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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 536
Netizens-Digest Monday, May 17 2004 Volume 01 : Number 536
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Netizen Role in China
Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
[netz] China celebrates 10 years of being connected to the Internet (fwd)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 21:40:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Hauben <jrh@umcc.ais.org>
Subject: [netz] Netizen Role in China
Hi,
I thought readers of this list would be interested in the role of netizens
reported in the People's Daily English online edition:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/07/eng20040307_136777.shtml
Take care.
Jay
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Netizens Constitute Most Active 'Constituency' in China
The first thing Zhou Hongyu does after his rise every morning is to surf
his personal website, www.hongyu-online.com, to see if there are new
proposals other netizens have sent him.
Zhou, 46, is the first netizen deputy to China's top legislature, the
National People's Congress (NPC), who launches a personal website designed
as a forum for solicit proposals from website discussion of state affairs.
"The Internet is a most primary means to collect information in a modern
society, and as the number of netizens swells and their cultural
accomplishments accumulate, the impact of web surfers over the country's
political affairs will increase daily," said Zhou, also a noted professor
of Central China Normal University.
Long before the annual NPC session opened last Friday, Zhou had finalized
21 motions and proposals, half of which were based on whatever materials
coming from his personal website. "Some netizens suggested drafting laws
against discrimination and for national reunification, and some advocated
using scientific ways for family planning," he said.
Zhou, who concurrently serves as deputy director of the Wuhan city
education bureau, said he has done a lot to pool the "good, smart ideas"
from netizens and incorporate them into motions and proposals he brings to
NPC sessions for deliberation.
China had 68 million netizens by July 2003, according to the China
Internet Information Center. The figure, though it accounts for only 5.3
percent of the country's 1.3 billion population, is increasing by a daily
average of 50,000, said Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information
Office of the State Council, China's central government.
A survey conducted by the Social Development Research Center under the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 12 major cities shows that 71.8
percent of the netizens agree to the notion "they have more opportunities
to express their views online," and 72.3 percent of them hold that
"government officials can acquaint themselves with more public opinions
through the Internet."
In fact, most netizens air their views through media-run websites, many of
which began sorting out public opinion two weeks before the sessions of
the top legislature and advisory body.
Meanwhile, a growing number of deputies to the top legislature and members
of the national advisory body enrich and substantialize their motions and
proposals with selected materials from netizens.
NPC deputy Lu Zhongmei, who took the lead in soliciting motions and
proposals on state affairs through the Internet, said the high tech-based
web is an open, transparent pool that provides a virtual forum for people
to unbosom their hearts.
Lu, also an established law expert, predicted "Chinese netizens will draw
more responses from the lawmakers and political advisors, who meet at
their annual sessions, in the future as the online media in China are in
the process of being matured and rational gradually."
Although the number of netizens makes up a small portion of China's
population, said NPC deputy Zhou Hongyu, they are mostly part of the
ordinary citizens and have rich first-hand knowledge about how government
policies are implemented at the grass-roots level.
Therefore, their desires and wishes as "essential elements" of the
people's cannot be ignored, he said.
"Netizens are a special group of constituency who can express their will
at ease on the Internet, and their activities will facilitate to some
extent the development of democracy in China," Zhou said.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 12:23:50 +0100
From: Dan Duris <dusoft@staznosti.sk>
Subject: Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
Who are the netizens in China? Comrades, making their career in BIG Communist
Party of China? I guess they don't write about those concentration camps for
political prisoners. There are not any netizens in China because China
Internet Information Center is just another eufemism for Censhorship office. I
don't think you would believe such lie as 'being a netizen in China'. There is
no such a thing.
Dan
Jay Hauben wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I thought readers of this list would be interested in the role of netizens
> reported in the People's Daily English online edition:
>
> http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/07/eng20040307_136777.shtml
>
> Take care.
>
> Jay
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Netizens Constitute Most Active 'Constituency' in China
>
> The first thing Zhou Hongyu does after his rise every morning is to surf
> his personal website, www.hongyu-online.com, to see if there are new
> proposals other netizens have sent him.
>
> Zhou, 46, is the first netizen deputy to China's top legislature, the
> National People's Congress (NPC), who launches a personal website designed
> as a forum for solicit proposals from website discussion of state affairs.
>
> "The Internet is a most primary means to collect information in a modern
> society, and as the number of netizens swells and their cultural
> accomplishments accumulate, the impact of web surfers over the country's
> political affairs will increase daily," said Zhou, also a noted professor
> of Central China Normal University.
>
> Long before the annual NPC session opened last Friday, Zhou had finalized
> 21 motions and proposals, half of which were based on whatever materials
> coming from his personal website. "Some netizens suggested drafting laws
> against discrimination and for national reunification, and some advocated
> using scientific ways for family planning," he said.
>
> Zhou, who concurrently serves as deputy director of the Wuhan city
> education bureau, said he has done a lot to pool the "good, smart ideas"
> from netizens and incorporate them into motions and proposals he brings to
> NPC sessions for deliberation.
>
> China had 68 million netizens by July 2003, according to the China
> Internet Information Center. The figure, though it accounts for only 5.3
> percent of the country's 1.3 billion population, is increasing by a daily
> average of 50,000, said Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information
> Office of the State Council, China's central government.
>
> A survey conducted by the Social Development Research Center under the
> Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 12 major cities shows that 71.8
> percent of the netizens agree to the notion "they have more opportunities
> to express their views online," and 72.3 percent of them hold that
> "government officials can acquaint themselves with more public opinions
> through the Internet."
>
> In fact, most netizens air their views through media-run websites, many of
> which began sorting out public opinion two weeks before the sessions of
> the top legislature and advisory body.
>
> Meanwhile, a growing number of deputies to the top legislature and members
> of the national advisory body enrich and substantialize their motions and
> proposals with selected materials from netizens.
>
> NPC deputy Lu Zhongmei, who took the lead in soliciting motions and
> proposals on state affairs through the Internet, said the high tech-based
> web is an open, transparent pool that provides a virtual forum for people
> to unbosom their hearts.
>
> Lu, also an established law expert, predicted "Chinese netizens will draw
> more responses from the lawmakers and political advisors, who meet at
> their annual sessions, in the future as the online media in China are in
> the process of being matured and rational gradually."
>
> Although the number of netizens makes up a small portion of China's
> population, said NPC deputy Zhou Hongyu, they are mostly part of the
> ordinary citizens and have rich first-hand knowledge about how government
> policies are implemented at the grass-roots level.
>
> Therefore, their desires and wishes as "essential elements" of the
> people's cannot be ignored, he said.
>
> "Netizens are a special group of constituency who can express their will
> at ease on the Internet, and their activities will facilitate to some
> extent the development of democracy in China," Zhou said.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 08:11:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Dan Duris wrote:
> Who are the netizens in China? Comrades, making their career in BIG Communist
> Party of China? I guess they don't write about those concentration camps for
> political prisoners. There are not any netizens in China because China
> Internet Information Center is just another eufemism for Censhorship office. I
> don't think you would believe such lie as 'being a netizen in China'. There is
> no such a thing.
To the contrary - there are netizens in China, which is why the Chinese
government is acknowledging netizens.
The Chinese government was doing all it could to keep people online
from talking about politics. In China those who managed to succeed
anyway called themselves netizens.
If you look at some of the back articles in Amateur Computerist
they discuss this.
>
> Dan
>
Ronda
> Jay Hauben wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I thought readers of this list would be interested in the role of netizens
> > reported in the People's Daily English online edition:
> >
> > http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/07/eng20040307_136777.shtml
> >
> > Take care.
> >
> > Jay
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 17:34:37 -0500
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Netizen Role in China
>Who are the netizens in China? Comrades, making their career in BIG
>Communist Party of China? I guess they don't write about those
>concentration camps for political prisoners. There are not any
>netizens in China because China
>Internet Information Center is just another eufemism for Censhorship
>office. I don't think you would believe such lie as 'being a netizen
>in China'. There is no such a thing.
>
>Dan
I'm not sure how to respond to this. It is possible that the Chinese
government is using the Internet to get internal opinion.
Having been personally involved in the first attempt to get Internet
connectivity into China, which was a Sprint contract that failed
mostly from lack of cooperation -- I'd guess this was about
1992-1994, thereabouts, and been aware of some of the eventual
implementations, there are pros and cons about Chinese involvement in
the Internet.
Before I became involved in the first effort, I searched my
conscience to decide if I was helping a totalitarian regime. I chose
to work on it because I felt it would be likelier to help freedom.
In general, I think that has been the case to some extent, although
there is significant censorship, and the Chinese government
tolerates, or possibly encourages, actions that hurt the Internet as
a whole. These include politically-based attacks on websites, denial
of service attacks, and tolerance of commercial spamming.
At least in the early phases, all Internet connectivity in and out of
China went through routers and massive firewalls in Beijing and
Shanghai. There was considerable inspection of email and web pages,
although there seems to have been some liberalization.
I don't mean to single out China for some of this criticism.
Singapore, for example, censors websites and licenses/monitors ISPs.
Spamming from Taiwan and South Korea have been so bad that, from time
to time, a number of ISPs have blacklisted all .tw and .kr domains,
allowing only explicitly whitelisted traffic to pass.
It would be my hope that as we see the potential of beneficial
Internet use in some countries, that we also see how the national
authorities and culture interact with the health of the overall
Internet.
In being involved in an assortment of network training businesses, I
have seen widespread intellectual property violation in China. On
occasion, there's been a chance to talk to Chinese students about
things varying from copying copyrighted materials, to actually giving
the answers to certification tests. My impression from some of these
conversations is that the people doing it often believe they are
simply helping their countrymen to succeed, and can't see anything
wrong with it.
That's easier to understand with copying of study materials, but it
really becomes incomprehensible to me when answers to professional
certifications are freely given out -- by people who signed explicit
agreements not to disclose the details of the examinations they took.
>
>Jay Hauben wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I thought readers of this list would be interested in the role of netizens
>>reported in the People's Daily English online edition:
>>
>>http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/07/eng20040307_136777.shtml
>>
>>Take care.
>>
>>Jay
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Netizens Constitute Most Active 'Constituency' in China
>>
>>The first thing Zhou Hongyu does after his rise every morning is to surf
>>his personal website, www.hongyu-online.com, to see if there are new
>>proposals other netizens have sent him.
>>
>>Zhou, 46, is the first netizen deputy to China's top legislature, the
>>National People's Congress (NPC), who launches a personal website designed
>>as a forum for solicit proposals from website discussion of state affairs.
>>
>>"The Internet is a most primary means to collect information in a modern
>>society, and as the number of netizens swells and their cultural
>>accomplishments accumulate, the impact of web surfers over the country's
>>political affairs will increase daily," said Zhou, also a noted professor
>>of Central China Normal University.
>>
>>Long before the annual NPC session opened last Friday, Zhou had finalized
>>21 motions and proposals, half of which were based on whatever materials
>>coming from his personal website. "Some netizens suggested drafting laws
>>against discrimination and for national reunification, and some advocated
>>using scientific ways for family planning," he said.
>>
>>Zhou, who concurrently serves as deputy director of the Wuhan city
>>education bureau, said he has done a lot to pool the "good, smart ideas"
>>from netizens and incorporate them into motions and proposals he brings to
>>NPC sessions for deliberation.
>>
>>China had 68 million netizens by July 2003, according to the China
>>Internet Information Center. The figure, though it accounts for only 5.3
>>percent of the country's 1.3 billion population, is increasing by a daily
>>average of 50,000, said Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information
>>Office of the State Council, China's central government.
>>
>>A survey conducted by the Social Development Research Center under the
>>Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 12 major cities shows that 71.8
>>percent of the netizens agree to the notion "they have more opportunities
>>to express their views online," and 72.3 percent of them hold that
>>"government officials can acquaint themselves with more public opinions
>>through the Internet."
>>
>>In fact, most netizens air their views through media-run websites, many of
>>which began sorting out public opinion two weeks before the sessions of
>>the top legislature and advisory body.
>>
>>Meanwhile, a growing number of deputies to the top legislature and members
>>of the national advisory body enrich and substantialize their motions and
>>proposals with selected materials from netizens.
>>
>>NPC deputy Lu Zhongmei, who took the lead in soliciting motions and
>>proposals on state affairs through the Internet, said the high tech-based
>>web is an open, transparent pool that provides a virtual forum for people
>>to unbosom their hearts.
>>
>>Lu, also an established law expert, predicted "Chinese netizens will draw
>>more responses from the lawmakers and political advisors, who meet at
>>their annual sessions, in the future as the online media in China are in
>>the process of being matured and rational gradually."
>>
>>Although the number of netizens makes up a small portion of China's
>>population, said NPC deputy Zhou Hongyu, they are mostly part of the
>>ordinary citizens and have rich first-hand knowledge about how government
>>policies are implemented at the grass-roots level.
>>
>>Therefore, their desires and wishes as "essential elements" of the
>>people's cannot be ignored, he said.
>>
>>"Netizens are a special group of constituency who can express their will
>>at ease on the Internet, and their activities will facilitate to some
>>extent the development of democracy in China," Zhou said.
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>>People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 22:29:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Hauben <jrh@umcc.ais.org>
Subject: [netz] China celebrates 10 years of being connected to the Internet (fwd)
Hi,
I hope other netizens will join me in welcoming and celebrating the 10
year anniversary of the connection of China and the Chinese people to the
Internet. Ten years ago today on May 17, 1994 tcp/ip connectivity was
established.
The following articles telling the story of connecting China to the
Internet are forwarded from the Canadaian Universal Access mailing
list, cpi-ua. The 9 pages at
http://www.computerworld.com.au/pp.php?id=854351844&pp=1&fp=16&fpid=0
are worth seeing.
Take care.
Jay
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: George Lessard <media@web.net>
Reply-To: cpi-ua@vancouvercommunity.net
From: "to_norbu" <jamyang@openflows.org>
X-Yahoo-Profile: to_norbu
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 11:10:21 -0000
Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] China celebrates 10 years of being
connected to the Internet
1) Networking a place in Chinese history
2) A brief history of the Internet in China
3) Finding freedom behind China's Great Firewall
4) Chinese Internet users work to make knowledge free
5) China wrestles with growing spam problem
6) The man who built China's first Net connection
http://www.computerworld.com.au/pp.php?id=854351844&pp=1&fp=16&fpid=0
Monday, 17th May 2004, IDG News Service staff, IDG News Service 17/05/2004
12:58:35
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Networking a place in Chinese history
The origin of China's first Internet connection fittingly lies in an
ongoing project to study energies and particles similar to those created
during the formation of the universe.
The project, called the Beijing Electro-Spectrometer (BES) Collaboration,
brought together physicists from the Institute of High- Energy Physics
(IHEP) in Beijing and Stanford University's Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center (SLAC).
While the written record of the events that led to China's first Internet
connection is incomplete and the memories of those involved have faded
with time, an internal document written in early 1994 records the
establishment of the first full Internet connection between SLAC and IHEP
on May 17, 1994.
That first Internet connection was the result of a joint effort between
IHEP and SLAC that was designed to improve communications between
physicists in the U.S and China who were working on the BES collaboration.
"By 1990, it was recognized that if people were going to be collaborating
they needed to be able to communicate easily," said R. "Les" A. Cottrell,
assistant director of SLAC's computer services department.
At that time, IHEP was connected to SLAC over a dial-up X.25 connection
that ran between CNPAC, then China's national public data network, and the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This connection,
which was used to exchange e-mail once per day, was slow and expensive -
costing around US$100 per hour and running up monthly bills of around
US$10,000.
In addition to the link with SLAC, IHEP also had an X.25 connection
through CNPAC with the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in
Geneva. The dial-up link with CERN, which was used to exchange e- mail,
was established in 1987 and upgraded to X.25 in 1990.
By 1991, SLAC scientists working on the BES Collaboration were regularly
travelling to Beijing. However, the daily exchange of e- mail left these
researchers feeling out of touch with SLAC and unable to access programs
and data that resided on SLAC's computers. To overcome this problem,
several researchers involved with the BES Collaboration suggested
establishing a direct link between SLAC and IHEP.
A delegation from IHEP that included Xu Rongsheng, then the deputy
director of IHEP's computer center who would lead the Chinese effort to
establish a direct link, was visiting SLAC at that time and was receptive
to the suggestion of a direct link. A visa was quickly arranged for
Cottrell to visit Beijing in March 1991 to look into the possibility of
establishing a direct link between SLAC and IHEP.
The first step would be to establish a modem connection between IHEP's
Digital Equipment Corp. VAX computers and SLAC using the DECnet protocol.
"We knew that if we could just plug a modem into the VAX, and then use the
modem to talk to the phone to dial up, theoretically we ought to be able
to make a connection all the way to SLAC," Cottrell said.
There was just one problem: IHEP had only one phone line that was capable
of making international calls, a line that was used by the institute's
international relations department to send and receive faxes. The only
phone lines available at IHEP's computer center were connected to an
operator and could not be used to establish a data connection.
"There's no point in me going unless there's a phone line," Cottrell
recalled telling the IHEP delegation, requesting that three phone lines
capable of making international calls be installed ahead of his visit -
one line to experiment with a modem connection to SLAC, a second line to
allow direct voice connections and a third to be used as a backup in case
something went wrong.
When Cottrell arrived in Beijing carrying a 9600-bps (bits per second)
Telebit Corp. T2500 modem in his luggage, the three phone lines had been
installed and were waiting for him. Before long, Cottrell, working with
Charles Granieri, a computer systems specialist at SLAC, was able to get a
direct modem connection between IHEP and SLAC that transmitted data at
about 900 bps.
"We were able to log on to SLAC and we were able to do some real work,"
Cottrell said.
In addition to allowing access to SLAC's computers from IHEP, the DECnet
connection was cheaper than the X.25 link, costing around US$4,000 per
month.
While the DECnet connection between SLAC and IHEP offered significant
improvements over the X.25 link, the experiments being conducted by the
BES Collaboration still required a better connection. To that end, SLAC
approached the U.S. Department of Energy and quickly won approval and
funding to establish a dedicated 64K bps link using AT&T's SkyNet
satellite service.
Getting the dedicated 64K bps connection up and running would prove more
difficult than expected, lasting nearly two years. The initial plan was to
connect SLAC with satellite earth stations in California and at Beijing's
Capital International Airport. From the airport, a 35-kilometer microwave
link would connect the earth station with the local phone exchange's fiber
optic network, which would cover the last 15 kilometers to IHEP.
But problems getting the connection to work forced planners to instead use
a copper link to cross the final two blocks between IHEP and the fiber
optic network.
By early 1993, the Beijing Telecommunications Administration had succeeded
in getting the connection to work with acceptable error rates and the link
was officially handed over to IHEP on the morning of March 2, 1993.
"That was the first leased line in China," Xu said.
The improvements offered by the dedicated 64K-bps link, which initially
used the DECnet protocol, were immediately noticeable. Tests showed the
link offered a file copy rate of around 42K bps, a significant improvement
over the 9600 bps modem that had previously been used to connect IHEP and
SLAC. During 1993, the link was used to exchange an average of 2,500
e-mail messages per day, many of which were forwarded by SLAC to
recipients in other countries via the Internet.
The dedicated link also allowed Internet access for physicists at IHEP who
had an account that allowed them to access SLAC's computers. By remotely
logging in to SLAC's computers, these researchers were also able to access
the Internet. However, this connection did not offer full Internet access
to all of the researchers at IHEP.
The IHEP-SLAC connection cost around US$10,000 per month, split between
the U.S. and Chinese sides, less than the combined monthly cost of the
X.25 and dial-up DECnet connections in 1991, which could cost as much as
US$14,000 per month.
In the beginning, about 300 of China's top professors and scientists had
access to IHEP's computers over dial-up connections but the dedicated
connection soon drew interest from other academic and research
institutions and raised hopes for a dedicated connection from China to the
Internet.
Connecting IHEP to the Internet would have been possible when the
dedicated link with SLAC was established in March 1993, but the U.S.
government -- whose concerns were heightened in 1993 by tensions over
alleged human rights violations in China and evidence that Chinese users
were using the dedicated link with SLAC to access the Internet and copy
files located on other U.S. servers -- would not allow the connection to
be made, instead limiting use of the link to communication between
researchers at IHEP and SLAC.
With the 64K bps connection operational between SLAC and IHEP, the final
requirement necessary for Internet access was U.S. government approval to
expand the scope of connectivity with IHEP and for the installation of a
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) router. The
approval was held up by U.S. government concerns that the router -- which
was from Cisco Systems Inc. -- would be unable to handle connections above
64K bps.
In addition to SLAC and IHEP, plans to upgrade the link to a TCP/IP
connection with the Internet also involved the U.S.-based Energy Sciences
Network (ESnet), which was overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy and
provided Internet connectivity to SLAC. Approval to use a TCP/IP
connection was slow in coming, with the U.S. Department of Commerce
finally issuing approval for the export to China of the first TCP/IP
router at the end of 1993.
The Cisco router arrived in Beijing in February 1994 and was installed at
IHEP in March. At that point, ESnet took over management of the U.S. end
of the link from SLAC, one of the final steps towards opening the Internet
connection with China.
Two months later, on April 18, 1994, ESnet sent out an e-mail to announce
it planned to begin carrying Chinese IP traffic and on May 17, 1994, a
full Internet connection was established by ESnet that linked the
IHEP-SLAC connection with FIX-West, at that time the interconnection point
on the U.S. West Coast for all of the major IP networks.
China never looked back.
Sumner Lemon and Stephen Lawson
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2) A brief history of the Internet in China
China's first direct connection to the Internet was established 10 years
ago this week but the history of computer networking in the country goes
back even further.
As in many countries, the first computer networks were machine-to- machine
links which later evolved into groups of machines interconnected via the
X.25 protocol on public data networks. As elsewhere, the academic and
scientific sector were early leaders in networking, with machines
facilitating the sharing of data and exchange of e-mail among distant
researchers working on similar subjects.
In 1986, the first of what would become one of a number of major Chinese
public data networks got its start when researchers at the Beijing
Institute of Computing Applications, working with the Universität
Karlsruhe in Germany, formed the China Academic Network. A year later, the
Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing began internetworking
by connecting to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in
Geneva. IHEP would later become home to China's first full Internet
connection, although not before a number of other institutions established
X.25 links to universities and networks overseas.
The following is a brief timeline of some of the major events leading up
to and after China's first direct Internet connection:
1986 - The China Academic Network (CANET) is launched by Beijing Institute
of Computing Applications (ICA) with help from the Universität Karlsruhe
in Germany.
1987 - The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) establishes its first
international connection. The link is to CERN, the European Organization
for Nuclear Research in Geneva.
1987 - CANET establishes its first international link when a Siemens
7,760/ BS2000 computer at the ICA in Beijing is connected to the
Universität Karlsruhe via a 300-bps (bits per second) packet-switched data
network. Later in the month, Qian Tianbai sends China's first
international e-mail. Accounts differ on the day and message title. One
said it was sent on Sept. 14 and titled "Across the Great Wall we can
reach every corner in the world" while another said it was sent on Sept.
20 and titled "Crossing the Great Wall to Join the World."
October 1990- The .cn international top level domain for China is
registered at the DDN-NIC (Defense Data Network Network Information
Center) by Qian on behalf of China. As China did not yet have direct
Internet connectivity, the .cn name server was housed at Universität
Karlsruhe.
March 1991 - IHEP connects to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(SLAC) at Stanford University via a direct dial-up link over DECnet.
December 1992 - China's first TCP/IP college network, Tsinghua
University's TUNET, goes into operation.
March 2, 1993 - After problems getting a reliable link between IHEP and
the satellite earth station at Beijing airport, the 64K-bps connection is
completed and officially handed over to IHEP at 7:19 a.m. local time.
January 1994 - Agreement is reached with the U.S. Department of Energy's
ESnet (the Energy Sciences Network) that will allow Chinese IP (Internet
protocol) traffic to be carried on the Internet as long as some
conditions, such as a notification to all ESnet sites, are met.
February 1994 - In preparation for the start of IP traffic, IHEP installs
China's first Cisco router and the U.S. side of the link is handed from
SLAC to ESnet.
April 18, 1994 - An e-mail is transmitted to ESnet sites alerting them
that Chinese IP traffic will begin crossing the network soon. The alert
was one of the conditions that needed to be satisfied before China could
get a direct IP link.
May 15, 1994 - IHEP establishes China's first Web server. The server
hosted IHEP's home page which included information on the institution,
technology in China and cultural and tourism information.
May 17, 1994 - The IHEP link is opened to full Internet connectivity when
a link was established from SLAC to FIX-West, which was a major West coast
interconnection point.
May 21, 1994 - The root server responsible for the .cn international top
level domain is relocated from Germany to China.
May 24, 1994 - National Computing and Networking Facility of China (NCFC),
a collaborative network of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing and
Tsinghua Universities, opens a 64k-bps direct Internet link to the U.S.
via Sprint. It was tested by sending a message via Telnet from Tsinghua
University to SRI in Menlo Park. The round trip time was measured at three
minutes. Then a message was sent to Vint Cerf, president of the Internet
Society, informing him that the Beijing Internet link was open.
June 28, 1994 - Beijing University of Chemical Technology begins testing a
leased line connection to the Internet with help from the Tokyo University
of Sciences.
July 18, 1994 - IHEP gets its second international DECnet connection when
it links to the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics in Tsukuba,
Japan, via a 64k-bps link.
September 20, 1994 - Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT)
gains a direct Internet connection via Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Martyn Williams
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Finding freedom behind China's Great Firewall
In the beginning, some observers predicted that opening China to the
Internet would unleash an uncontrollable flood of information that would
lead to the collapse of the Chinese government.
But events of the last decade have proved otherwise, as the Chinese
government demonstrated that it can both censor -- and, to some degree,
tolerate -- the flow of information over the Internet.
The issue of Internet censorship in China, including Chinese government
attempts to block access to some Web sites and censor discussion groups,
is routinely met with criticism from human rights groups and Western
observers. But the issue of Internet censorship and access to information
in China is far more complex and nuanced than these criticisms and many
Western media reports suggest.
"I think it's been exaggerated by the Western media," said one Beijing
Internet user, who spoke with IDG News Service on condition of anonymity.
"But what's there is there, no one can deny it."
Hu Yong, chief consultant at ChinaLabs, an Internet consultancy in
Beijing, agreed that Western media reports place too much emphasis on
Internet censorship. "This kind of news indeed happens in China but its
importance is overemphasized," he said.
Focusing too closely on Internet censorship overlooks the expanded
freedoms of expression made possible in China by the Internet, Hu said.
"It's much more free and open than people imagine," he said.
But there are boundaries to this freedom. Internet users who post content
online or participate in discussion groups are generally savvy enough to
know what topics test the government's tolerance for free discussion and
as a result temper their remarks through self- censorship, a phenomenon
noted by several observers and decried by advocates of free speech outside
China.
Understanding the scope and impact of Chinese Internet censorship efforts
is complicated by the absence of official confirmation that these
censorship efforts, including blocking access to certain Web sites and
hijacking domain names, exist. In an effort to fill that gap, several
studies have been conducted in an effort to better understand the extent
of Chinese Internet censorship programs.
A 2002 study conducted by researchers at Harvard University's Berkman
Center for Internet and Society found that 18,931 out of more than 200,000
Web sites were inaccessible from two different proxy servers in China on
two different days. While the study found that many of the sites that were
blocked were sexually explicit, the list of blocked Web sites also
included sites offering news, health information, education and
entertainment.
In 2003, a Reporters Without Borders investigation of content filtering by
Chinese Web sites showed that 60 percent of messages posted to discussion
forums over a period of one month appeared online. That number fell to 55
percent for messages that contained content deemed controversial by
Chinese censors, including criticism of the government, the Paris-based
group said. Of that 55 percent, more than half were subsequently removed
by webmasters tasked with overseeing the online forums, it said.
The level of filtering varied from site to site and discussion forums run
by commercial sites are generally more open than official Web sites,
Reporters Without Borders said. The group noted that no messages submitted
criticizing the Chinese government were posted on the discussion forum of
China's official news service, Xinhua News Agency. By comparison, 50
percent of messages criticizing the government appeared on the discussion
forum run by Sina, the operator of China's most popular Web portal,
http://www.sina.com.cn, it said.
Despite empirical evidence of Internet censorship in China, these efforts
have not substantially restricted access to online information, according
to one researcher.
"I don't think it's a big issue," said Gene Wang, an assistant professor
at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, who has been
studying the Internet in China.
Wang noted Chinese Internet users are often able to access
politically-sensitive information despite the best efforts of Chinese
censors. In many cases, users were often aware of information contained on
Web sites blocked by censors, reducing the significance of the
government's censorship efforts.
"What I really found interesting was they actually have many different
sources on the Internet. There's no way the government can control 100
percent of the information," Wang said.
The result is a paradox, Hu said. The Chinese government's attitude
towards the Internet is split between a desire to control the information
available to Chinese Internet users and a recognition that the Internet is
a critical tool for the country's economic development and modernization,
he said.
"The politicians do realize for practical matters it's nice for people to
have a way to blow off steam, which is what the Internet provides, as long
as they don't make it a platform for activism," said Andrew Lih, an
associate professor and director of technology at the University of Hong
Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Center.
One example of an online forum that allows Chinese Internet users to vent
their frustrations is the Strong Nation discussion forum
(http://bbs.people.com.cn/bbs/start, in Chinese) on the Web site of the
official People's Daily newspaper. The People's Daily is the official
newspaper of the Communist Party of China and editorials run by the paper
are generally considered to be authoritative statements of Chinese
government policy. The Strong Nation forum, which has been running for
five years, underscores how open Internet discussions can be in China.
"In that forum you can say a lot of things, even criticize the current
leadership. ...It's quite open there and it's right under the nose of the
People's Daily," Hu said.
The nascent openness permitted by Strong Nation and other Internet outlets
is a sign of things to come. In time, the need to be economically
competitive with countries like India and the West will lead to China
further loosening restrictions on the flow of information, Lih said.
"The Internet in China will be freed up not because they desire democracy
but because it makes business sense. For better or for worse, it's the
money that talks," he said.
Sumner Lemon with Martyn Williams
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Chinese Internet users work to make knowledge free
An informal group of Chinese volunteers is working to build an online
encyclopedia called Chinese Wikipedia to create a free source of
information for Chinese Internet users.
Chinese Wikipedia (http://zh.wikipedia.org) is a Chinese-language offshoot
of Wikipedia, an online English-language encyclopedia that is also
available in a host of other languages. Wikipedia is a wiki, a term that
is derived from the Hawaiian word for "quick" and used to describe Web
sites that can be edited by any reader, including anonymous visitors.
Work on Wikipedia started in early 2001 and the project now has more than
6,000 active contributors working on 600,000 entries in 50 languages,
according to the Wikipedia Web site, which noted the English version
(http://en.wikipedia.org) offers more than 260,000 entries. All of the
content on Wikipedia is copyrighted under the GNU Free Documentation
License, a license for free content developed by the Free Software
Foundation.
By any measure of common sense, Wikipedia and Chinese Wikipedia shouldn't
work. The wiki format allows any visitor to the Chinese Wikipedia Web
site, or that of its English-language cousin, to modify any of the pages
in the encyclopedia by adding, changing or deleting information.
In theory, an Internet vandal could come to the site and easily deface or
delete entries to the encyclopedia, wasting the efforts of numerous
volunteers and rendering Chinese Wikipedia unusable. But wikis are
essentially online databases of information and each modification is
stored in the database, allowing information to be restored to the Web
site if a page is deleted or defaced.
"The instantaneous editability surely is an attractive quality that will
impact the future of Chinese cyberspace culture," said Menchi, a regular
contributor to Chinese Wikipedia who requested his real name not be used
for this story, in an e-mail interview.
Menchi, who was born in Taiwan, said the majority of the 100 regular
contributors to Chinese Wikipedia are from Mainland China. As a result,
most of the more than 9,000 entries contained in Chinese Wikipedia are
written using the simplified Chinese characters used in China, rather than
the traditional characters used in Taiwan, he said.
"One would assume and hope the impact (of Chinese Wikipedia) would be
positive, 'liberating' the Mainlanders from the restrictive Communist
censorship," Menchi said. "But reality often has a funny way of backfiring
on us. It is very possible at the first sign of trouble the Communist
government will put the Great Firewall up and permanently cut Mainlander
Wikipedians off."
So far, that hasn't been a problem.
"Many Westerners are shocked to learn that Chinese Wikipedia has never
been 'firewalled' by the Communist government, but many Mainlander
Wikipedians actually think it's not surprising. They consider their
government to be reasonable, so long as one does nothing insane to offend
the government," Menchi said, noting that some contributors from Mainland
China have suggested toning down entries on politically sensitive topics,
such as Tibetan independence.
One reason why Chinese Wikipedia has not been blocked by Chinese censors
may be the site's insistence that all entries reflect a neutral point of
view, a policy that defines all Wikipedia versions in other languages. The
neutral point of view is intended to avoid editing wars between
contributors competing to impose their interpretation of various subjects
on other readers.
"The site is not blocked en masse at the site level because its not
obviously pro or against anything because of the neutral point of view
policy," said Andrew Lih, an associate professor and director of
technology at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies
Center.
Another reason Chinese Wikipedia has not been blocked by Chinese censors
may be its low profile and relatively small group of regular contributors.
As the site gets more attention and attracts more contributors, Chinese
censors may decide to block access to the site, giving an indication of
how much exposure censors are willing to tolerate for a site like this,
Lih said.
"As the profile gets higher and higher it's going to be interesting to
measure what threshold these folks have for it," he said.
For now, the site remains accessible in China and makes available
information on a range of sensitive topics, including an entry on the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The entry, which includes the famous picture of an anonymous Chinese
demonstrator facing off against a column of tanks, describes in detail
events leading up to June 4, 1989, when Chinese soldiers used force to
clear Tiananmen Square in central Beijing. It notes that the Chinese
government reported more than 200 people were killed in that incident,
including more than 30 students. But it goes on to note that foreign media
reports estimated that more than 1,000 people were killed.
However, the entry also pushes the boundaries of objectivity, noting that
some people believe the majority of the students who died on June 4, 1989,
were hunger strikers who died of starvation -- a theory that was not
widely reported by the official Chinese media or foreign press.
By comparison, the same entry on the English-version of Wikipedia notes
that estimates for the number of people killed range as high as 2,600. The
English entry makes no specific mention of official Chinese government
estimates or the theory that those who died were hunger strikers who
succumbed to starvation.
"The fact there is even the picture of the guy standing in front of the
tanks in that article (on Chinese Wikipedia) is huge but there's other
parts of it where you scratch your head and say, 'Well, I wouldn't put it
that way,'" Lih said, noting that the openness of Wikipedia could serve to
undermine the quality of information that is contained on the site.
"In the long run, as more Chinese get on to it, the Chinese Wikipedia
could actually get worse in quality because you have people contributing
to it that are not as enlightened or informed about this stuff as people
who know the whole story," Lih said.
"On the other hand, it could open up a real debate. ...This could be a
real eye-opener for the folks in China," he said.
Sumner Lemon
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
5) China wrestles with growing China wrestles spam problem
Suresh Ramasubramanian knows about outsourcing. The company he works for,
Hong Kong-based Outblaze Ltd., has made a business out of running e-mail
and Internet services on behalf of other companies. But there is an
outsourcing trend he and others are fighting to stop.
As China marks the tenth anniversary of its first full connection to the
Internet, the growing number of spammers who have moved part of all of
operations to China is a target for people like Ramasubramanian, who is
Outblaze's manager of security and anti-spam operations and a coordinator
for the Asia-Pacific Coalition Against Unsolicited E-mail (APCAUCE).
"The situation seems to be that like a lot of other things, spam seems to
be getting outsourced as well," he said. "American spammers hire local
Chinese spammers who install servers at a Chinese ISP's (Internet service
provider's) data centers and host or maintain the spammer's Web sites, run
scripts and send out spam."
The result is a flood of spam from China that has pushed the county to No.
2, behind the U.S., on the London-based Spamhaus organization's April
ranking of the worst "spam countries." A recent survey by Commtouch
Software, which provides an anti-spam product, found that 71 percent of
the Web sites referenced in spam e-mail were hosted in China.
The spammers using China are unlikely to be Chinese and most of the spam
they send is directed out of the country, Ramasubramanian said. In the
past, spam fighters say they've had a hard time convincing Chinese system
administrators that their networks have been the source of unwanted
e-mail. But that attitude is changing as a more spam is directed at
Chinese users and complaints from Chinese users multiply.
A July 2003 survey found that on average 55 percent of the e-mail received
by Chinese Internet users was spam, according to a presentation delivered
by Li Yuxiao, director of the anti-spam coordination team at the Internet
Society of China, at an APCAUCE conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
earlier this year. By January, this year that figure had risen to almost
58 percent.
In terms of the annoyance spam represents for Chinese Internet users, Li
estimated that 47 billion pieces of spam were received by Chinese users in
2003 and a collective 1.5 billion hours were wasted reading and deleting
spam. The economic loss attributed to spam was put at 4.8 billion renminbi
(US$581 million).
One such user, Hu Yong, chief consultant at ChinaLabs, said spam is
becoming a big problem, especially for people who frequently use the
Internet. Yong relies on a spam filter set up by his e-mail service
provider, Sina Corp., to keep his mailbox free from junk e-mail messages.
"If the service providers do not come out with some kind of solution, you
will be bombed with spam and it takes a lot of time and it's a great
waste," he said.
Filtering services installed by providers to protect users like Hu have
been at the forefront of China's fight against spam but that is beginning
to change.
"Until recently, the focus of the local Internet regulatory authority in
China, the Internet Society of China (ISC), has been controlling spam
inbound to Chinese e-mail users," said Ramasubramanian. That is now
changing and the group is determined fight spam more aggressively, he
said.
The ISC began getting tough on August 8, 2003, when it published its first
spam blacklist. It contained the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of 225
servers responsible for sending spam, including 23 in China, 97 in Taiwan,
4 in Hong Kong and 101 located elsewhere in the world. The list delivered
a one-month ultimatum to ISPs hosting the servers: cut the spammers off or
we'll start blocking traffic from your network.
The ISC wouldn't comment for this article on the effectiveness of the
list. But at the APCAUCE Kuala Lumpur meeting earlier this year it said
spam dropped 26 percent during the two months after the first list was
published. Three subsequent lists have been issued, one in November last
year, one in February and the most recent in April.
As part of its battle against spam, the ISC also invited Richard Cox, a
member of the Spamhaus team, to visit China to discuss measures that can
be taken to cut down on spam. Cox visited China in April and met with
representatives of major ISPs, e-mail providers and a representative of
the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which is the government agency
that oversees the Internet.
"Some of the world's worst spammers are out there and we want (the
Chinese) to understand the harm they are doing," said Cox. "We are
beginning to get that message across."
Cox confirmed the ISC's determination to try to stop spam and said he was
encouraged by the attitude of ISP representatives and the government
official he met. His organization is in the process of establishing a
Chinese-language version of Spamhaus (http://www.spamhaus.cn) that will be
more accessible to local system administrators.
"We are very encouraged," he said. "We are also aware now of exactly
what needs to be done."
Martyn Williams with Sumner Lemon
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6) The man who built China's first Net connection
Xu Rongsheng, the former deputy director of the computer center at
Beijing's Institute of High-Energy Physics (IHEP), stands out among
China's Internet pioneers.
During the early 1990s, Xu worked closely with Stanford University's
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) to establish a direct 64K bps
(bits per second) link between the two institutes that would connect
researchers working on the Beijing Electro-Spectrometer (BES)
Collaboration, a project that brought together physicists from the U.S.
and China. On May 17, 1994, that link became China's first full Internet
connection.
Xu recently spoke with IDG News Service to discuss the 10th anniversary of
China's first Internet connection and to reflect on the part he played in
establishing that historic link.
How did you first come to know about the Internet and to realize its
potential?
I worked at SLAC for many years during the 1980s. At that time, we had
networks like DECnet and BITNET when I was there. So I knew networks were
very important for research and also for other things.
When I returned to Beijing, the BES Collaboration meant that I stayed in
contact with the people at SLAC and other professors from the United
States. They told me about a network that was called the Internet and said
it was very useful and much more advanced than other networks. When we
decided to establish a network connection between China and the U.S., we
wanted an Internet connection. We tried to get a TCP/IP link.
Looking back at the events that led to that first Internet connection,
could you ever have imagined at that time how important the Internet would
become in China?
Yes, sure. I believed that the Internet was most important for China's
future. For me, this was basically for scientific research. We really
needed the Internet and I believed that the government would not stop this
project. They had to support us to do that.
What are your personal feelings when you think back to that time?
It still feels very exciting because when we tried to set up the first
Internet link it was like establishing a railroad 100 years ago to have a
new transportation tool. We were working on opening a new field and it was
about bringing new ideas to other people, my friends. It was exciting.
When you were working on establishing this link for scientific research
did you also consider the possibility of other applications for the
Internet in China, such as business or other uses?
Yes, but at the beginning I thought it was better to forget thinking about
other things. Scientific research was the most important thing for me. We
needed that. I thought that if there were other things to worry about,
those problems could be sorted out by people other than myself.
The impact of the Internet on China over the past decade seems to have
been very significant. Do you agree with that?
Xu: I agree. There are many things that have happened we never thought
about. We never thought that so many people would expect to profit from
the Internet, that young people would invest money into that, put time
into that.
In your opinion, what is the greatest challenge for the future development
of the Internet in China?
On the technical side, the Internet around the world and in China is quite
vulnerable to hackers. Security capabilities are definitely quite weak, I
think. My own institute and a lot of my friends are working on areas
related to the Internet and they are asking me to help them to find ways
to maintain the stable operation of the Internet and their applications.
What is your opinion of Chinese government efforts to censor information
that's available on the Internet? In the future, do you expect to see the
Internet become more open in China?
In my opinion, there is a long way to go. It's not easy. There's no way to
control the Internet at the moment. Of course, people are concerned about
good content and bad content. The government has tried to get some control
over the content that enters China but I think its difficult to control
everything.
Sumner Lemon
- ---
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