Source: South China Morning Post Doug Nairne and Michael Jen-Siu September 27, 2002 (博讯boxun.com)

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   . . . . Analysts have said filtering Internet traffic on a nationwide scale was impossible as computers could not keep up with the data flow. But Internet activist Greg Walton said the experience of mainland users showed that China had a system powerful enough to do the job.

   The system is not foolproof - users report inconsistent blocks on e-mails and Web pages - but Mr Walton said time and technology were on the side of the censors, and the system would get better.

   "It will be progressively cheaper and easier to collect, transport, store and analyse data," he said.

   Bill Dong, spokesman for Dynamic Internet Technology, a company providing technical services to Voice of America's Chinese-language Web site, said keyword filtering had not replaced the block on previously banned sites, but had been added as an extra layer to selectively screen content on other sites.

   "This is a way to get more extensive blocking without offending too many people," he said. "There is a Chinese saying, govern by separating'. So now, they do not have to block all of Google and offend everybody. They can block the Falun Gong part of a university site, for example, without offending students who need to get information there. So this will make their blocking socially easier."

   Western firms such as Websense and Cisco have come under fire from freedom of speech advocates for providing China with technology to censor the Internet. But Nathan Midler, Asia-Pacific senior analyst with IDC in Beijing, said the new system appeared to be homegrown . . .

   [...]

   The disruption of the Google search engine this month appears to have been only one symptom of a significant change in the way China censors the Internet.

   Observers say the main focus of the so-called Great Firewall has switched from preventing access to a long list of banned Web sites to screening Internet traffic, including e-mail, by searching out keywords and blocking the data they are associated with.

   A far greater amount of online information is being denied to mainland residents than was previously the case.

   Analysts and freedom of speech advocates say the move hurts China's attempts to portray a more progressive image to the world and unnecessarily violates people's privacy. The changes, which began to be noticed around September 13, are also proving highly unpopular with many of the country's 46 million Internet users. (博讯boxun.com)