Police in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province said an Internet offender can be penalized by up to five years in prison according to China's laws.

The suspect Chi Yongshu is a high school student in Qitaihe, a city in eastern Heilongjiang. He has admitted stealing data, spreading a computer virus and carrying out illegal deals online.

Local police said records show Chi's website, www.cnhunk.com, has caused damage to the computers of more than 110,000 Internet users since last December.

Chi, who created a homepage in August 2001, said he linked his website to a program with devastating codes, which causes computers to breakdown and lose data whenever an Internet user logs onto the web page.

Chi also violated others' privacy by deciphering more than 5,000 ICQ numbers and their passwords.

In addition, Chi made 2,950 yuan (US$355) through cheating on gaming websites.

According to sources with the Information Security Supervision Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, in recent years Internet crimes have repeatedly damaged government and business computers. Internet users and commercial websites have been hurt as well.

Police said they will make further efforts to curb Internet crimes, but also warned users not to use pirated security products.

The number of China's web users had increased to more than 33.7 million at the end of 2001.

(China Daily February 7, 2002)