— Assambleya

A woman in China has been sentenced to a year in a labour camp after posting a message on the social networking website Twitter.

The fiancee of human rights activist Cheng Jianping told the BBC she had been accused of disrupting social order, but her message had been a joke.

She had repeated a Twitter comment urging nationalist protesters to smash Japan’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, adding the words «Charge, angry youth».

Twitter is banned in China.

However, many people use it by circumventing internet controls.

Diplomatic row

The offending online «tweet», which has landed 46-year-old Cheng Jianping with a year of re-education through labour, was posted in the middle of last month.

At the time, China and Japan were embroiled in their worst diplomatic row in recent years over a group of uninhabited, but disputed, islands in the East China Sea.

Groups of young Chinese had been demonstrating against Japan, publicly smashing Japanese products.

Cheng Jianping’s fiance, Hua Chunhui, told the BBC he first posted the short message on Twitter, ridiculing the demonstrators, saying their actions were nothing new and if they really wanted to make an impact they should smash the Japanese Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.

Ms Cheng then «retweeted» the mocking message, he said, forwarding it and adding the words «charge, angry youth».

Ten days later she was detained by police «for disrupting social order» and has now been sent to the Shibali River women’s labour camp in Zhengzhou city in Henan Province.

Mr Hua said his fiance had started a hunger strike and he was trying to get her released to undergo her re-education at home.

Contacted by the BBC, staff at the camp said they had no information to give.

But Mr Hua said documents from the labour re-education committee made it clear Ms Cheng had been committed because of her single «tweet».

Another Twitter user has now tweeted that Ms Cheng should apply for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, because the five words she added to the message had cost her a year of freedom.

Dissidents

Her detention is a sign of how closely China’s government scrutinises comment on the internet.

The authorities are fearful of the power of the internet to stir up discontent.

They are also wary of the way nationalist demonstrations like those targeting Japan have the potential to run out of control.

Ms Cheng may also have been targeted because she is a local human rights activist.

Her fiance said she had signed petitions including one calling for the release of China’s jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

And she had been detained by police for five days in August this year after she voiced support for Liu Xianbin, a long-time campaigner for democracy in China, involved in the protests that preceded the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Liu Xianbin had been detained again this year, apparently suspected of inciting subversion of state power for criticising China’s Communist Party.

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Culture minister Ed Vaizey has backed a «two-speed» internet, letting service providers charge content makers and customers for «fast lane» access.

It paves the way for an end to «net neutrality» – with heavy bandwidth users like Google and the BBC likely to face a bill for the pipes they use.

Mr Vaizey said ISPs must be free to experiment with new charges to help pay for the expansion in internet services.

But critics warn the move could harm free speech and stifle innovation.

‘Fast lane’

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are supposed to treat all web traffic equally – serving only as a one-size-fits-all pipe for whatever data is passing from content providers to end users.

But a debate has been raging around the world over how much they should be allowed to control the size of their pipes, and thus the internet speed that users get from the site.

In the US, President Barack Obama has backed net neutrality – treating all traffic equally – and regulators have threatened possible legal action against ISPs that block or restrict access to sites.

But some traffic management, where traffic from one source is favoured over another, is likely to be allowed, with a ruling due next year, Mr Vaizey suggests.

The EU has also backed traffic management but with greater transparency to ensure the internet remains «open» – something that will soon be enshrined in UK law.

Mr Vaizey argues that most ISPs already carried out traffic management «to ensure the smooth running of their networks» without any impact on competition or consumer rights.

In his speech, he argues that the continued quality of internet services in the UK is under threat due to the rapid expansion of mobile and wireless networks and the «massive investment» it needed.

As a result, ISPs had to be free to experiment with new ways of raising revenue – provided customers were clear about what they were buying.

He says: «We have got to continue to encourage the market to innovate and experiment with different business models and ways of providing consumers with what they want.

«This could include the evolution of a two-sided market where consumers and content providers could choose to pay for differing levels of quality of service.»

He also suggests that content makers could be charged for the first time for the use of the ISP’s networks – provided they too were clear about what they were getting.

«Content and application providers should be able to know exactly what level of service they are getting especially if they are paying for it,» he says.

‘Appalling’

He added that the government did not want to introduce new laws on top of those already being adopted from the EU to guarantee an «open» internet, arguing that light touch regulation was better.

He also argued that, that unlike in the US where some areas only had the choice of one service provider, there was enough rivalry between providers to ensure consumers’ rights were protected.

«The essential competition we enjoy in Europe and especially in the UK, will be an essential safeguard against unfair discrimination,» he argues.

He said ISPs must also guarantee that net users can continue to access any legal website or content.

«In order for the internet to continue as the open, innovative force for good that it has been over the past 20 years it is essential that all elements continue to prosper.

«This means ensuring that content providers and applications have open access to consumers and vice versa.

«But it also means allowing ISPs and networks to innovate and experiment with new ways of delivering what consumers want so we can ensure continued investment in the infrastructure that delivers the content and applications we all use.»

But Jim Killock, of net freedom campaigners the Open Rights Group, said the proposals could have «appalling» consequences for free speech and commercial innovation.

«Ed Vaizey is wrong to assume that there is no problem if BT or Virgin restrict people’s internet access for their commercial advantage. Removing ‘net neutrality’ will reduce innovation and reduce people’s ability to exercise their freedom of speech.

«This is why ORG will campaign against any market abuse, should Ed Vaizey allow it to happen.»

‘Peak times’

But the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) welcomed what it called Mr Vaizey’s «lightly-regulated, market-based approach» towards traffic management, adding that ISPs should be «open and transparent» to boost confidence in the industry.

An ISPA spokesman said: «This approach will reassure those who are investing in networks and coming up with new, innovative online business models.

«A number of ISPA members already provide consumers with clear information on traffic management practices and we expect to see this extended.

«ISPs use traffic management techniques so that they are able to effectively and efficiently run and manage their networks for the benefits of all users.

«This enables ISPs to prioritise time-sensitive applications, such as VoIP and online gaming, at peak times.»

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China has rejected claims that it hijacked a huge chunk of net traffic in April 2010.

The allegation surfaced in a report presented to the US Congress which said that for 18 minutes the traffic was redirected to Chinese servers.

But in an official statement China Telecom «denied any hijack of internet traffic».

So far the Chinese government has declined to comment on the allegations.

The report was written by the US-China Economic and Security review commission and said the re-routing of data was caused when China Telecom sent incorrect routing information. It is not clear whether the re-routing was intentional.

Among traffic rerouted via China during the 18 minutes was that destined for the websites of the US Senate, the Office of the Secretary of Defence, Nasa and the Commerce Department, the report said.

The re-routing began at a small Chinese ISP called IDC China Telecommunication but was then picked up by the state-owned China Telecom.

«Evidence related to this incident does not clearly indicate whether it was perpetrated intentionally and, if so, to what ends,» according to the report.

«However, computer security researchers have noted that the capability could enable severe malicious activities,» it added.

The danger of cyber-attacks has been high on global agendas recently.

This week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that cyber-attacks posed a huge future threat and urged more joined-up efforts between the US military and civilian agencies.

MPs in the UK have also been hearing about the risks of cyber-attacks.

In evidence given to the Science and Technology Committee, experts said that a concerted cyber-attack capable of damaging key infrastructure could currently only be launched by an enemy state.

Stuxnet fears

«The risk of a concerted attack which has fundamental effect on infrastructure would have to be at state level and therefore politically unlikely,» said Dr Hayes, a senior fellow at the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments.

But he said the tools were there for either politically-motivated hackers or organised criminals to launch an attack.

«If I see a nuclear weapon, I need plutonium, but cyber-weapons are just a sequence of ones and zeros. We have concerns that Stuxnet could be copied for instance,» he said.

«The risk of that is high and could have localised effect on critical infrastructure,» he told MPs.

The recent Stuxnet malware, which appeared to be targeted at Iran’s nuclear power plant, has caused alarm in governments around the world about a new wave of state-sponsored cyber-attacks.

Dalai Lama

Professor Ross Anderson, from the University of Cambridge, told MPs that Stuxnet was a sophisticated piece of malware.

«We can surmise it was from someone who didn’t like the Iranians refining uranium. It took six people five months to write. It appears whoever commissioned it had access to people whose business was writing malware, as well as people clearly expert in industrial control systems.

It was an effort funded to the order of £1m or thereabouts,» he said.

Experts have said that Stuxnet’s complexity means it could only have been written by a nation state.

Prof Anderson told MPs that he had had personal involvement into state-sponsored malware attacks.

«A couple of years ago, a student of mine helped the Dalai Lama’s office clear up malware clearly from the Chinese government,» he said.

Despite the threat from enemy states, the biggest risk to UK computer systems remained the prospect of internal system failures as upgrades to the net addressing system began, he said.

«The most likely cause of disruption to the internet comes from software failure associated with the transition to IPV6,» he said.

But he warned that the threat of external attacks was likely to get worse over time, as more and more systems became computerised.

Experts needed

Prof Anderson said that government needed to become more «IT-aware».

«Regulators such as Ofgem and Ofcom should have people on their staff who understand IT and the risk we could be sleepwalking into,» he said.

He warned that the government needed to do more.

«We have never put enough into combating cyber-crime. The Metropolitan police have difficulty sustaining e-crime units, because they are forever being closed down or merged,» he said.

He said that the situation was not helped because the culture of the UK’s security body GCHQ was non-collaborative, unlike that of the US National Security Agency.

«Currently there are two separate communities, the civil community and the defence community. Outside of the defence community there is no source of expertise,» he said.

«Bodies like the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Metropolitan police don’t have their own engineering staff, so are beholden to Cheltenham [the base for GCHQ] for advice.»

He was not convinced that GCHQ was the right body to be protecting computer systems.

«It may take a cyber-attack to convince the prime minister that GCHQ is incompetent and things need to be changed,» he said.

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