Forwarded From: William Knowles <erehwont_private> BEIJING (October 12, 1998 08:44 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - As China becomes ever-more wired, computer police must raise Internet security standards to catch the growing numbers of cyber-criminals, the People's Daily said on Monday. China has detected more than 100 cases of computer crimes in the past two years, the most serious case involving the theft of $1.2 million, China's ruling party mouthpiece said. Internet surveillance in China was hampered by an inefficient computer police force, out-dated computer protection equipment imported in the 1980s and the slow development of computer protection products, the newspaper said. It estimated that assets worth $60 billion were exposed on the Internet. An expert team of "Internet police" was needed to protect investments against hackers trolling the worldwide computer network, the newspaper said. China has seen an explosion in Internet use in recent years. The country had 620,000 active users at the end of 1997 and industry experts predict the wired population to jump to five million by 2000, industry experts say. Government attempts to police the Internet have focused on filtering out pornography and political messages from pro-democracy activists and Taiwanese or Tibetan independence movements. The first Chinese regulation protecting computer systems was issued in 1994 along with the first criminal law against computer crime. However, it was only last year that China enacted a criminal law which that made it illegal to break into computer systems and set a maximum five-year jail term for a conviction. Police in the commercial hub of Shanghai arrested China's first suspected computer hacker under the new law in September. The 22-year-old had broken into a Shanghai computer network and discovered the passwords of more than 500 users. This year China published its first training manual on protecting computer systems, the newspaper said. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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