I always privately maintained that while I was in Shanghai in March 2004, my click throughs on the Internet was monitored in the state run hotel I was in, as well as having had a conversation with someone I came to believe was a “Censor” who happened to be in the business center the same time as me. Whether people agreed with my estimations or thought I was over taken with paranoia fell about half and half. Well, here we go. I wouldn’t say it’s “proof” what I suspected was correct, but I can say that the Shanghai authorities indeed do have the technology and man power I honestly felt I encountered. Where better to test than an establishment they already have control over?
BBC: Shanghai cameras spy on web users
Around 80 million people are online in China
Shanghai has installed video cameras in its internet cafes in order to monitor users.
The measure is part of a six-month campaign to bring the city’s internet bars into line, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Software is also being installed to scrutinize the viewing of pornographic or “superstitious” sites.
China is believed to extend greater censorship over the web than anywhere else in the world.
The video cameras will help determine whether any visitors to Shanghai’s 1,325 internet bars are under 16.
The software will send a message to a supervisory centre if users try to view what the Chinese Government considers unsuitable material, including websites containing information about the banned Falun Gong movement, the Shanghai Daily said.
It will “spot illegal activities immediately”, said Yu Wenchang, who is in charge of the project.
The software will also require Chinese users to input their identity number, and foreigners their passport number.
In addition, 600 volunteers will be sent out sporadically to inspect the city’s internet cafes.
The paper said 57 internet bars which have violated the regulations have already been reprimanded or shut down.
China has always been wary of the web as a means of disseminating information critical of the government, but internet cafes have faced even greater scrutiny since 25 people were killed in a fire in a Beijing establishment two years ago.
The tragedy highlighted the abundance of unlicensed internet bars in China’s cities, and they were subsequently closed down.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Truly terrible, but this is known truth for years.
Lately there were large campaigns which force shutdown of some large blogger sites in China, and political forum in main sites like sina/yahoo is stopped too. My friends told me that even the dns of *.homeip.net have been blocked.
The expotential properties of internet would ultimately require the china government to spend infinitely large amount of man power to censor all those material. If any of you are in china, remeber find some proxy outside, and do everything through secure channel. Although none of those “secure” SSL or VPN is perfectly secure, but wasting man power of them is a nice idea.
I glad that I’m living in Hong Kong, freedom taste good.
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What really urks me is when the country has problems, when the country has people living below the poverty standards, our country spends MILLIONS on preventing people from reading and saying what they want. What a misuse of funds, and misuse of world loans and also money from other countries has given for development.
Freedom does taste good.
Yan
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I don’t know whether you saw the article in yesterday’s SCMP on Shanghai and internet monitoring.
If not, you can see my write up on it here.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.
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Thanks. I have the paper but didn’t read it! I added the update to an essay on Internet censhorship and Tianamen square.
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杜導斌判處緩刑
著名國內網上作家杜導斌的「煽動顛覆國家政權罪」案於昨日審結，他被判處有期徒刑3年，緩刑 4年，剝奪政治權利 2年。
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