Military

DATE=4/18/03

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-37379

TITLE=Great Firewall of China

BYLINE=David Clements

TELEPHONE=202 205-0539

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=vicki swaney

CONTENT=

INTRO: While some believe the Internet could be the greatest gift to free speech around the world, it certainly isn't impossible to muzzle it. Many governments around the world filter and impair the ability of the Internet to work the way it was intended. As VOA's David Clements reports, there are ways to get around filtering technologies.

TEXT: A VOA listener in China recently sent an email to our staff here at Coast to Coast asking how they could view our website in China. As the person who works on the website, I really wanted to help, so I sent a reply. Within minutes, my email was returned. The reason given was that my email was Spam. Spam is the slang name given to unsolicited commercial bulk email.

Clearly, responding to a listener's question wasn't "unsolicited" and since I wasn't trying to sell anything, it certainly wasn't "commercial." I thought that perhaps it didn't like my Voice of America email address for some reason since our site was allegedly inaccessible in China. So I attempted to send the email again from a different address, and the same result occurred.

Could China really be blocking some information from the outside world? I spoke to two Peace Corps workers who recently returned from that country. Mark Cabana made his first visit to China in 1999.

AUDIO: PEACE CORPS WORKER #1

"I was in Shanghai, one of the wealthier, more Westernized places and I heard there were problems with sites like CNN, Washington Post, NY Times. Those were the most notable sites that were often cancelled. (BEGIN OPT) And coming back this time, I found that those sites could be more regularly accessed. Although when there was 'bad press' about China in those places, those sites would be occasionally blocked and closed down."(END OPT)

TEXT: Aaron Joplin, another Peace Corps volunteer, says his Internet access was also blocked when he was in China.

TAPE: Other Peace Corps Guy- Alan Joplin

"I think Yahoo was blocked for a while when I was there, definitely CNN. Periodically, the sites would go down for a period of time and then one day come back up."

TEXT: I contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington and asked about the Chinese government blocking websites and filtering email communication. Mr. Sun Wade, a spokesman at The Chinese Embassy, said that there was no censorship in China, and that no email filtering ever occurred. However, he did add that the Chinese Government has the right to prevent the spread of misinformation from the outside world.

Arie Schwartz is with the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, an organization that advocates freedom of the Internet. He contends that China is probably the most active country that filters access to web sites.

TAPE - Arie Schwartz

"We've also seen several countries go after certain kinds of domains that hold certain kinds of material, not necessarily based on politics which is more the way the Chinese government has been doing it."

TEXT: Here in the United States, Internet filtering is also commonplace but primarily regarding pornography. At libraries and schools across the country, content that is considered obscene cannot be viewed by minors. In most cases, blocking access to information in this country is only done at institutions and not by the federal government.

TEXT: (BEGIN OPT) Blocking access to certain web sites is usually based on the IP or Internet Protocol address of the site. Multiple websites can be hosted on the same IP address. So when certain sites are blocked, others are often blocked unintentionally, which can trample free speech that isn't even deemed illegal. (END OPT)

There are ways around the Internet filtering systems. Two of the most popular programs for circumventing censorship technology are called Triangle Boy and Peekabooty. Paul Baranowski is a software developer at Emotion Communications in Toronto, Canada and the creator of Peekabooty. Mr. Baranowksi compares it to passing notes in the classroom.

TAPE: Paul Baranowski

"Instead of giving a note directly to someone, you ask your friend to pass the note to someone else. So when you're surfing the web, instead of going directly to CNN.com you ask your friend, 'Can you get CNN.com for me and send it back to me?'"

TEXT: Unlike some file-sharing programs, Peekabooty includes strong 128-bit encryption, the same technology that allows for secure credit card transactions. So if anyone intercepts the transfer, they will not be able to decipher the content.

Also, because Peekabooty passes files across several computers, Mr. Baranowski says it is extremely difficult to figure out which computer originally initiated the request for the banned information (OPT) as long as Javascript support is turned off in the browser (END OPT).

But how can someone get a copy of the Peekabooty software, when web sites with it are blocked?

TAPE: Paul Baranowski

"At least as far as China is concerned, they have no problem with the piracy market and so it could be easily distributed on CDs that are sold in the streets, since everything else is sold for a dollar on the streets."

TEXT: Paul Baranowski adds that you can also connect directly to another computer that you know is running Peekabooty and then download it yourself. If you'd like more information on anti-censorship software, visit our website. if you can. For C2C/VOA, I'm David Clements.

[*******Note: VOA's email news service to China is xinwen@voanews.com (pronounced shing-wen). There is also a weekly English lesson at abc@voanews.com. For peekabooty software, listeners can go to Peekabooty.org.********]