1996-01-31
Craig A. Johnson
Check out the front page story in today's Wall Street Journal for an
example of how China is planning to clamp down on the Internet. The
move parallels the recent order to Xinhua, the official news agency,
to regulate and restrict the types of economic news and data which
enter the country.
Enter the China Internet Corporation. Backed by Xinhua, the
company's "intranet" will allow "Chinese users unlimited access to
each other but only screened links with the world beyond," according
to the Journal.
U.S.-trained computer scientist James Chu proclaims: "We've
eliminated what is undesirable and kept what is good."
--caj
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Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:23:33 -0500
From: Dave Farber <•••@••.•••>
Subject: IP: the "Chinese Firewall"
To: •••@••.••• (interesting-people mailing
list)
1-31-96. WSJ:
"Chinese Firewall: Beijing Seeks to Build Version of the
Internet That Can Be Censored."
"We've eliminated what is undesirable and kept what is
good." Which is, succinctly, China's riposte to the
information age, from satellite television and real-time
news to the Internet. Beijing eagerly seeks the fanciest
information hardware, but it fears much of the software.
China, in short, is determined to do what conventional
wisdom suggests is impossible: Join the information age
while restricting access to information. The reason: If
the Internet has proved its utility, it has also become
a fluid medium for the two things China's authoritarian
government most dreads, political dissent and
pornography.
Industry insiders say China -- which has already bought
some of the most powerful equipment available, from
U.S.-based Cisco Systems Inc. and Sprint International,
a unit of Sprint Corp. -- ultimately aims to create a
monolithic Internet backbone, centrally administered,
that minimizes the threat posed by the Internet's
amoeba-like structure.
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Craig A. Johnson
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Telecommunications/Information Policy Specialist
Transnational Data Reporting Service, Inc.
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