FC: China shuts down Net-cafes; more on China and Net-control

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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http://www.politechbot.com/p-02283.html
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Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 18:38:10 +0800
From: John Tanner <tanner () telecomasia net>
To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com
Subject: Re: FC: China can use Net for control; response from Adam Powell

Hi Declan,

Regarding the Politech posts about control of the Internet in China,
etc, here's an item from AFP (cribbing a story from state news agency
Xinhua, so watch out) with an update on the cyber-cafe crackdown
announced by the government last April.

Friday, July 20 12:19 AM SGT

China shuts down nearly 2,000 Internet cafes: Xinhua

http://english.hk.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/technology/afp/article.html?s=hke/headlines/010720/technology/afp/China_shuts_down_nearly_2_000_Internet_cafes__Xinhua.html

By the way, here's one interesting side effect of the Chinese
government's concerns over "pernicious information" and other harmful
content on the Net: it's evidently inspired a cottage industry for scam
artists selling "black boxes" and software to ISPs, Internet cafe owners
and end users that promise to block access to or otherwise censor
pernicious content that could get you in trouble with the authorities.
This is according to an analyst from BDA China I met in Shanghai
recently -- and, unsurprisingly, these censorship products work just
about as well as you might expect them to (which is to say, not very).

Regards,

John C. Tanner
Global Technology Editor
Telecom Asia/Wireless Asia
Advanstar Telecoms Group
Tel: +852 2589 1328
Fax: +852 2559 7002
Email: tanner () telecomasia net
URL: www.telecomasia.net

********

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 11:58:51 +0800
From: robert clark <rclark () telecomasia net>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: China can use Net for control; response from Adam Powell

Declan

Two comments on this as it relates to China:
1. I think the Internet is over-rated as a tool of social and political
emancipation for developing countries. Certainly as far as Chinese are
concerned, few people can afford a computer. And for the majority who live in
rural areas it's hardly a priority.  Besides, Internet connections leave an
electronic paper trail.

Basic telephone connections are more important - they are cheaper, everyone can
use them and they are hard for even the most determined spooks to tap.

China now has more than 150m fixed line connections and 120m digital mobile
phones, compared with (officially) 26m Internet users. Thanks to these, for the
first time in history  Chinese people have a mostly secure means of
communicating with each other, beyond the scope of the many supervising
authorities.

2. At the same time China, like the Internet, is full of workarounds. Internet
cafes, ISPs and the  geek around the corner will enable users ways of skirting
the controls. Very often Chinese laws are for show only - no-one even bothers
enforcing them, let alone obeying them.

The last time I looked in a Beijing Internet cafe, I could easily log onto
Taiwanese newspapers. This may have changed, but even now, with the government
cracking down on the Internet, newspapers and supposedly dangerous foreign
academics ahead of next year's party congress, the flow of important Chinese
language documents on to the Net continues, either out of Beijing or from
abroad - The Tiananmen Papers being a recent example.


Robert Clark
Group Editor
Telecom Asia
Hong Kong
http://www.telecomasia.net


********

From: "Jack Dean" <JackDean () WebCommanders com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Subject: China Shuts Down 2,000 Internet Cafes, Paper Says
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 22:16:21 -0400

In case you haven't seen this  . . .

http://news.excite.com/news/r/010720/07/net-china-internet-dc

China Shuts Down 2,000 Internet Cafes, Paper Says

Updated: Fri, Jul 20 7:35 AM EDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has shut nearly 2,000 down Internet cafes across
the country and has ordered 6,000 to suspend operations and make changes,
state media said on Friday.

Anonymous cybercafes are popular because they allow people to evade tough
content laws, whose infringement on a personal homepage or message board
authorities are likely to track to its source.

The Shanghai Daily said the move, China's second major clampdown on the
popular cafes in a little more than a year, aims to regulate the Internet
service market in line with rules set by the Ministries of Information
Industry, Public Security and Culture and the State Administration of
Industry and Commerce.

[...]

*********

From: "Lokman Tsui" <lokkie () lokman nu>
To: <apowell () freedomforum org>
Cc: <chineseinternetresearch () yahoogroups com>, <skalathil () ceip org>,
        <declan () well com>
References: <001401c110df$7baf9320$0200005a@eriko>
Subject: in reaction to Adam Powell
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:33:14 +0200

My reaction to the problems Adam Powell has, in reaction to Kalathil and
Boas's article.

> For every registered user we met in China, we met several who were not
> registered. So instead of the official Beijing number of 26.5 million
people
> on line (that's the *official* number from China Internet Network
> Information Center reported today, up 56.8% from last year - details at
> http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=14423) most
> experts we contacted said the ratio of unregistered to registered users is
> 4:1, yielding a total of well over 100 million.

In defense of Kalathil and Boas:
The problem of internet statistics in China is notorious. I would like to
ask Adam Powell, who the experts are he contacted that states the ratio of
4:1, bringing the number of internet users in China over 100 million. I am a
bit skeptical, because other internet statistics / metrics companies, such
as IAMAsia and Netvalue, actually /downplay/ the numbers of CNNIC, each
reporting a few million less.

I think the Chinese government has no incentive in reporting less internet
users, since it wants to use the internet to stimulate the economy.
Arguably, the government has every incentive of over-reporting the number of
users.

> These are people who go to great pains *not* to be counted or found by the
> government, but somehow they are expected to respond to an official
survey.
> And if they do not complete the survey, these people do not exist.

I have my doubts that these people, who hide from the government, account
for a difference in the scale of millions.

 > We also are receiving email from people in countries where, according to
> this paper, all such traffic is monitored and all users are registered.
Not
> so. Students all seem to know how to use proxy servers and anonymizers and
> avoid official scrutiny -- and are not reported by those relying on
official
> numbers.

One of the points in my thesis, is how proxy servers and anonymizers are
overrated, with regard to avoiding filtering and monitoring.

In short:
Anonymizers are either slow to operate and/or flawed (bad javascript
exposing the identity of the user), or demand payment (a big barrier for the
Chinese because there is barely electronic payment in China).

And even if the use of proxy servers is common in China, they suffer from a
few flaws:
- they still form a technical barrier to operate, preventing people with not
enough technical knowledge from using them. With the internet getting more
popular, the number of people with not enough technical knowledge will grow.
- the Chinese government is, supposedly, deploying fake proxy servers,
so-called honey pots.
- the proxy server can be blocked too. If more people will use proxy
servers, that means the barrier needs to be set lower, but that also means
it will be easier for the government to track them.
- there is no commercial incentive in running a proxy server, continuity of
the service is thus not guaranteed.

> But more broadly, the problem is with the "one machine, one user" model of
> the Internet that most in North America and Europe assume is the standard
> worldwide. Not so: in Africa, Asia and South America, the standard is "one
> machine, many users."

This I agree with. We really need to come up with a more satisfactory model
for defining an 'internet user' (in China and in general).

> Otherwise, what are we to make of the reports by the BBC and the NY Times
> that China has been forced to change "official" versions of news stories
> because Chinese can send email to each other (and to those outside of
China)
> with first-hand accounts of what actually happened?

I would rather mention the BBS as a source of unofficial information, than
e-mail.


Regards,
Lokman Tsui

**********

From: "Ben" <bmw () carolina rr com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: China can use Net for control; response from Adam Powell
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 13:53:44 -0400

Cipherwar.com has a long-running story related to this issue; the first-hand
accounts of an American teacher in China. Apparently he uses encrypted email
to report his experiences. There are 3 parts...

http://www.cipherwar.com/news/01/liberator_0501.htm

http://www.cipherwar.com/news/01/liberator_0508.htm

http://www.cipherwar.com/news/01/liberator_0625.htm

**********

From: "Shanthi Kalathil" <skalathil () ceip org>
To: <chineseinternetresearch () yahoogroups com>, <apowell () freedomforum org>
Cc: <chineseinternetresearch () yahoogroups com>, <declan () well com>
References: <001401c110df$7baf9320$0200005a@eriko> 
<003301c110e5$de9d23c0$0200005a@eriko>
Subject: Re: [chineseinternetresearch] in reaction to Adam Powell
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 12:34:03 -0400

Hi,
Just a couple of responses:
First, I'd like to thank Adam Powell for pointing out that the subject
matter of our report was mischaracterized in the subject line on the
politech list. My co-author Taylor and I had hoped people would go on to
read the actual report and form their own conclusions, and I'm happy that
Adam has done so.
Second, I'd like to reinforce Lokman's point that accurate statistics on
Internet users in China are hard to come by. The official CNNIC methodology
has been questioned by a number of sources, which is why we also included
the 17 million figure, an IDC estimate. We thus tried to provide a range,
rather than relying solely on government data, as Adam says we do.
Undoubtedly, Adam is correct to emphasize the question of access;
unfortunately, the disparity in reported figures and metholodologies means
that it will be hard to draw a truly accurate picture for the time being.
Adam also notes that many students know how to use proxy servers and
anonymizers to avoid scrutiny. This is true, but as Lokman points out in his
email and his thesis, the technological savvy needed to access a proxy
server may be out of reach for the majority of Internet users. Indeed, I'd
argue that by putting politically sensitive sites out of easy reach by the
majority of Internet users, the government has restricted the sites' viewers
to those who a) are willing to; and b) know how to make a special effort to
reach outside sources of political news. Such users are a relatively small
proportion of the population of Internet users, who in turn make up a small
proportion of the Chinese population. (A new study by Guo Liang at CASS has
found that in fact a majority of Chinese Internet users show little interest
in using proxy servers.)
Finally, Adam notes that "this is to say that (the Internet) is an important
influence in totalitarian countries, enabling a still small but rapidly
growing minority to access information directly from outside of their
countries -- and to relay that information and their personal views via
email to others." I agree. We note in our paper that challenges to
government control in China are mounting, and we specifically cite the case
of the Jiangxi schoolhouse explosion as an example. Our paper simply tried
to point out that authoritarian governments are aware of these challenges,
and are constantly (and, for the time being, successfully) shaping their
approaches to meet these challenges head on. We're certainly not wishing for
or predicting their ultimate success (quite the opposite); it's our hope
that this contribution to the understanding of government strategies will
help lend a more nuanced tone to the current debate.
Thanks for the comments,
Shanthi

**********

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 06:19:45 -0400
From: Nick Bretagna <onemug () gdn net>
Reply-To: afn41391 () afn org
To: apowell () freedomforum org
CC: zDeclan/Politech <declan () well com>, Pmcmasters () freedomforum org,
        azeitlin () hotmail com
Subject: The INet & China

While I have not yet read the paper which initiated Mr. Powell's missive, I 
have to say that his arguments and questions seemed the likely ones to be 
missed by the authors of the paper, and many occurred to me when I read the 
abstract posted by Declan.

Increased communications is anathema to totalitarianism everywhere. 
Totalitarianism has a substantial foundation in keeping people ignorant -- 
of the wealth and status of "the competition", of other ways, of means of 
resistance, of others who wish to resist -- There could be a whole host of 
papers written about how the increase in fax machines and copiers affected 
the fall of the Soviet Union. The internet is that same communcation system 
boost writ paperless, trace-resistant, and almost instantaneous.

Further, tech stimulates hackers, hackers stimulate alternate solutions, 
and alternate solutions stimulate a desire for use of them. To suppress 
hackers is to suppress some of the best and brightest minds in any group -- 
the very ones who, once they "settle down", become highly productive, 
highly capable engineers and programmers. If you suppress them, you 
suppress your country's techno-economic future. In a world where a tech 
innovation can change any paradigm virtually overnight, a suppressed 
techno-economy is a recipe for disaster.

China cannot and will not be able to compete in the world economy if they 
suppress hackers. No amount of population thrown at a true problem can 
counter the efforts of one lone genius, in terms of solving said problem. 
Destroy that genius, and you will be left behind, forever playing catch-up, 
as the country which did not destroy its geniuses leaves you in the dust.

--
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Nicholas Bretagna II
<mailto:afn41391 () afn org>mailto:afn41391 () afn org





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