US may help Chinese evade Net censorship
Thursday, August 30, 2001
REUTERS in New York
United States government agencies hope to finance an American-based
computer network designed to thwart attempts by Beijing to censor the World
Wide Web for users in mainland China, The New York Times reported on
Thursday.
Government officials and private architects of the plan say the program would
be financed by the International Broadcasting Bureau, parent agency of the
Voice of America, which has been presenting the American view abroad,
mostly by radio, for decades, according to the newspaper's online edition.
According to the report, the agency is in advanced discussions with
Safeweb, a small company based in Emeryville, California, which has
received financing from the venture-capital arm of the Central Intelligence
Agency, In-Q-Tel. The discussions were confirmed by parties on both sides,
the newspaper said.
Safeweb runs its own worldwide network of about 100 privacy servers -
computers that help disguise what Web sites a user is seeking to view -
which are popular with users in China, according to the report. The newspaper
said the privacy servers have been a continuing target for the Chinese
government, which has blocked most of them in recent weeks.
According to the report, the bureau would provide money for new computers
to run Safeweb software specifically tailored for the Chinese audience and
intended to be more resistant to blocking by the government.
It would also cover some of the costs of network bandwidth to carry the the
Internet traffic, but would not act as host for the computers itself, the
newspaper said.
The report said the plan would initially pay for around a dozen computers,
with an option to grow to a larger number after the new federal financial year
begins in October.
According to the newspaper, the project would be financed from a
Congressional allocation of US$5 million last year intended to improve
broadcasting to mainland China, including both Internet and radio.
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