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Iran-Specific Version of Anonymizer Unblocks Net Access
thelaw writes "Securityfocus has an article explaining a new anti-censorship proxy set up for Iran through Anonymizer, similar to one for Chinese citizens (did anyone know we had a proxy for Chinese citizens?). An interesting quote: '"In China we're continually monitoring the state of the proxy, and when we see the traffic drop off, we change the proxy's address, usually within 24 hours," says Berman. "In Iran, we're prepared to change the proxy address every day if necessary."'"
the US govt. is making the internet more available for pron (and US propaganda).
When will US citizens under the USA PATRIOT Act qualify for this program?
The deliberately generic-sounding URLs for the service are publicized...through bulk e-mails that Anonymizer sends to addresses in the country.
Spamming for freedom!
I wouldn't be so worried about having to change my proxy settings every day, so much as i'd be worried about some spook coming around and chopping off my hand for using the proxy in the first place.
There's one handed typing, and then there's one handed typing.
What if someone in Iran/China reads/downloads something that violates the DMCA? Or any other similar law. Does that make Anonymizer an accessory to the crime?
The real irony starts when the Internet un-blocker starts blocking parts of the Internet...
If Iran is willing to impose a 15000 item blacklist on its ISPs, wouldn't it be willing to impose some network monitoring restrictions, as well? What precludes the State from rounding up individuals who use the US-sponsored anonymizer service, whose addresses are promulgated over monitored propaganda sources? How many public arrests would it take to chase an already suppressed populace away from these proxies?
I think this is just a nice little publicity stunt / ego stroking expedition for the U.S. propaganda arm. An effective anonymous proxy would not be so widely disseminated, and would want to change addresses before the Iranian government caught on, not after, to keep its clientele moving.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
Anybody know where I can get a list of those China proxy addresses? They aren't on Anonymizer's website, and I'd sure like to use one.
Just another reason the freenet project www.freenetproject.org needs all the help it can get. At the risk of sounding paranoid maybe western 'democracies' will oneday need this sort of technology.
Yes, I am an Iranian myself, and I lived in Iran till 8 months ago. I can give a detailed account of the history of internet in Iran.
Internet mainly found it's way to Iran in 1997. A couple of commercial ISPs started working on that year. Before that Internet existed in (some) universities, but it was mainly unknown. In 1997, people who read computer magazines in Iran, noticed a couple of companies advetising about something called Internet. Of those companies, Neda is still the biggest ISP in Iran. (note: behind the scens, Neda is now owned by a branch of the Iranian Army called "Sepahe Pasdaran".
Of course, the rapid pace with which internet gre in Iran, is similar to that of other countries. The difference was that, in Iran, internet had a special meaning. It was still FREE (as in freedom). Comparing to other communication mediums which are all government controlled, the Internet was free. No one was controlling it, no one was censoring it. People in Iran, so used to government control and censorship, at first couldn't believe it.
In a country, where you can not have access to any broadcast media, because radio and TV are all government operated, and books and newspapers are heavily censored, internet was like a light in the hearts of iranians. The number of Iranian websites started growing. Businesses started shaping around internet. Most importantly, Cafe Nets started opening their doors, in nearly every vicinity in every twon. In 2000, even in the most deserted city in Iran, you could find an Internet Cafe, and a couple of youngsters, enjoying themselves there. It was a new feeling for Iranians, it gave them an unparralleled sense of freedom. It was perhaps the best thing that happend in many's lifes.
Also, internet presented a way for young Iranian girls and boys to talk with each other. This might be suprising for you western people, but in Iran, a young man and women can not easily talk with each other. There is no uni-sex school (even they are now seperating hospitals and universities), and if two young people are seen talking with each other in the street, they are immediately arrested and questioned (I was arrested a couple of times, for walking with my cousin in the street). Internet, didn't have these limitations. Yahoo messenger soon became a standard tool in every household, and later, with the availability of voice chat, iraniang girls and boys, really started talking to each other, in a way they hadn't experience before).
The government first started reacting to the issue of internet in early 2001. A couple of acts were passed, and a set of rules were setup for the use of internet. Acoording to those rules, for example, publishing anything unislamic became illegal, visiting any unislamic website, or any website related to groups opposing the islamic regime in Iran, became website, any kind of broadcast (radio or TV) became illegal, and also, Cafe nets started shutting down.
Those whom we calle "Lebas shakhsi ha" (those in private cloth) started atatcking internet cafes, shutting them down for reasons such as "spreading western ideas". An estimated 75000 people, who used to work on the internet cafe busness, became unemployed.
But still, the government's plan to put a proxy, shutdown all ASPs, and make all ISPs to connect to only the governmental ASP; didn't take off. Some people believe the plan didn't take off, because the Iranian government relied on WorldCom fot it's required facilities. It is certain that a agreement between WorldCom and government had been reached. Well, those things that happened to WorldCom probably delayed Iranian government's plans.
But in early 2003, they were at last able to execute their 2 year plan. ISPs were sutdown, those who remained agreed to only use the government ASP. VOIP (voice over IP) became illegal, because many Iranians were using it, t oavoid paying rediculously high pr
Germany is a democracy, right? Well, a German law enforcement agency got a court order to force the JAP anonymity servers to install a back door to log traffic and IPs to a certain undisclosed website. The fact that JAP is a university sponsored project makes this rather scary. What's even scarier is that the JAP team delayed making the spying public until a couple weeks after it began, probably to protect their project. If the "Crime Logging" code hadn't been spotted in the sources, they might never have revealed this. If you can't trust a University sponsored project, who can you trust?
Anyway, the court order was suspended around August 27th. Let's hope permanently.
Any Iranian will tell you that they are not Arabs, but Persians, and they don't speak Arabic, they speak Farsi.
The army unit that owns/runs Neda, is that the same army unit that lost all those people in that plane crash this past Feb?
I have read some reports that kids were being arrested for online chatting with the opposite sex. I have to think that people are looking for ways around the system if it was as you describe, with so many welcoming the ability to read what they wanted. I also have to think that they are having some success with getting around the censorship to. How are they managing to do this now?
Given that there is state sponsored monitoring and that people are trying to get around this, how frequent or common is it that someone will be questioned/arrested for trying to bypass the filters? I guess I am wondering how effective the whole system is. If you have X thousands of people trying to break the rules, how effective is the state at detecting and finding those who do it?
If you can say, how long have you been out of the country and how did you come to leave? Your english is excellent, better than schooled english. Yours must be an interesting story. You just don't hear of many Iranian emigres. I guess the ability to leave the country is limited but I don't know if that is true. Anyway, here is to your new found life. May you and your country find freedom.
Internet caught publicity in Iran after a reformist-papers crackdown in April 2000 caused pretty much all of groups go online and start their own sites and fill them with behind-the-scenes-news/gossip as it couldn't be censored. After that, people started to have blogs on free blog hosting sites: (blogspot.com and others). Blogging made conservatives more unhappy about whole internet thing as they saw it a means which west uses to import Pornographic material into Iranian society; They forced ISP's to install filters and get lists of banned IP's from Ministry of communicatios and started to bring all points of contact to internet under government control. As far as I know, they simply redirect all requests to 'evil' IP numbers to a non-existent device (and they use CISCO equipment. thank you cisco!), which simply makes all other shared virtual hosts inaccessible.
Kudos to them for making this service publicly available. Although most of youngsters would start visiting porn sites with this service, there exist a few good men that would use this site to do good.
Oh, BTW I've heard that they are in middle of a deal to import equipment-most likely cisco routers and stuff which would inspect each packets' content. I hope people can use strong cryptography over there too.
This
Hi,
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I think it is important for those of us who have uncensored access to the Internet to realize just how strong an impact Internet censorship can have on a country's freedoms.
I'm the technical lead behind the Anonymizer Iran proxy project. (I'm going to leave my name out of this post, though Slashdot readers are probably familiar with me.)
If you are interested in receiving email notifications regarding the Anonymizer proxy addresses, as well as the VOA Persian newsletter, please let us know and we can add you to the mailing list.
[Drop an email to slashdot-iran@anonymizer.com (or slashdot-iran@infonex.com if that is blocked) if you are able, or just respond to this post.]
Europeans can be ones "supporting this dictatorship" but US is one who killed democracy in Iran. Or you forgot your history so you can apply for US visa?
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
Thats the last time I use that site, talk about high potential for monitoring.
Are you sure? I'm living in Iran, nowadays boys and girls/young mens and womens walk and speak with each other in streets, parks,shops and etc in Iran, and I know and see many who use Internet only for chatting with their friends from Iran and other countries and with both girls and boys. Many boys and girls go to cybercafes for chatting, so I think that reports were not true.
1. But they say that we have blocked about 170 sites, not 15000 ones! and less than 10 of them are political sites.
2. I'm living in Iran, who said that VOA site is blocked? I've checked,voanews.com and voa.org are not blocked!
3. Still(in Iran) you can find many sites in every topic you want. There are Farsi weblogs which are anti Islam or against current regime of Iran and are not blocked.
How could you see what happened in Iran after January of 2003 with your own eyes?!
Do you want to see that a young man and woman can easily talk with each other in Iran? It is very simple, just come and see! (I'm living in Iran) There are many young men and women(and girls and boys) which walk and/or talk with each other in streets, parks, shops and etc. It seems that you haven't seen Iran for more than 4 years! What you have said may was true in some years ago, but in recent years, not.
How many years ago was the last time which you was arrested for walking with your cousin? And what happened after arresting? Did they said that you mustn't walk with your cousin? Which hospitals and universities are separated?(Please write all of them)
Those whom we calle "Lebas shakhsi ha" (those in private cloth) started atatcking internet cafes, shutting them down for reasons such as "spreading western ideas".
Their activities were not legal and they are outlaws.
It is certain that a agreement between WorldCom and government had been reached.
How is it certain?!
VOIP (voice over IP) became illegal ... VOIP died in Iran, and became
illegal.
If it is illegal, then what is these advertisements in Iran newspapers for Internet phone cards?
Imediately, many sites were banned.
How many? They say we've blocked about 170 sites. There are many in Iran who use Internet for visiting banned
sites which are not blocked!
Not just pornophraphic sites, no, that's what they tell the outsiders.
They didn't say that all of them are pornographic.
In iran, people can see that they have banned nearly every political website. Even the special section of US government regarding Iran (forgot the URL now) and the website of bbc in farsi http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian
The website of BBC in Farsi may be banned, but it is not blocked!(I visited it recently(also today), and I'm still free and not arrested.)
Chating, and yahoo messenger also died. They have blocked messenger's port.
Completely wrong. Do you want to chat with me? Recently there are many Chat Cards available in shops for selling. No, chatting is live in Iran.
The government of iran, is an unelected minority, ruling the majority.
Are they unelected?! What do you think about USA(specially their current president)?
The people of Iran are not terrosists, our government is.
Please say why Iran's government is terrorist, then compare them with these:
1. Supporting Iraq in the war against Iran which many Iranians have killed in. ...
2. Killing many innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan for attacking terrorists they have supported before(and made them powerful)!
3. Supporting Israel(which is a big terrorist) and it's terrors and nuclear weapons(They're still supporting Israel, so they are still terrorist).
4. Having a lot of nuclear weapons.
5. Attacking with an atomic bomb to Hiroshima.
6. Attacking to Bosnia and
These are US government activities. Israel and US (which is supporting Israel) are the most dangerous terrorists in the world. (US was not alone in some of that activities and some of European countries helped it such as helping Iraq to attack Iran). We know that American people are not terrorist and we want to be friends of them.
Also US (government) ha