Web border will help cut crime in cyberspace
Amid concerns that the free flow of information will be compromised, authorities are reining in Internet activities by erecting a 'national boundary' in cyberspace.
The boundary requires a variety of measures to monitor Web users and detect and punish 'vicious Internet-based activities', Xinhua said yesterday.
By observing keyboard clicks, tracing the wrongdoers through servers, sounding an early alert, and carrying out unspecified 'special tasks', authorities monitor cyber activities and collect evidence, Hu Mingzeng, an Internet expert at Harbin Industrial University, was quoted as saying.
Official statistics indicated there were 59.1 million Internet users on the mainland by late last year, a figure backed by WebSide Story, a US-based Internet analysis organisation.
China has become the second-largest cyber power after the US, and the mainland leadership is worried the Internet could become a hotbed of illegal activities, including subversion and terrorism.
But the new measures have raised concerns, with some experts saying freedom of speech will be compromised.
Ringo Lam Wing-kwan, chairman of the policy committee of the Hong Kong-based Internet Professionals' Association, called on the central government to strike a balance between safeguarding national security and freedom of speech.
'While it is understandable that the authorities must take care of national security, the leadership must tolerate criticism,'' Mr Lam said.
Lu Zhengyi, a member of the National People's Congress (NPC), who is also a computer expert at Wenzhou Normal Academy, said he supported attempts to trace vice activities and collect evidence for the sake of state security. Mr Lu expects more Internet security laws to be endorsed by the NPC in the coming years. China has already enacted more than 10 laws and regulations specifying that information protection is an obligation of network operators, information providers and connected users.
In 2000, a cyber police force was established to monitor Internet use in real time, intercept and delete harmful information, and capture and check illegal server data.
