Anonymizer.com on Friday afternoon created the Kosovo Privacy Project -- a special gateway through which Yugoslavs may send their email. CEO Lance Cottrell says he hopes to protect citizens from reprisals by the authorities.

"If someone is being monitored, the authorities will be able to tell they are connected to the anonymizer server, but will not be able to tell what they are communicating or who to," Cottrell said. "It's a huge step above what they are doing now. It's probably enough for their purposes."

The service will also solve problems with secure email, which is painfully slow and sometimes unreliable. Messages can take two days to be delivered, Cotrell said.

Alex Fowler, the public affairs director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, conceived the project.

"I am seeing messages traveling and being posted on Web pages that are just as easy for me to read as they are for Milosevic and his government agents to see," said Fowler.

Earlier this week, Yugoslav police pulled the plug on B-92, a Belgrade independent radio station that had been broadcasting news about the conflict. Serbian police arrested, then later released, that station's editor in chief.

B-92 is now publishing reports to the Net.

"I am worried that with his attempt to close down B-92 radio and the expulsion of reporters that the next attack will be to start singling out individuals with computers and modems," Fowler said. "People need to take precautions to protect their identities."

Fowler expressed his concerns in an email to Steven Clift, creator of the "Kosovo-reports" group on eGroups. Clift invites Yugoslavians to post first-hand accounts of the situation in the region.

"Let's make sure our zeal to use the Internet during this crisis does not put people in harm's way, especially when the tools are readily at hand to protect their identities and keep the lines of communication open," wrote Fowler.

"We have only one weapon to fight against the war and that's the Web, the Internet," said Jack Boskovic, who operates Kosovo.com, an independent, nonpartisan news site from Canada.

"But people are scared, this is war. They're even scared to receive email from sources outside the country."

Scott Ellentuch, a communications security specialist with Internet consultancy TTSG, said he is sure the authorities are monitoring Internet traffic.

"They're probably watching reports coming out of there," he said.