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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (37666)	7/23/1999 4:26:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116790

Opportunity in China? China Suspends Local Internet E-Mail, Blocking Falun Gong Communications By Peter Harmsen China Suspends Web E-Mail, Blocking Falun Gong Communications Beijing, July 23 (Bloomberg) -- China suspended local Internet-based e-mail services at the same time that it declared the mystical Falun Gong movement an illegal organization, in an effort to limit group members' ability to communicate on-line. Web users who try to access a popular Chinese-language service at www.263.net are told that free e-mail facilities have been suspended for 48 hours with effect from 3 p.m. local time Thursday -- the exact time at which state media announced the ban on Falun Gong. Users at www.188.net, another domestic e-mail service, are told that a ''system upgrade'' is taking place. Thousands of Falun Gong followers were detained Wednesday in cities across China after staging demonstrations to protest the arrest of leaders of the quasi-religious cult. Falun Gong members in China rely on e-mail and the sect's U.S.-based Web site at www.falundafa.org to share information about the government crackdown and to coordinate their response. The Web site can no longer be accessed from within China. It was not clear whether the suspension covered major international providers of Web-based e-mail, which use servers located outside China and could only be curtailed by blocking access to their Web sites. The www.yahoo.com and www.hotmail.com sites, which offer e-mail service, are still available today. Analysts said the effort to restrict e-mail communication was unprecedented in China, even though it routinely blocks access to Web sites with political or pornographic content. ''I have definitely never heard about it before,'' said Jared Peterson, research director at International Data Corp. in Beijing. ''They have shut down international links to the Internet for periods of time in the past.'' The Ministry of Information Industry declined to comment on the extent of the ban. ''We are not in charge,'' said an official at the ministry's department of electronic and information technology products. Extensive Ban The ban appeared to be affecting large areas of China and several types of service. Sohu.com, a leading Internet service provider, said its bulletin board system had been suspended. ''Some local bulletin board systems in places such as Hunan Province have been suspended as well,'' said an executive at the company. Analysts said Chinese authorities have the technology to monitor all domestic Internet usage, including private citizens' e-mail communications. ''It's technically possible, but it takes a lot of resources,'' said International Data Corp.'s Peterson. To monitor e-mail effectively, the authorities would have to compile large numbers of messages into a single database and run it through data-mining software that looks for specific keywords. Foreign investors are unlikely to be discouraged by the temporary restrictions imposed this week. ''Most investors are here for the long term,'' Peterson said. ©1999 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Trademarks.