The shame file: five evil uses of IT

To those who value freedom of expression and information as basic human rights, China's "Great Firewall" is a travesty.

Thank the West for Chinese censorship

More than 60 sets of internet regulations govern its ISPs, content producers and users.

They prohibit sexually suggestive, superstitious, anti-socialist material and that which "harms the prosperity and interests of the state".

Known in China as the "Golden Shield Project", the Great Firewall blocks censored material using methods that include: DNS filtering or redirection, IP blocking, URL filtering and packet filtering by keywords.

Eight state-licenced ISPs link its network to the foreign internet backbone, according to the China Internet Network Information Center's 2009 report.

And China encourages businesses and search engines to self-censor with the threat of being blocked or shut down. For instance, Google (founded on the notion that "you can make money without doing evil") displays limited information on search terms such as "democracy" and "Tiananmen Square".

Meanwhile, Yahoo! has handed over data about its users to Chinese authorities, resulting in the arrests of dissidents Li Zhi in 2003 and Shi Tao in 2005.

The company has since moved to mend its ways.

"Yahoo! was one of the first internet companies to enter China and, in acknowledging the challenges we and other companies face in these markets, we have taken concrete steps individually and collectively to protect human rights there and globally," Yahoo! says. 

"Yahoo! is committed to protecting fundamental human rights and freedom of expression. We are committed to making sure our actions match our values around the world and this effort has resulted in industry-leading initiatives to advance global privacy and free expression."

The US is testing 'feed over e-mail' technology to evade web screening systems in countries such as China and Iran.

But some argue that without US companies, the Great Firewall wouldn't exist.

At a 2006 US Congressional hearing, Congressman Christopher Smith said: "Cisco has provided the Chinese Government with the technology necessary to filter Internet content.

"For the sake of market share and profits, leading US companies, like Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, and Microsoft have compromised the integrity of their products and their duties as responsible corporate citizens."

But Cisco says it complies with all US Government regulations that prohibit sale to certain destinations, to users who misuse the products or resell them to prohibited users.

"Cisco supports transparency in the way the Internet is used and complies with applicable regulations," a company spokesman says.

Read on for one final "evil use of IT"...