LATE IN AUGUST, Internet usersin China suddenly found them-selves unable to accessgoogle.com. No government offi-cial had publicly announced aban, nor had Google taken anysudden action to provoke China’swrath. Nonetheless, on August 29,millions of Chinese computer us-ers could no longer access theworld’s most popular search en-gine.

China’s filtering efforts are farfrom unique. For example, SaudiArabia, Singapore and Vietnamalso filter sites they deem offen-sive. In the US, the state of Penn-sylvania requires Internet serviceproviders to prevent access tostate-identified child pornogra-phy, with other states reportedlyconsidering following suit.

But Chinese filtering goes fur-ther than efforts elsewhere, inpart by keeping secret the veryfact that authorities are blockingcontroversial sites. CompareChina’s filtering efforts with thecorresponding practice in SaudiArabia: when an Internet user inthe kingdom tries to access a siteprohibited there, the browsergives an error message, in Arabicand English, explicitly statingthat access has been prohibited.It also names the governmentagency responsible.

The Saudi ‘‘access denied’’page also lets the user read moreabout the blocking policy. It evenprovides a form allowing the userto ask the administration to re-consider its block on the site. Incontrast, a Chinese user request-ing a prohibited site gets no ex-plicit report that the site hasbeen blocked.

Instead, the user receives onlya ‘‘host not found’’ error message– but this message could also bethe result of a malfunctioningWeb server or a damaged networklink. As a result, a user is uncer-tain that a site is actually blocked– it could simply be broken orunreachable. A user can only as-sume that a site has been blockedthrough correspondence with for-eign colleagues or through re-peated testing over time.

As if prior filtering efforts werenot secretive enough, newchanges make Chinese filteringeven less transparent. Lastmonth, China’s filtering appar-ently extended to restrictions on

certain key words, regardless ofsite or context. In some parts ofChina, users’ Web searches mustnot mention any in a list of pro-hibited terms; elsewhere, the net-work checks for prohibited termsin Web-page results, blocking anypage that includes those terms.

Finally, such filtering some-times extends also to e-mail,when messages with even a singleprohibited word or phrase arediscarded.

Such crude filtering often failsto accomplish the goals of admin-istrators. A key-word block on the

name of a sensitive organisationmight restrict access to negativenews about the group rather thanmerely preventing communica-tion with its members. In addi-tion, like China’s earlier filteringsystems, these new developmentsare secret; users come to antici-pate the subjects deemed off-lim-its, but there is no known author-ity to propagate such rules orreceive complaints.

Admittedly, filtering secrecypales in comparison with themore pressing problems of filter-ing restrictions themselves, and

of the associated enforcement ef-forts. But taking as given China’sdesire to restrict the flow of infor-mation, an increase in the trans-parency of filtering might bringabout surprisingly extensive pro-gress on the practical problemswith the policy.

For example, if filtering wasopen to public scrutiny, the ag-grieved operators and users offiltered sites could complain tothe relevant Chinese authority,expressing their outrage at bothintentional and accidental prohi-bitions. The accidental blocks and

those that were too wide-rangingwould probably be reversed – aclear improvement over the er-rors caused by the current lack offormal review or reconsideration.

But China’s intentional blockswould remain, and might becomeincreasingly controversial. If Bei-jing admitted filtering, it wouldsurely face objections under theUnited Nations’ Universal Decla-ration of Human Rights, a Gener-al Assembly proclamation explic-itly prohibiting governmentrestrictions on any form of media.China has already faced numer-

ous similar challenges. Indeed,there is little practical differencebetween admitting to filteringand continuing to deny the prac-tice half-heartedly. China clearlythinks it is entitled to filter theInternet, UN resolutions notwith-standing, and with the practicealready so well known, China ar-guably need not even deny it.

Realistically, it is hard to imag-ine China coming to see increasedtransparency as the sensible wayforward, at least in the near future.But the Internet itself may pro-duce and enforce such transpar-

ency. Thanks in large part to up-dates received by e-mail from us-ers across China, the South ChinaMorning Post and others havepublished scores of reports of re-strictions around the country –despite official denials. Reportersand researchers worldwide are in-creasingly discussing the subject –in frequent BBC despatches and acomprehensive report from theUS-based think-tank Rand Corpo-ration, among others.

My own contribution, withProfessor Jonathan Zittrain of theHarvard Law School, is a Web-based system that allows a re-mote verification of any givensite’s accessibility from China. Weare also testing many hundreds ofthousands of sites, yielding an in-creasingly rigorous sense of whatis blocked and where. We areplanning to publish our full re-sults online.

Research aside, some havewatched the situation evolve andhave decided to do more thanwrite about it. Taking matters intotheir own hands, public-spiritedprogrammers calling themselvesPeak-a-booty are designing soft-ware to circumvent filtering sys-tems established by China andothers. Though not yet complete,their software already reflects anarms race and we will surely seeChina striving to render it ineffec-tive.

China’s recent implementa-tion of key-word based filteringshows all too clearly the country’sapparent commitment to Internetrestrictions. China will not easilygive up the filtering arms race,recent developments suggest, andfacilitation of the free flow of in-formation will yet require re-newed effort on all fronts – re-porting, analysis, circumventionand lobbying. Meanwhile, aftertwo weeks in absentia, Google isback in China – for those userswho avoid topics deemed off-lim-its. But the interested publicought not rest until key-word re-strictions are lifted – or, at thevery least, until Chinese officialsadmit they are tampering.

Benjamin Edelman is a studentat the Harvard Law School and aresearcher at its Berkman Centrefor Internet & Societyhttp://cyber.law.harvard.edu/edelman.html

DURING MUCH OF THE 1990s, thedebate in the West over whetherto trade with China, given thegovernment’s record of humanrights abuses, usually focused onwhich approach would most likelylead to the country’s liberalis-ation: engagement and trade, orisolation and sanctions?

Proponents of free trade ar-gued that the flow of goods andinformation would lead to a freer,more open society. The clincher,

they often said, would be the blos-soming of the Internet, which wasthen seen as the one thing theChinese government would not beable to control as the countrysped into the future. In fact, it wasassumed that no authoritarian re-gime was safe from the liberatingpower of the Net.

Fast-forward to the presentday. In China, many Web sites areblocked. So are certain pages, andsometimes e-mails cannot be ac-cessed. Western and Chinese por-tals, together with local Internetservice-providers, have signed

self-censorship pledges. Internetcafes monitor and, if necessary,report the surfing habits of theirpatrons. A recent study by theRand Corporation said at least 25dissidents have been arrested inthe past two years because of theironline activities. In short, the gov-ernment has largely succeeded indoing what so many thought im-possible: controlling the Internetwithin its borders.

How did this come about? Inmyriad ways, really. Through theuse of cutting-edge technology,the powerful lure of the largest

telecom market in the near futureand, at the local level, good old-fashioned intimidation. But tech-nology experts and human rightsofficials say it could not havehappened without the help ofWestern firms, especially tele-communications technology mak-ers, which they say have tradedequipment for market share.

‘‘The dotcom boom in Chinawas knowingly built on the re-pression of its people,’’ said GregWalton, a researcher for the Mon-treal-based International Centrefor Human Rights and Democracy

and an expert on telecom techno-logy and Internet censorship inChina. ‘ ‘[The technologycompanies’] image in the 1990swas kind of anarchic and free-wheeling but in reality they wereafter huge profit margins.’’

Mr Walton and others say Bei-jing itself probably developed themore sophisticated Net filteringtechnology employed in recentweeks. But he said it would havebeen impossible for it to do so asquickly without the help of West-ern technology suppliers in yearsgone by.

The names of those companiesare the biggest in the business.Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks,Microsoft, Websense and SunMicrosystems have all played apart, experts claim.

According to Mr Walton andothers, Cisco’s Internet routersand firewalls first helped the Chi-nese government monitor e-mailand other packets of data; Micro-soft proxy servers have been usedto block Web pages; Sun hashelped the government compile anationwide fingerprint database;and Websense has contributed tosophisticated Internet monitoringand filtering techniques.

Meanwhile, Western portalssuch as Yahoo! have agreed not topost any information that mightbe offensive to the government.

These companies’ contribu-tions to China’s security infra-structure have not been limited toblocking Web sites either.

According to a Rights and De-mocracy report, the Chinese gov-ernment’s goal is a ‘‘database-driven remote surveil lancesystem’’ encompassing the Inter-net and a nationwide closed-cir-cuit television (CCTV) network.

Nortel, the report said, hasplayed a ‘‘key role’’ towards thatend, developing a system wherebysurveillance data can be trans-ferred from CCTV cameras alongthe country’s railway network to acentralised point run by the Min-istry of Public Security.

Over last year’s National Dayholiday week, in a trial run, morethan 39 ‘‘suspected criminals’’were arrested at the main Beijingrailway station after their faces

were matched with an electronicbook of mugshots, said AgenceFrance-Presse.

Rights and Democracy also re-ported that Nortel has workedwith Tsinghua University to devel-op speech-recognition software,and has developed a prototypefibre-optic network in Shanghaiwith firewalls that will enable thegovernment to track the surfinghabits of Net users.

Nortel spokeswoman Jolia Kuadenied these charges but con-firmed China Railcom was a

Nortel customer.Ms Kua said Nortel had sold its

Shasta firewall products – whichhave the ability to track users’movements – in Shanghai. How-ever, she said theories that thegovernment used the technologyto track its citizens’ surfing habitswas speculative. ‘‘I will only saythat we sell the same Shasta prod-ucts that we sell everywhere else.We have not engaged in anycustomisation on behalf of theChinese government.’’

She added that holding Nortelresponsible would be like blamingBoeing for al-Qaeda flying itsplanes into the World Trade Cen-tre and that Nortel was not con-cerned about how products wereused after they were bought.

That may change if Rights andDemocracy’s allegations ofNortel’s involvement in surveil-lance technology in China aretrue. There is a growing trend to-wards holding multinational cor-porations accountable for any de-gree of complicity with repressive

governments in human-rightsabuses.

Carol Samdup, co-ordinator ofRights and Democracy’s globalisa-tion programme, said there hasbeen increased discussion in re-cent years about the creation ofinternational legislation and aninternational court to handle suchcases.

The United Nations, mean-while, is exploring ways to bringcorporations under the same um-brella of human-rights laws thatapply to states. And in a majordevelopment last month, a USfederal appeals court in San Fran-cisco upheld US legislation thatenables victims of alleged human-rights abuse to sue US-based cor-porations in US courts.

The ruling came after Myan-mar residents sued California-based energy conglomerateUnocal, charging the company inconnection with alleged slavery,murder and rape carried out bythe Myanmar military during theconstruction of an oil pipelinethere.

Ralph Steinhardt, a professorat the George Washington Univer-sity Law School in Washingtonand an expert on multinationalcorporations and human-rightslaws, says the ruling should have asignificant impact on ‘‘boardroomconsciousness’’.

‘‘Multinationals would need tomake sure they are not giving as-sistance to governments violatinghuman rights,’’ he said.

Even if the technology compa-nies’ actions in China do notlegally amount to rights viola-tions, their role in choking the freeflow of information is less thanadmirable, said Mickey Spiegel,senior Asia researcher for NewYork-based Human Rights Watch.

‘‘You don’t want informationblocked,’’ she said. ‘‘You certainlydon’t want any group of peoplenot to have access to information.You want citizens who are knowl-edgeable. That’s the issue – thatpeople should have information,that information should cross bor-ders and be available.’’

David Lee is a China-basedwriter

16

Focus South China Morning Post WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 2 2002

When the Net goes dark and silent

Multinationals making a mint from China’s Great Firewall

China’s efforts to block Web site access are wrapped in secrecy, writes Benjamin Edelman.A more transparent approach would provide recourse against accidental blocking

‘The technologyfirms’ imagewas kind ofanarchic but inreality they wereafter hugeprofit margins’

David Lee

DESKEDT SCM,2002-10-02,1,SCM,16,SUBS EDITION COLOUR FULL SET C6 ad1 15x2,Britannia Int’l ( FH ) ad2 15x2,Henley Mgmt. College / MBA - Tue Oct 1 20:36:50 2002 - Job1271536DESKEDT SCM,2002-10-02,1,SCM,16,SUBS EDITION COLOUR FULL SET C6 ad1 15x2,Britannia Int’l ( FH ) ad2 15x2,Henley Mgmt. College / MBA - Tue Oct 1 20:36:50 2002 - Job1271536DESKEDT SCM,2002-10-02,1,SCM,16,SUBS EDITION COLOUR FULL SET C6 ad1 15x2,Britannia Int’l ( FH ) ad2 15x2,Henley Mgmt. College / MBA - Tue Oct 1 20:36:50 2002 - Job1271536DESKEDT SCM,2002-10-02,1,SCM,16,SUBS EDITION COLOUR FULL SET C6 ad1 15x2,Britannia Int’l ( FH ) ad2 15x2,Henley Mgmt. College / MBA - Tue Oct 1 20:36:50 2002 - Job1271536