SHANGHAI — The land that brought the world the Great Wall has built a new barrier on its ultimate frontier. This shield, like its predecessor, is designed to repel invaders and protect China from their foreign ideas.
Dubbed "the Great Chinese Firewall," it is a series of Internet blocks and filters meant to stop Chinese citizens from seeing online news and opinions that differ from the government's political line. But just as the miles of mud and stone erected centuries ago failed to keep China's citizens in and invaders out, this cyber-barrier is being breached by a new generation of computer experts.
They call themselves "hacktivists," electronic guerrillas with political agendas ranging from ending censorship to outright sabotage.
With names such as Bronc Buster, Cult of the Dead Cow and the Hong Kong Blondes, they sound more like rock bands than enemies of the people. But the Chinese government is taking them seriously.
They claim to have defaced government Web sites, torn down firewalls and disabled a satellite, and to possess the tools to infiltrate government computer networks. They have linked up with political activists.
"We are computer experts, and above that we like the concept of free speech," said the Chinese editor of VIP Reference, an electronic magazine based in Washington that is e-mailed into China. The Chinese-born editor uses the English alias Richard Long to protect his family back on the mainland.
"We are destined to destroy the Chinese system of censorship over the Internet," declared the editor. "We believe that the Chinese people, like any other people in the world, deserve the rights of knowledge and free expression."
VIP Reference contains exactly what the filters are meant to keep out: articles and essays about democratic and economic evolution in China. The name itself is a play on the Reference News, a publication with similar content but for top cadres' eyes only. Editors say VIP Reference is for China's real VIPs--ordinary people.
Magazine Is Sent to 250,000 in China
Editors have found one easy way to get around the Internet roadblocks, which can stop access to specific Web sites but aren't as easily able to screen private e-mail. The group distributes the pro-democracy magazine throughout China with shotgun blasts of e-mail to about 250,000 addresses compiled from commercial and public lists. The magazine has even found its way into the mailbox of the head of Shanghai's Internet security division.
