The Chinese Internet is growing like bamboo.  The number of Internet users in China is doubling every six months, with about 100 million last time we checked.  10,000 new domain names are registered each month and e-commerce almost hit 70 billion US dollars in 2005.

But parasites are thriving in the bamboo forest.  Xu JianZhao, a deputy director of China’s Internet security, has said that, “Hackers are rampant,” and provided these numbers: police investigated 20,000 Internet crimes last year and he postulated that the unreported thefts from online banks and game accounts alone could be in the millions.  He also said (I paraphrase) that hackers are not the benign geek-hipsters that show off to their friends by hacking government systems and leaving pink bunnies on the homepage.  They are hacking to get other peoples’ money.

And there appears to be no effective solution at work.  Of the 11,500 cases specifically investigated by the Security Solutions Bureau (SSB), only 14 resulted in convictions for sabotage.  In my book, a .01% success rate isn’t that hot.

The problem is simple: the Chinese government, though it has had successes in fighting Internet porn and online gambling, is struggling against online fraud and theft because its legislation is too vague.  In other words, because the law is imprecise, it’s like trying to chop down a tree with a blunt piece of metal instead of an axe.   Li Jingjing of the SSB said, “The legislation is so vague that it is difficult to apply in court.”  The fact that most hackers are getting off is only encouraging more to commit online theft.  As the Chinese Internet grows exponentially, so is the number of online crimes.

To be honest, I don’t really find too much fault with the Chinese government.  The Internet is still so new and grows so fast that it would be practically impossible to keep up with every aspect of it.  The government has focused on one area and let other problems slide.  No doubt new laws will be written and old ones updated, but I also don’t hesitate to say new types of crime will sprout up.  So goes the fight against crime on the World Wide Web.  The Internet is a new frontier, as wild in some parts as the Wild West of America’s past.  We’ll see if it is ever tamed.