From: Arun Mehta <amehta@doe.ernet.in>
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 22:19:20 +0800
To: Alex Strasheim <alex@proust.suba.com>
Subject: Re: China
In-Reply-To: <199602081727.LAA01429@proust.suba.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9602101826.D2343-0100000@mahavir>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, Alex Strasheim wrote:

> I've seen a couple of pointers to information about China's ambitious
> attempt to build their own censorable net, but not a lot of discussion. 

Agreed, and not just about China. The Internet community is supposedly 
international, yet can be remarkably parochial. 

> The Chineese net strikes me as a very signifiant (and very negative)
> development.  

I'm sure it surprises nobody that the perpetrators of Tiananmen will 
not let the Internet slip through, without an attempt at censorship. 
However, on this subject, I stand by the conclusion of my "Radio Free 
Usenet" July 95 Byte commentary, that if ever they attempt a Tiananmen 
Square in cyberspace, the students will deploy the more powerful tanks. 
Running an ISP isn't easy, and if you are an authoritarian, it is even 
harder. Once they set up the infrastructure, the genie will be out of the 
bottle. Remember that starting this year, satellites of Iridium and other 
LEO satellite projects will start to go up, spreading bandwidth around 
the world. How will the Chinese government build a firewall against 
satellites? Say, for instance orbiting anonymous remailers with pgp? Will 
happen some day.

However, that is not a reason for complacency. I think your warning is 
timely, and discussion, perhaps even action, may be called for. If people 
can mirror a web site so that Germans get access to it (an action I 
entirely support) what is being done about the large numbers of 
newsgroups that India and China have no access to? 

A lot of noise is made about how Compuserve users do not have access to
the sexusenet. Guess what -- in India, now China, we've *never* had such
access. Why is that any more acceptable? 

Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103
amehta@doe.ernet.in a.mehta@axcess.net.in amehta@cerf.net
http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm
"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be 
stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house 
as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."--Gandhi