujimori exercises unfair dominance over the National Election Board, the nation's final arbiter in election disputes.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/02/15/peru.internet.ap/index.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 16, 2000