But so far, security officials have found that it is much easier to control people than to harness the Internet. Just ask Lin Hai.
The 30-year-old Shanghai software entrepreneur has been branded China's first "cyberdissident."
He is charged with providing VIP Reference with 30,000 e-mail addresses, including those of top officials. His December trial was closed to the public; even his wife was prevented from attending. His lawyers argued that authorities could not stop the message, so they arrested the messenger. Mr. Lin is awaiting a verdict.
Mr. Lin's case has created a community of unlikely allies. Hacker groups such as the Cult of the Dead Cow (http://www.cultdeadcow.com) have joined the American Association of the Advancement of Science (http://www.aaas.org), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org) and Human Rights in China (http://www.hriching.org) to pepper official Chinese organizations with e-mails pushing for Mr. Lin's acquittal and leniency for Wang Youcai.
"We wanted to use the Internet to defend Lin Hai and Wang Youcai since they are being punished for sending e-mail," said Bobson Wong, Executive Director of the Digital Freedom Network, one of the action's organizers. "This campaign helps the global Internet community to protect free speech around the world." (2)
China appears to be fighting a futile battle to stem anti-government ideas seeping into the country from overseas through the Internet as ingenious hackers have found ways to breach its vaunted great Chinese firewall.
"They (hackers) are always one step ahead," said an Internet company official based in Beijing.
The hackers' latest hit was the daily onslaught of an avalanche of "banned" information sent to tens of thousands of e-mail addresses in China, including government leaders and some police officials.
"It takes me ten minutes to open my e-mail and 30 minutes to clean it every day," complained one communist party cadre whose e-mail seemed to have been particularly targeted by the US on-line magazine VIP Reference (Dacankao).
It was for allegedly having sent VIP Reference as well as other "anti-China magazines" about 30,000 e-mail addresses of mainland residents that Lin Hai, who used the internet nickname Richard Long, was charged in Shanghai last month in a landmark case with subversive use of the Internet.
