Servers responsible for sending spam mail throughout China will
be cut off if they continue to harass computer users, the Internet
Society of China warned on Friday.
"If they refuse to behave themselves, we will take stricter
measures and even refuse to connect them," said Huang Chengqing,
the society's deputy secretary-general.
The society has already blacklisted 225 servers responsible for
spam?-- the common term for Internet junk mail?-- on its
www.isc.org website. Most of the
servers are based overseas.
Huang said his society will regularly update the website list in
an effort to stop the attacks on Internet users.
He said China's Internet users are increasingly finding that the
majority of their e-mails are no longer personal?-- an average
of 8.9 e-mails out of the 16 they receive each week are spam.
Most of the spam comes from e-mail servers because of their
default open relay function, which gives people the opportunity to
use them as transfer stations to send unsolicited mail.
Spam jeopardizes the sound development of electronic mail
services and the spread of the Internet, Huang said.
He urged more Internet service providers in China to join
together to try and stamp out spam by getting involved with the
society's coordinated group, which allows people to share
information about technical solutions, to promote public
involvement and extend international cooperation.
On Friday, together with the China Internet Network Information
Center , the society released an official report on the country's
Internet development.
It has mapped the nation's online community since 1994, when the
concept first appeared in China.
According to the report, the number of Internet users in China
hit 68 million at the end of June, the second highest in the world
after the United States.
The latest statistics show the figure was only 8.9 million
people by the end of 2000 and 620,000 people in 1997.
The report also included other authoritative data on the Chinese
Internet industry, such as background information about Internet
infrastructure construction, net equipment research and
development, and Internet services and applications.
(China Daily August 9, 2003)