China wrestles an online dragon

In April, the Ministry of Public Security held a conference on national surveillance which decided to "clean up the Internet environment" before the 16th Party Congress this fall.

China's security chiefs called for fresh efforts to detect suspects, especially "hostile foreign forces" who allegedly threaten the country's information security and aim to "subvert China through the Internet."

China's Communist Party loves to import the latest technology as quickly as possible but has been unpleasantly surprised by how dissident groups like the Falun Gong have used encrypted e-mails and mobile phones to organize themselves into hard-to-break cells.

In the pursuit of such dissidents, the government has slapped cafes with tough regulations. To operate cafes, owners have to install monitoring software to enable police to track what websites have been browsed on public computers. Owners of registered cafes report that the police come once or twice a month to make checks.

Internet cafes are also forbidden within 600 feet of primary and secondary schools, and government, Communist Party, and military offices and installations.

China originally tried to erect a firewall against the outside world and establish what was really a giant, national Intranet – a closed system with only tightly controlled gateways to the outside world.

When this seemed unachievable, it began hungrily importing software and high-capacity computers to allow the state to monitor the huge flow of e-mails and the proliferation of websites.

Two years ago, it introduced sweeping Internet regulations restricting foreign investment in Internet content providers and requiring websites to maintain highly detailed records that must be turned over to the police on demand.

"We cannot neglect the influence of the Internet on teenagers' growth and social development," information industry minister Wu Jichuan was quoted as saying at the time.

Not only do Internet content providers have to register with the Chinese government, they must keep detailed records of what they publish.

Companies are also required to "record the times users log on to the Internet, users' account numbers, Internet addresses or domain names and the phone numbers users dial in from."

These records are to be maintained for 60 days and are to be turned over to the government upon request. The new regulations effectively limit what content can be made available to the public.

Beijing also bans any content that "harms the reputation of China," or that could be classified as "disrupting social stability." The regulations prohibit content that is "harmful to ethnic unity" and that will hurt the country's efforts to assert sovereignty over Taiwan.

In practice, the Ministry of Security has found it hard to track down dissent through the cyber cafes. Even if a digital trail from an illegal message leads to a computer, the venues hook up numerous computers to the same Internet connection and a single IP address.

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