The Great Firewall of China

You fight your way through a hectic discount store, slip through a back door and climb three flights of stairs to a dingy hallway. Down a tangle of corridors is a grim little room, illuminated by a small window and a single fluorescent tube. It's 10am but already about 20 men and boys are hunched over the smeared screens and tacky keyboards.

More than 20 million people in China depend on cafes like this one in central Shanghai to use the Internet. But access comes at a price far higher than the two or three yuan (less than US$0.40) charged for an hour's session.

The seedy, illicit air of this cafe belies the fact that these venues are under official scrutiny. All customers must register with identity documents, ensuring that the country's Internet police force -- alleged to be 30,000-strong -- can track them down easily. The government has also ensured that cafes install local filters to reinforce the nationwide censorship system dubbed "the Great Firewall of China."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/11/20/2003211838