Financial Times, September 4, 1996, p. 4. Singapore looks to superhighway By James Kynge in Kuala Lumpur Singapore took another step toward its vision of becoming an "intelligent island" yesterday, announcing an initiative to link the city-state's main on-line networks. Mr Goh Chee Wee, Singapore's minister of state for communications, said the "internetwork hub" would link service providers of the Internet, government on-line networks, commercial networks and some others. Singapore's move follows an ambitious scheme announced by neighbour Malaysia last month to launch an "information superhighway" designed to attract the world's leading information technology companies to Kuala Lumpur. The perceived advantage in Singapore's initiative is that users will be able to access all networks using a single leased line, rather than the separate lines currently necessary. The hub will use a single set of national standards, meaning inter-operability between networks becomes easier. Mr Goh said the hub should be up and running by the end of the year. A mechanism to identify users electronically would be incorporated into the hub network next year, paving the way for secure operations such as payments, banking and confidential correspondence. The move is part of the Information Technology 2000 masterplan, a scheme which aims to accomplish the sometimes conflicting aims of exploiting the information superhighway to its full potential while continuing to insulate Singaporeans from undesired influences. From September 15, the city-state will implement its first big attempt to police cyberspace. From then all Internet providers must channel more than 120,000 subscribers on the island through "proxy servers" before they reach the net. These servers will check every Internet site a subscriber requests and block access to a about a dozen banned sites known to display pornography. The government has warned against material deemed politically subversive or inciting religious disharmony. [End]