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Requirements that internet cafes in a southern Chinese city install Chinese-developed operating systems are raising new concerns over cyber-snooping by the authorities, a US government-funded radio station reported yesterday.

The new rules went into effect on November 5 and are aimed at cracking down on pirated software, said Hu Shenghua, a spokesman for the culture bureau in the city of Nanchang, Jiangxi province. Internet cafe operators are required to replace unlicensed software with legitimate copies of either Microsoft Windows or China's Red Flag Linux operating system, while paying a fee, he said.