Lin. 30, was detained first on March 25 last year and is accused of using other people's Internet domains to covertly share the e-mail addresses with "anti-China" magazines abroad from September 1997 onward.
No verdict has yet been given, but Lin, the first Chinese person accused specifically of having used the Internet for political goals, faces a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.
"Lin Hai should be convicted. It was because of him that I have had to change my e-mail address as there was no other way to stop the flood of anti-Chinese information." said the cadre who asked not to be identified.
To breach the great Chinese firewall, which Chinese access providers designed to bar the entry of politically sensitive information from overseas, VIP Reference would change its senders address everyday - a tactic which Chinese authorities found virtually unstoppable.
"I receive all my e-mail. it includes VIP Reference", said Ren Wanding, one of few veteran Chinese dissidents in Beijing who is not in prison.
Ren, also one of the few dissidents allowed Internet access, said it was difficult to gain entry to certain sites such an foreign newspapers or those dedicated to human rights.
Although 1.here are several access providers in China, they are all obliged to go l through the state-owned ChinaNet, which regularly puts out a list of barred sites.
"We can always go around the blockage. All that is needed is to use a proxy server," said one Internet user who admitted however that China's actual 1.5 million Internet users may not: be able to carry out the operation.
But with a potential 10 million Internet users in 2002, according to official figures, authorities will find controlling the entry of information from the World Wide Web much tougher.
In the fall 1998, there were two simultaneous attacks against two official sites-- one was on human rights while l he other was on Tibet--carried out by a hacker nicknamed Brone Buster of LoU or Legions of Underground. (3)
National People's Congress Chairman Li Peng said in August 1998 he was in favor of an enlarged "supervisory role" for China's press. There have also been recent reports that new legislation may soon be passed that could result in a gradual relaxation of slate censorship, wrote dissident Liu Binyan in 1998, from his new home in the U.S.
Dissidents like Liu were being heard from more and more as the Internet expanded.
