Speech by Mr. Stephen Mak, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer, at the International Conference of the Project on Opportunities and Challenges of the Cyber World for Youth Development
28 - 12 - 2004

Dr (Rosanna) Wong, Ms (Lorna) Wong, Mr (Francis) Ho, Mr (Nicholas) Yang, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning!

It is my great pleasure to be invited to speak on 'The Influence of The Cyber World on Youth Development' in this conference. This provides a very good opportunity for us to share our views on how we can make the cyber world a clean and safe place for learning, entertainment and socializing. With so many experts speaking today, I am sure you will find your participation very interesting and worthwhile.

Indeed, the Internet has revolutionized our communication habits and changed people's lifestyle. The Internet has penetrated into every facet of our daily activities and has created unlimited new opportunities as well as challenges.

I will begin my talk with the Internet environment and opportunities it offers, to our younger generation in particular. Of course, there is always the other side of the coin, so I will cover the challenges and the Government's efforts to protect the Internet environment for healthy youth development.

The cyber space, typically the Internet, continues to grow at an amazing speed. Today, there are already 930 million Internet users worldwide, and this is projected to grow to 1.35 billion in 2007 (Note 1). About 40% of the worldwide Internet users come from just 3 countries, that is, USA, China and Japan (USA over 185 million, China over 99 million and Japan over 78 million). Remarkably, Hong Kong has about 1.63 million enthusiastic young Internet users with more than 60% of them staying online 5 days a week, according to surveys conducted by a number of youth organizations (Note 2). In Hong Kong, recent surveys have shown that the top three Internet activities for the youths are cyberstalking (e.g. ICQ), software downloading and playing online games.

In China, the number of ICQ users rose from 50 million in January 2001 to 280 million by March 2004 (Source: China Daily). In North America, about 85% of enterprises are now using Instant Messaging (IM) software (Source: Radicati and IMLogic). The online game market in China has doubled from 2002 to 2003 with a paid-user population at around 9 million in 2003. It is predicted that the market will reach 2.5 billion yuan (US$302 million) in 2004 (Source: Shanghai iResearch Co. Ltd.).

The Internet is an exciting place, especially for young people, it has become an important and sometimes indispensable platform for learning, entertainment and socializing. For example, it is easier to search information on the Internet than plough through the traditional paper-based books and other references. Nowadays, Internet users can access a wealth of information ranging from academic studies stored in the archives to commercial announcements as soon as they are published on the web. The Internet is a global concentrator of information resources. Recently, libraries of some famous universities (Note 3) have agreed to digitalize the titles in their libraries for the public search and viewing online.

The Internet also provides an easy way for socializing. Among young people, the Net has become the standard means to 'talk' to friends in different parts of the world and get things done.

Besides, the Internet is an ideal environment for e-business. Internet users can buy books, order computer equipment, book tickets, auction for goods, etc. online by making a few mouse clicks. Most people, particularly the young generation, have used the electronic mode for conducting transactions.

To improve the overall quality and service level of government services, the Hong Kong SAR Government has provided an online channel (i.e. the ESDLife) for the delivery of some 160 e-Government transactions to the public. The Internet has been successfully used in the delivery of educational and entertainment material. On the Internet, users can learn at their own pace, any place and on virtually any topic ranging from hobbyist interest to a distance learning university degree course. For example, the 'HKeducationCITY.net' is a platform that aimed to be a repository of education resources for schools, teachers, parents, and educational institutions and the public, etc. and to promote life-long learning and continuous education in Hong Kong.

Indeed, the Internet has great influence on and sometimes can shape our daily life. It provides numerous new and cost-efficient ways of doing things. On the other hand, the Internet carries associated problems that we must take special care to prevent or minimize the negative effects. I would now like to discuss the negative impact of misusing the Internet to young people.

According to findings in various countries, the most common Internet risks for the young generation are indulgence in cyber-relations, online gambling and playing online games. One of the findings stands out to be of great concern - some 40% of our young people are found to be Internet addicts. About half of the young online game players spend 22 hours per week on games, and over 15% of the young Internet users spend more than 3 hours per week at the Internet Computer Services Centers.

Internet addiction is harmful to health and social life. The potential damage to youth development is significant. The following are some of the common social impact of addicted engagement in Internet related activities. There have been reported cases of truancy for many days (i.e. children running away from school) in order to continue playing online games. Some Internet addicts have gradually lost interest in participating in social gatherings and school learning activities. Usually, there is an associated widening of the generation gap with their parents. According to a survey, more than 30% of the respondents admitted that they quarreled with their parents concerning their use of the Internet. The survey further reveals that the longer the respondents remain online, the poorer is their parent-child relationship.

Instead of becoming solitary, some youths are easily influenced by cyber violence (cyber-bullying) and tend to follow what their heroes do against the evils as typically happens in a game. This is dangerous because it will affect their value system and create serious behavioral problems. As they mimic the characters in the cyber world, they gradually believe that violence and revenge (against the bad guys) is the best and only way to solving problems in real life.

Besides Internet addiction and the related social problems, the youths are exposed to various computer related crimes that include the propagation of computer viruses, hacking, illegal downloading of copyrighted material, pornography, Internet game theft, gambling, phishing and attempt to develop sexual or other immoral relationship through cyberstalking.

Young people are inquisitive, curious and easily captivated by exciting experience, thus becoming the instrument of virus spreading or hacking, tempted by the availability of ready tools on the Internet. Early this year, a teenager about to turn 18 years old had developed and triggered the spreading of a very damaging computer worm, Sasser, and within just a few days ended up with global Internet traffic congestion and paralyzed numerous business operations (including some air flights). He was found and arrested, of course. Some Web search engine companies are now considering blocking the efforts by Internet viruses or worms to use their search engine to find and attack vulnerable computers on the Internet.

The illegal downloading of copyrighted materials seems to increase rapidly. According to a recent survey conducted by CacheLogic, the use of BitTorrent (BT) which is a peer-to-peer downloading software had accounted for about 35% of the Internet traffic.

While the Internet provides its users with a wealth of information, it is necessary to recognize and avoid websites with indecent contents such as pornographic material and sexually explicit images that are unsuitable for children and young persons.

Like Internet pornography, the Internet is full of online gambling websites. Internet users may unknowingly or unwillingly visit these websites by clicking on advertisement banners or responding to junk emails sent by gambling operators. These gambling websites are usually annoying.

The Internet has offered new ways of cheating and theft of property. In 2003, the Hong Kong Police Force handled more than 500 technology crimes of which more than 280 were related to Internet games.

Similar to the theft of game assets on the Internet, there has been a significant increase in phishing which involves the mass distribution of 'spoofed (cheating)' email messages with return addresses, links, and branding that pretend to have come from trustworthy organizations such as banks, insurance agencies, retailers or credit card companies, and fool the careless users to divulge their personal authentication data such as account usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.

Engagement in cyberstalking can be dangerous too. There have been reported sexual offences, robbery etc. by victims after making contact with these strangers on the Internet and young people are potentially vulnerable.

The HKSAR Government places great emphasis on securing the Internet environment in HK, and has undertaken initiatives to strengthen our information security infrastructure and to inspire public confidence in the conduct of activities, in particular e-business, on the Internet. With regard to Government's measures to enhance the security of our cyber world, I would like to start with our Digital 21 Strategy for information technology.

We first established our Digital 21 IT Strategy in 1998. The focus was to build the right environment, infrastructure, skills and culture to encourage the development and adoption of IT by the entire community for e-business to prosper in Hong Kong. Our community is now a mature and avid user of IT. The challenge now is to sustain the momentum created in past years and continue to harness the benefits of IT for our community. To this end, we have updated the Digital 21 Strategy in March 2004 mapping out our actions to take Hong Kong forward in this information economy.

Under the Digital 21 Strategy, the Government has established a legal framework that is conducive for the conduct of e-business and has initiated other measures to enhance our information security.

The Electronic Transactions Ordinance ("ETO") was enacted in January 2000 to enhance certainty and security for the conduct of e-transactions by members of the public. Electronic records and signatures now have the same legal recognition as their paper-based counterparts. The ETO also provides a framework for the voluntary recognition scheme for certification authorities ("CA") which is being administered by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO). The recognition scheme aims at enhancing security and public confidence in conducting electronic transactions with the use of recognized digital certificates issued by recognized CAs.

With the ETO legal framework and under our Multi-application Smart ID Card programme, we have made available the option for smart identity card holders to include a digital certificate. To-date, over 600,000 smart identity cards issued have got the digital certificate embedded. This will create a critical mass of digital certificate holders and will in turn create incentives for businesses and individuals to perform transactions that require high level of security assurance through electronic means.

There are other relevant ordinances and regulations that can prevent or handle computer crimes. The Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 200) and the Telecommunications Ordinance (Cap. 106) have been amended to prohibit unauthorized access to computer, thus making hacking activities an offence. Under the Theft Ordinance (Cap. 210), the meaning of burglary now includes unlawfully causing a computer to function other than as it has been established and altering, erasing or adding any computer program or data; extending the meaning of false accounting to include destroying, defacing, concealing or falsifying records kept by computer. The Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (Cap. 390) mainly controls articles that contain material that is obscene or indecent. The Gambling Ordinance (Cap. 148) makes it illegal to place a bet over the Internet as well as promote or facilitate bookmaking, unless otherwise permitted.

The HKSAR Government is currently considering the need for legislation to regulate and control email-spamming activities and impose penalties for illegal usage or unauthorized solicitation of spamming. The public consultation has just been completed in October this year. The objective of this initiative is to ensure that the Internet brings convenience and healthy development, and discourage malicious, indecent and annoying activities.

In addition to the legal framework, there are other effective measures to reduce threats of the cyber world. In order to conduct secure e-transactions in the Internet, users have to ensure that the persons with whom we are corresponding actually are who they say they are. In Hong Kong, through the Smart ID Card replacement exercise, each Hong Kong citizen can have a digital certificate embedded in the smart ID card. Hong Kong citizens can use such digital certificates to confirm their identities in the cyber world. Potential applications may include e-banking services, online game account login, etc.

Nowadays, most of the home users including youths have set up wireless connections to the Internet. As wireless network is liable to signal leakage to the surrounding air, there is potential security risk that anyone can pick up and read such signals unless sufficient security measures have been taken such as enabling the encryption features bundled in the wireless network equipment to protect data transmitted through wireless network. With the increasing functionality and availability of Internet access through mobile phones, users and developers alike should be concerned about similar security exposures and counter-measures.

We cannot emphasize more the problems with computer viruses typically contracted through shareware or freeware available on the Internet. As software and other content downloading is one of the top Internet activities for youths, they should install anti-virus software to protect their computer from infection by virus. Conversely, responsible content providers should make every effort to purify their listings from contamination by malicious software code that may affect users.

In order to protect youths from access to indecent contents including sexually explicit images, those computers used by youths should be installed with content filtering software which enables the Internet users to allow or disallow access to a particular website based on their own preferences.

HKSAR Government has been working in collaboration with relevant social and specialist groups to closely monitor the trends and development of computer-related crimes and has put in place the necessary measures to prevent such crimes as well as facilitate the development of a clean and safe Internet environment for young people.

The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) set up the InfoSec web site in 2002 to provide a one-stop portal of various resources and updates related to information security. The web site (www.infosec.gov.hk) is designed to address the needs of different target groups such as children, parents, students, teachers, business organizations and the general public, etc. It is proving to be a very popular site.

A series of public education programmes on information security and the proper use of the Internet has been developed and broadcast on radio and on TV, and contain episodes related to online game, Internet guidelines and computer ethics for the youths.

In order to train students to recognize improper and inaccurate information on the Internet, and take appropriate measures to protect their information assets, the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) in 2000 developed a set of IT Learning Targets which outlined the essential IT knowledge, skills and attitudes that students should acquire at various stages of their schooling. One of the targets is on the use of the Internet.

To further promote computer and cyber ethics, the EMB in October 2002 established a committee in collaboration with relevant government departments and organizations in the community, and set up a "Cyber Ethics for Students and Youth" website (http://cesy.qed.hkedcity.net/index_main.php) to provide guidelines and advice on the proper use of computers and Internet to schools, parents and students as well as design and produce relevant teaching resources for teachers.

Using an interactive approach to arouse interest of students and enable them to learn relevant intellectual property rights, the Intellectual Property Department has designed an "IP-Kids" website and a complementary learning guidebook "Let's Protect Intellectual Property" for primary and secondary school students who are encouraged to take part in at least one intellectual property related activity/project every year.

In collaboration with the specialist groups, the Government has initiated a programme to patch vulnerability loopholes and improve the security protection of online games. The online game makers were invited to pay attention to the information security concerns and needs of the industry, and consider the formulation of information security standards and an audit mechanism for the games industry, so as to strengthen the security level of online games. Besides, the Hong Kong Police Force has been working regularly with online game designers to identify and fix vulnerabilities, if any, of online games. I believe you will hear more about this later in the programme.

To address the public concerns about fire hazards, public safety and the mode of operation of Internet Computer Services Centers (ICSC), especially those that may potentially expose young patrons' to pornographic, violent or gambling contents in the Internet, the Home Affairs Bureau has issued a Code of Practice for Internet Computer Services Centers Operators in July 2003.

As governed by the Code of Practice, ICSC operators are required to ensure that up-to-date devices are put in place to filter out pornographic, violent or gambling content on the Internet. Moreover, they have to ensure that customers below the age of 18 would not be permitted access to any articles that have been classified/are likely to be classified as Class II (Indecent) under the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (COIAO). All customers would not be permitted access to articles that have been classified/are likely to be classified as Class III (Obscene) under the COIAO.

I could go on - but I think I should stop here. Suffice to say the Internet as we see it is a treasure mine full of useful content for our benefit in all kinds of business, learning, entertainment and social activities. It is also a minefield of undesirable content and a potential platform for undesirable and even criminal acts. In closing, I would appeal to everyone to put our efforts together as teachers, students, parents, children, employers, law enforcement agencies, government and business organizations to safeguard information security, adopt good practices, stay vigilant and prudently spend our time on the Internet.

Thank you.

Notes

1. According to Computer Industry Almanac Inc.
2. "Breakthrough", Caritas and Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong.
3. e.g. University of Michigan, Harvard University and Stanford University

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