WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1998
GLOBAL REPORT
CYBER-ANGST
A Web That Both
Lures And Repels
The Internet offers too much
promise to ignore. But nations
struggle to regulate it.
Laurent Belsie
Staff writer of The Christian Science
Monitor
Send e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ST. LOUIS
Like a river in a parched land, the Internet
beckons to countries.
"Let me in," it promises, "and I'll irrigate
your economy and make education
bloom."
But governments who open the
floodgates, even a crack, are finding a
nasty surprise. The same Internet that
gushes invaluable data also carries
undesirable flotsam and jetsam: hate-filled
e-mails, child pornography, as well as
pyramid schemes and other scams.
What's a government to do?
The sheer size and variety of the Internet -
the vast ocean of information stored
digitally worldwide that can be retrieved
with a PC - makes filtering the flow a
logistical nightmare.
Western democracies are extending
traditional laws to punish criminals who
abuse the new medium. Even the most
liberal of free-speech nations - the United
States - is moving in this direction.
Congress is expected later this year to
pass measures that would apply existing
laws to the Internet, such as copyright
protections and barriers to keep minors
from receiving pornographic material.
Germany has gone a step further,
prosecuting individuals and even online
companies that disseminate neo-Nazi
propaganda.
"There's a coming to terms about just how
freely we want to make all sorts of
information available," says Elizabeth
Rindskopf, a Washington, D.C., attorney
and former general counsel at the
National Security Agency and the Central
Intelligence Agency.
MISS INTERNET SINGAPORE
'98/'99: The winner of this pageant
Aug. 22 displayed computer skills as
well as beauty. This tiny island
nation is among those trying to
balance the benefits of open access
to the Internet with its ability to
deliver unwelcome new ideas.
(ED WRAY /AP)
More-restrictive societies face a starker
choice, Internet watchers say. Either they
open up to cyberspace and encourage
politically and culturally challenging
discussions, or they clamp down and miss
out on an economic boom in
cyber-commerce.
"At least for places that are part of this
global economy ... the potential benefits
to be gained from this information
network are so overwhelming you can't
really keep the door closed," argues
Gavin Tritt, an economist with the Asia
Foundation, a San Francisco-based
nonprofit group dealing with Asian
economic and political development.
For example, rigidly controlled Singapore
worries that Internet content could stir
local racial passions. But the island nation
is so keen on Internet commerce it's
spending millions of dollars to hook up its
citizens. Beyond blocking some 100
pornographic sites, the government
admits there's little it can do. It doesn't
have the manpower to monitor all of the
Web or its citizens' e-mail.
Other countries are still fiddling with
censorship schemes. For example:
Russian security services have
drafted a plan to monitor domestic
Internet Web sites and e-mail
exchanges, a move eerily parallel
to Soviet-era wiretaps and police
surveillance.
In Malaysia, police have arrested a
young man and woman in
conjunction with Internet-fed rumors
of riots in the capital, rumors that
panicked the country and caused a
sharp decline in the value of the
nation's currency.
In China, authorities have arrested a
young software engineer under laws
passed last year that prohibit
incitement to overthrow the
government. His crime? Providing
30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to
a foreign pro-democracy magazine
published on the Web.
But the Internet is growing so quickly, it
defies all but the most dedicated censors.
Saudi Arabia, which is due to offer its
citizens local Internet access by the end of
the year, also plans to force Internet
companies to block out pornographic and
other sites the conservative Islamic
government finds objectionable.
But that's not foolproof, points out
Deborah Hurley, director of the Harvard
Information Infrastructure Project in
Cambridge, Mass. Internet blocking
technology has some holes; people who
really want uncensored access will be
able to dial outside the country to hook
up to the network.
China does a more effective job, Internet
watchers say, by forcing its citizens to
register before they can use the Internet.
Theoretically, it could build a closed
system that would allow Chinese to
communicate with each other via an
in-country Internet (called an intranet)
that would filter out undesirable material
from the rest of cyberspace.
"The possibility for censorship certainly
does exist," says Ms. Rindskopf, the
lawyer. But "practically what the Internet
does is open up information and make it
so available to the public that the will to
control erodes."
Following are four examples of how
governments are handling the sensitive
issues of Internet access, censorship, and
privacy.
In Russia, a return to Big
Brother?
The users at Moscow's busy Internet Cafe
normally only look over their shoulders to
see if people are queuing for their
terminals. Soon, however, they may have
someone else looking on - government
eavesdroppers.
Russian security services are
contemplating a plan in which they could
monitor every Web site and every e-mail
exchange - a move chillingly reminiscent
of Soviet times when citizens' phones
were regularly tapped and their
movements watched.
The proposed SORM (System for
Ensuring Investigative Activity) plan has
spurred a debate over whether the Web is
a public or private forum.
Russian Internet service providers (ISPs)
are uncomfortable about the notion of
helping the government spy on their
clients. Providers would have to install a
spying device within their main
computers and establish a special
fast-speed direct link with the FSB, the
KGB's post-Soviet successor.
"As an individual, I am seriously worried
about the ethical implications of lack of
privacy," says Andrei Sebrant, the
marketing director of a major ISP,
Glasnet. "As a loyal employee of my
company, I am worried about the
implications for development, strategy,
and pricing."
Mr. Sebrant says that building a parallel
network for the FSB would lead to either
stiff prices rises for customers or the
diversion of money earmarked for
improving services.
FSB officials contacted by the Monitor
declined to comment on the draft, which
has been made public on a Russian Web
site (www.fe.msk.ru/libertarium) for
several weeks.
In theory, the draft could be pushed
through by government decree without
parliamentary approval. But providers are
making a loud noise about the plan,
hoping to force its authors to make
changes or withdraw it.
ISPs said they understood from
authorities that SORM was meant to stem
all manners of criminal activities, which
have been growing to alarming levels
since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
While not against the notion of nabbing
criminals via the Net, many ISPs question
whether they should be forced into the
role of accomplice. Under the Russian
legal system, there is no concept of
personal privacy, and no proper system of
checks exists if there are abuses under
SORM, they say.
"Aside from the financial issue, the
general reaction of providers is that no
one wants to allow tapping of clients,"
says Giorgy Kvon, managing director of
the Russian Social Center of Internet
Technologies, a Moscow-based
association of providers.
SORM's critics also question whether a
state that is on the verge of bankruptcy
should be investing money to improve
electronic snooping. More personnel
would need to be hired and trained to
plow through e-mails under surveillance.
Industry sources say that the FSB has
chosen now to target the Internet because
of the Web's astronomical explosion in
Russia. Russia's mafia syndicates, which
arose after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, have been nearly impossible to
crack down on, and authorities are
concerned about the smuggling of
sensitive military and scientific
information over the Internet abroad.
Interest in the Net is beginning to catch
up with the rest of Europe. For instance,
the number of Glasnet clients has
quadrupled over the last two years [to
10,000], and in recent months various
high-level officials have opened their own
Web sites, drawing attention to the
potential of electronic communications.
"This summer our authorities recognized
that the Internet was a serious
communication media," Glasnet's Sebrant
says. "They now see it is something more
than a place for students or a high-tech
toy."
However, all this concern may be a moot
point, hackers say. Anyone who really
wants to dodge Internet spying can do so
with encryption systems or using satellite
communications.
"It would be more expensive for users,
but there are various ways to avoid
eavesdropping," says one computer
expert, who asks to remain anonymous.
"If the FSB adopts SORM, it may be
wasting a lot of time and money."
China's 'Great Wall' of isolation
A fledgling information revolution that is
helping to destroy China's great walls of
isolation is also triggering skirmishes
within the upper levels of the Communist
Party.
The invasion by the Internet is creating
new fault lines between liberal-minded
leaders, who hope to see an increasingly
open and globally integrated China, and
party conservatives, who fear the
unfettered march of ideas here could
threaten their rule.
It's hard to say which side is winning.
At least 1.5 million Chinese are registered
Internet users - more than double the
figure of a year ago. Some analysts say
the actual figure is much higher, and
could explode to 30 million by 2001.
While some government officials have
welcomed the Age of the Internet, others
have moved to ensure that Beijing's
thought police keep constant patrol.
The state controls all Internet service
providers and can easily monitor the
e-mail traffic and Web-surfing habits of
"diplomats, journalists, and the politically
suspect," says a Western official here.
Last year, the national legislature
amended the criminal law to provide for
two new offenses: computer crimes and
colluding with foreign organizations or
individuals to "overthrow the socialist
system by fabricating rumors ... or other
means."
Together, these provisions could apply to
e-mail messages or even news stories
posted on the Web that are critical of
Beijing and might be aimed at penalizing
Chinese dissidents as far away as Paris,
Princeton, N.J., or Boston, says Jim
Feinerman, an expert on Chinese law at
Georgetown University in Washington.
Lin Hai, a young software engineer who
is being detained in Shanghai, might be
the first pro-democracy activist to be tried
under the new rules, says Frank Lu, a
Hong Kong-based human rights monitor.
"Lin Hai was recently charged with
incitement to overthrow the government
merely for providing 30,000 [Chinese]
e-mail addresses to a pro-democracy Web
magazine based in the US," Mr. Lu says.
While Shanghai appears to be the most
open and free city on the Chinese
mainland, "The central government's
secret police are as vigilant there as
anywhere else in China," Lu says.
He adds that Shanghai's police
department recently beefed up its
computer-monitoring force in an effort to
keep in step with burgeoning Internet
usage.
A spokesman at the department's
Computer Investigation Bureau contacted
by telephone refused to provide any
details of Lin Hai's pending trial or of the
bureau's operations. "Our work is secret,"
he said before hanging up on this
reporter.
Ironically, Shanghai Mayor Xu Kaungdi,
a rising star in the reformist wing of the
party, is one of China's most outspoken
proponents for rapidly expanding Internet
usage as part of the country's march onto
the global stage. Yet rights monitor Lu, a
onetime dissident who fled to Hong Kong
several years ago, says, "Mayor Xu has
no power over the secret police or to stop
the trial of Lin Hai."
Compared with just a generation ago,
when the party controlled every aspect of
Chinese life, thought, and information,
"the spread of the Internet in China is like
a revolution, and that has many
Communist leaders frightened," he adds.
Singapore builds a 'Web world'
They don't call it the "wired island" for
nothing: Singapore is ranked one of the
most computer-intensive countries on
earth. Forty-one percent of households
own at least one PC, and more than 1 in
10 have an Internet account.
To wire its citizenry, Singapore has been
spending some $400 million per year on
information technology and installing a
nationwide broadband network that will
connect every home, school, business,
and government agency to a high-speed,
fiber-optic network. Devoid of natural
resources but with an educated work
force, Singapore sees information
technology literacy as the key to its
survival. Rather than fighting the anarchy
of the Internet, this paternalistic
government - famous for controlling its
citizens' behavior down to banning
chewing gum and forcing the flushing of
toilets - is pushing, pulling, and cajoling
them to link up and log on.
The government is acutely aware of the
power of the Internet - and of its relative
inability to control it. In a recent speech,
the minister for information and the arts,
George Yeo, talked about the global
revolution being wrought by information
technology. He referred to it as the
transition from a hierarchical world to a
"Web world."
"Everywhere in the world, information
technology has weakened national
governments and their ability to tax and
influence the behavior of their citizens...,"
Mr. Yeo said. "Monopolies are harder
and harder to maintain. The ultimate
monopoly being weakened is the state."
While Yeo praised aspects of this
transformation, such as the growth of
civic organizations that enrich society, he
also pointed to "a darker side of this
phenomenon. Criminals and pedophiles
are also able to network this way."
Rear Adm. Teo Chee Hean, now minister
of education, stressed in a 1995 speech to
students the need for a "sense of balance"
in embracing the Internet age. "While
regulation should not be overdone,
controls are needed because just as cars
can knock down people, ideas can also be
dangerous ... ideas can kill," Admiral Teo
was reported as saying.
Despite its reputation for efficiency,
Singapore is not much better equipped to
control the anarchic realm of the Internet
than anyone else. The Singapore
Broadcast Authority (SBA), under whose
jurisdiction the Internet falls, says it does
not monitor users' site access or e-mail, or
check up on chat groups. The Internet
Code of Practice, which governs ISPs, is
intended to identify "what our community
regards as offensive, namely
pornography, as well as violence and
materials which may undermine
Singapore's racial and religious
harmony." It also requires sites that
promote political or religious causes to
register, a nod to the government's
razor-sharp sensitivity to these issues,
thanks to a history of communal riots in
the 1960s.
As for hands-on control, the SBA lists
100 banned sites (which it declines to
reveal) that the three local ISPs are
required to block through their proxy
servers. The sites are related to
pornography, which is banned in
Singapore. But, as an SBA spokesman
admits, "It's a token effort on our part."
Given the rate at which new sites,
pornographic or otherwise, appear on the
World Wide Web every day, it would be
a Herculean task to keep the list current.
Singapore simply doesn't have the
manpower. "It would take a whole new
company of people" to keep a list of
objectionable sites up to date, the
spokesman says.
Meanwhile, SingNet, the largest local
ISP, has taken the government's directive
to be self-regulating one step further. It is
offering a new service called Family
On-Line that automatically blocks
pornographic Web sites. It will stay up to
date by tapping lists of X-rated sites
compiled in the US as well as asking its
subscribers - parents, presumably - to
contribute suggestions.
Germans sort out who does the
policing
A well-defined penal code and the idea
that "what is illegal off-line is illegal
online" makes it relatively easy for
German lawmakers to decide what
materials don't belong on the Internet.
The hard part for them is figuring out
which branch of the government is
responsible for finding and prosecuting
suspects in online crimes.
"We are living in a time of convergence,
so there is a question of who is
responsible for what," said Harald
Summa, managing director of the
Electronic Commerce Forum, a German
trade association for ISPs.
While some politicians insist that the
Internet is a form of telecommunications -
making it the responsibility of the federal
government - others say it is a form of
broadcasting and therefore under the
jurisdiction of the individual German
states.
Neither the federal nor state governments
regularly monitor Internet activity or
restrict Web access, says Privacy
Commissioner Joachim Jacobs, whose job
it is to protect the right to privacy.
Such regulating is permissible, Mr.
Jacobs says, when authorities suspect
illegal activity on the Web, such as
distribution of child pornography or
dissemination of Neo-Nazi propaganda.
In such cases, the state prosecutor's office
is usually responsible for tracking down
and prosecuting the suspects. Federal
prosecutors are only allowed to become
involved when a federal crime, such as
counterfeiting or money-laundering, is
suspected.
But different parts of the government
have different ideas about what
constitutes suspicion. Some, such as the
Bavarian state prosecutor, say just
knowing that illicit materials are out there
- somewhere - is enough to warrant
continuous monitoring of the Web.
Special investigators in his office in
Munich are assigned to surf the Web
constantly in search of illegal material.
Meanwhile, German industries seem more
concerned about keeping government
involvement in the Internet to a minimum.
The government would simply block
access to suspicious sites without
investigating them thoroughly, says
Alexander Felsenberg, vice-president of
the Deutscher Multimedia Verbrand, a
trade association for online multimedia
companies.
Besides, he says, it would be impossible
for the government to control the Web.
"It's absolutely ridiculous," he says. "They
can't handle it."
In the hopes of keeping the government
out of Internet regulation, German
industry leaders, working with the
Internet Content Task Force (a project of
the Electronic Commerce Forum) created
a self-regulating group to monitor Web
content.
The approximately 30 member
companies, mostly from the publishing
and news industries, have agreed to
remove illegal material when it appears
on their servers. Mr. Felsenberg says that
they receive about 200 complaints
annually from Web users worldwide, of
which only about two or three are serious
enough to warrant removal.
The task force also uses software to scan
news groups for illegal or harmful
material.
"We do what is possible," says Mr.
Summa of the ISP association. "It's a
question of what can be done. But
censorship is nothing that we want to
have."
Staff writers Judith Matloff in Moscow
and Kevin Platt in Beijing contributed to this
report, along with Andrea Hamilton,
Singapore correspondent for Asiaweek
magazine, and Alisa Roth in Berlin.
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