U.S. Funds Anonymizer for Iranians

SiliconEntity writes "British online rag The Register is reporting that the U.S. Government is funding anonymizer.com to provide anonymous browsing services to Iranians. Using U.S. funding, the company created a special version of its anonymizing proxy which has instructions in Farsi and only accepts connections from Iranian IP addresses. The service defaults to the Voice of America web site, but users can input any address and browse free of (Iranian) government censorship."

Comments

It's understandable

[mao che minh]

I would imagine that there will be a widespread knee-jerk reaction across America to this news. Afterall, our government is using tax dollars to deliver privacy and freedom to a member nation of the "Axis of Evil". I, however, do not mind one bit: You have to capture the hearts and minds of the people that your enemies hold sway over. You know full well that a government such as the one in Iran is doing everything possible to spread lies about the West. If the people remain closed we could end up with a populace similar to North Korea. Those feelings will be passed along to successive generations, and perhaps some day in the distant future, could lead to war - or worse.

Propaganda both prevents and wins wars. Propaganda can serve as a tool of persuasion in trying political struggles between two or more nations. In the case of Iran, it is imperative that we win a large portion of mindshare to use as security in the future. For it would seem that the possibility of armed conflict with Iran is a reality, and we should do what we can to avoid it, considering the implications of such a thing.

Re:It's understandable

[cayenne8]

I don't mind it at all...

I do fine it ironic and irritating, though, that our own country (US) doesn't seem to like for us to do the same...trying to pass laws where anonymity, or falsifying online id in order to hide ones identity...

If its good enough for US to pay for them to do it...should be open and good enough for us to use it in all our communications.

Re:It's understandable

[IM6100]

The Nobel Committee even gave Jimmah Carter sort of a 'Neville Chamberlain' award for his work in North Korean appeasement.

Re:It's understandable

[recursiv]

We should be delivering privacy and freedom *everywhere* we can. In fact, isn't the whole idea (paraphrasing) "to deliver the Axis of Evil to freedom" or some crap?

The people in the country aren't what put it on the "Axis of Evil", anyway. It's the actions of the government and political leaders. But people are just people. The everyday citizens of any country deserve the same thing no matter what country they live.

Re:It's understandable

[(54)T-Dub]

You have to capture the hearts and minds of the people that your enemies hold sway over.

I wouldn't say the Iranian government holds sway over it's people. My best friend is Iranian and he tells me that people are sick of the current regime and love america.

Re:It's understandable

[HeghmoH]

I don't understand. Are you saying that a large, democratic government that consists of hundreds of different people with different opinions, different worldviews, and different agendas might not always agree with itself or be self-consistent?! Say it ain't so!

Re:It's understandable

[garcia]

eh.

First of all, they want us here in the US to abide by their bullshit (DMCA and the two sons of Satan (Patriot I and II)) yet we are in another country blasting radio stations and FUNDING (at an undisclosed amount) a free proxy to *circumvent* another countries security. We should put the government in jail for violating the DMCA.

Second, we shouldn't be funding shit (not Iraq, not free proxies for Iran, nothing), we should be funding the fucking Americans without jobs (I don't know if /. has heard about the ever increasing length of the food lines in more rural areas of Ohio, etc).

Third, I wasn't aware that we were back in the 1950s and 1960s where we feel the need to stop the possibility of the spread of communism, I mean the threat of terrorism. I get those ism's confused.

Let's fucking work on freeing our own country first TYVM. I would PREFER that our own people are fed, clothed, covered, and paid, rather than worrying about 10s of billions of dollars being sent overseas to countries that (for the most part) don't want us there.

Remember who is funding this funding.

Re:It's understandable

[ncc74656]

I would imagine that there will be a widespread knee-jerk reaction across America to this news. Afterall, our government is using tax dollars to deliver privacy and freedom to a member nation of the "Axis of Evil". I, however, do not mind one bit...

I think it demonstrates that we have no quarrel with the people of Iran. It's the regime whose jackboot they're under with which we take issue. With access to outside news/information sources, maybe a few of them will learn that (1) we're not the Great Satan the ayatollahs told them about and (2) maybe they'll give the ayatollahs the heave-ho and make available to themselves the choice to live in the 21st century instead of the 13th.

Re:It's understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

love america

What, a middle eastern country loves the US ? Whose been screwing with our foregin policy ?

Re:It's understandable

[Sphere1952]

I've been watching Iran long enough to know that the parent is correct. the 65%+ of the population who are under 30 have no use for their government at all. The joke at the beginning of the Iraq war was "Good, we're next."

Re:It's understandable

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

It should be quite easy to avoid war with Iran - simply don't invade.

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal maniac, but he was bending over backwards to avoid war - doing all he could to comply with UN demands. The trouble was, the US and Britain were not prepared to consider any outcome other than war. A war which killed tens of thousands while doing damage which Paul Bremer indicated a couple of days ago, was almost impossible to overestimate. Now countries which see themselves as threatened by the US know that behaving rationally will get them nowhere. The way to go is to accumulate nukes and point them at an ally of the US. At the time, I thought the N Koreans were insane. It took time to work out what they were up to.

To go back on-topic, it is rather ironical that the US is against anonymous browsing at home (or have I got that one wrong?) but supportive when it can cause other people trouble.

So what is the next stage? Given a proxy web-server in Iran (is there one there?), surfers in other countries can also make use of this service. Iran is a semi-open country nowadays, there won't be a similar service available in N Korea any time soon for obvious reasons.

Re:It's understandable

[ReconRich]

I used to work with a several guys from Iran. I was talking with one of them about religion one day when he said, very softly, "Sometimes I think, Fuck the Prophet". I told him that this was America, he could say "Fuck the Prophet" as loudly as he wanted to. His response "No I can't, I may have to go back to Iran someday".
This guy, as well as the other Iranians that I worked with both hated and feared the government of Iran. But mostly feared.

--- Rich

Re :It's understandable

[Black Parrot]

> I don't mind it at all...

> I do fine it ironic and irritating, though, that our own country (US) doesn't seem to like for us to do the same...trying to pass laws where anonymity, or falsifying online id in order to hide ones identity...

> If its good enough for US to pay for them to do it...should be open and good enough for us to use it in all our communications.

As Jay Leno said about the US plan for Iraq (paraphrasing) -

We're going to fix them up with fair elections, good education, and sound healthcare.

And if it works for them we'll try it over here too.

Re:It's understandable

[mitheral]

Ya but what's the joke now that the war is over and the occu^H^H^H^H rebuilding is under way?

Re:It's understandable

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Given what the Allies have found there over the last 4 months (nothing), it remains to be proved that they actually had anything.

There were those short-range missiles which were designed to be within the permitted specs, but were capable of flying beyond their nominal range (nothing unusual, remember when the Ukranians shot down an aircraft at around twice the distance they thought their missiles were good for) and the Iraqis had started destroying those when the Allies invaded.

Exotic claims are easy to make, the US, UK and Australian Governments all made hysterical claims over Iraq before the war.
They have had 4 months to provide proof. Are you still holding your breath?

Re:It's understandable

[netruner]

I find it quite disturbing that Anonymizer and the gubmint are in bed. Don't think that dubyah and co. aren't keeping tabs on what the Iranians are looking at, if for no other reason than to figure out where their "hearts and minds" are.

Re:It's understandable

[marx]

I told him that this was America, he could say "Fuck the Prophet" as loudly as he wanted to.

In America, it's illegal to say "Fuck the Prophet" on broadcast TV or radio.

See this Wired article for example.

Re:It's understandable

[Valdrax]

[W]e should be funding the fucking Americans without jobs ...

Now, now. The current administration's new "Fucking Americans Without Jobs" initiative has been doing quite well for itself.

Re:It's understandable

[Noah Adler]

I have an Iraqi friend who said the same thing with respect to Iraq. It's since become clear that not everyone in Iraq shares her view.

Maybe the people your friend surrounded himself with hate the Iranian goverment and love America, but,as crazy as it may seem, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the universal opinion in Iran.

Of course, it may be entirely different in Iran, but just remember, it's probably not as simple as it seems...

Re:It's understandable

[psykocrime]

You miss a little point. Even on countries with no censorship, take Brazil for example, 57% of the
population dont like americans nor 'the american way of life' and aproves some terrorist actions on then.

WTF? I call bullshit. I have several friends from Brazil, and a bunch of friends who have travelled to Brazil on multiple occassions, and I have never heard anything about any kind of widespread Anti-American sentiment in Brazil.

If anything, I hear a lot of talk from my friends, about wanting to move here and become U.S. citizens.

Re:It's understandable

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

That was a call do 'do something', where the 'something' was rather ill-defined. I don't see anything there that I'd define as socialism.
FDR took over with the country in a far worse mess than this and turned things around to the extent that the US could take on two of the largest military powers on the planet and emerge as bigger than either. I have heard that described as socialism (which is probably crap) but it set the US up economically for decades.
Would that sort of solution work now?
No idea. Globalism has changed the rules.

Re:It's understandable

[HeghmoH]

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal maniac, but he was bending over backwards to avoid war - doing all he could to comply with UN demands.

Playing shell games with inspectors and flagrantly violating UN resolutions for ten years is "bending over backwards"?

The trouble was, the US and Britain were not prepared to consider any outcome other than war. A war which killed tens of thousands while doing damage which Paul Bremer indicated a couple of days ago, was almost impossible to overestimate.

I'll overestimate it for you: the world was destroyed, and everyone died. There that wasn't so hard, you see?

Re:It's understandable

[HiThere]

The DMCA isn't a question of free as in beer. It's about free as in Liberty. Similarly for the UCITA. and with both of those freedom took a big loss.

I haven't yet mentioned the vileness that is Ashcroft, or what he perpetrated. But everyone sees that, so I don't need to.

Re:It's understandable

[shigelojoe]

IN SOVIET RUSSIA... wait, it *was* in Soviet Russia?

Oh crap, never mind.

Re:Re :It's understandable

[Nodatadj]

"We're going to fix them up with fair elections, good education, and sound healthcare."

Pity that plan was too hard, so they went for the much simpler "Blow shit up and play it by ear" plan B

Re:It's understandable

[Malcontent]

"Playing shell games with inspectors and flagrantly violating UN resolutions for ten years is "bending over backwards"?"

Israel violates UN resolutions how come we don't invade them. The US violates UN resolutions or just ignores them and invades other countries.

"I'll overestimate it for you: the world was destroyed, and everyone died. There that wasn't so hard, you see?"

This is a very handy thing to fling out when you can't dispute somebodies facts or arguments in a rational way.

Re:It's understandable

[Alsee]

we have this thing called morality here. Piss enough people off and see what it gets you...

What it gets you is "moral" fucknuts commiting a crime. Fuck Jesus, and double-fuck any supposedly morally superior idiot who would commit a crime just because I said "Fuck Jesus".

-

Re:It's understandable

[Alsee]

Yes, he meant weapons inspectors. And Saddam did in fact play games and obstruct them. Just look at any of the cheif inspector's reports. (Hanz Blick I think?) The reports repeadedly complained about compliance failures and various forms of obstruction. He often reported "improvements" in compliance, but ALWAYS states a failure of reaching full compliance and always points out that improvements ONLY come in response to credible threats of military action.

So even if there were zero "WMD's" he certainly did NOT "bend over backwards" to comply. His non-compliance was as total as he felt he could get away with. And if he had no prohibited weapons/weapons-materials then his obstructing the inspectors was rather irrational.

-

Re:It's understandable

[HeghmoH]

Are you deliberately trying to be obtuse?

Various UN resolutions were passed regarding Iraq, and weapons inspectors were sent there.

Iraq continually violated those resolutions and was as uncooperative with the inspectors as it felt it could get away with without provoking another war.

Iraq at the present moment does not appear to posess WMDs.

Those three statements can logically exist together in the same universe without any self-contradictions.

It seems to me that you're like most anti-Bush fanatics out there, trying to paint anyone who disagrees with you as a pro-Bush fanatic. That's wrong; I can disagree with you and him at the same time. The fact that Bush was wrong about WMDs and lied in his case for war does not change the fact that Iraq was extremely uncooperative in every way with the UN and with the weapons inspectors. Are you capable of understanding this?

If you respond to this post, please try arguing with the points and opinions I have actually expressed, rather than the points and opinions you imagine I should hold.

Re:It's understandable

[Malcontent]

"No. His point was that what he was responding to was nothing more than silly rhetoric ie. he was responding in kind to something that wasn't "facts or arguments.""

Bullshit. Here is the post he was responding to

The trouble was, the US and Britain were not prepared to consider any outcome other than war. A war which killed tens of thousands while doing damage which Paul Bremer indicated a couple of days ago, was almost impossible to overestimate.

Should I help you out pick out a fact or an argument? Here are some.

1) US and Briton were not prepared to consider any argument other then war
2) US and Briton killed tens of thousands of people.
3) US and Briton caused enourmous damage to which the interim king of Iraq (Paul Bremer) recent made a reference to.

"Re: Israel - the U.S. is currently working with both sides to resolve the situation, and whenever progress is made, militant Palistinians do everything in their power to prevent it. I'm not saying I always agree with U.S. policy regarding Israel... My point is just that you're comparing apples and oranges."

Bullshit.

US is clearly pro israeli. It has always been that way, it will always be that way.

I suppose it's easy for you to blame the whole thing on palestenians but that too is pure and utter bullshit.

Try living under occupation by a foreign military for 35 years and they maybe you can make some sort of a judgement. You think living under Israeli occupation is all fun and games? You think widespread poverty, curfews, restrictions of travel, mass arrests, torture, and an occational missile flying into your cities is fun?

For every israeli killed by a palestenian three palestenians are killed.

Re:It's understandable

[Malcontent]

"As Sharon put it, "its not easy being a Palestinian". Israel has indeed done a terrible thing, when it placed a military regime in the conquered territories between 1967 and 1987. But you must remmember that this was always a response to terrorist attacks that could not otherwise be prevented."

The answer is simple.

Make the palestenians Israeli citizens. This is what civilized nations do when they invade and occupy some land. We did ti with the Indians, The russians did it with all their republics, the chinese did it with tibet. It's the humane and civilized way to treat human beings under your control

Give the palestenians citizenship with full rights and a vote and they will have no reason to bomb anybody.

freedom as tool

[gokubi]

Why does our government work for the freedom of others, while chipping away at ours daily? Has freedom been reduced to a tool to pry open restrictive regimes to the point where our system can rush in and clamp things down in the "correctly" restrictive ways?

sigh.

-sarcasm-

And now that our tax dollars are being used to allow members of a radical Islamic regime (one that harbors terrorists and has WMDs) to anonymously look at all the bomb plans burried in steganographied images on eBay, aren't we opening ourselves up for more terror?

-/sarcasm-

Makes you wonder if anyone believes that Axis of Evil crap.

Re:freedom as tool

[phliar]

Why does our government work for the freedom of others, while chipping away at ours daily?

Well, where do you think that freedom we export comes from? It doesn't just grow on trees you know!

Re:freedom as tool

[donutello]

And now that our tax dollars are being used to allow members of a radical Islamic regime (one that harbors terrorists and has WMDs) to anonymously look at all the bomb plans burried in steganographied images on eBay, aren't we opening ourselves up for more terror?


The members of the regime already have the ability to do this anyway. What the US is funding here is the ability for the people being oopressed by that regime to do so. There's a big difference. You show your ignorance by not recognizing the difference.

Makes you wonder if anyone believes that Axis of Evil crap.

It's the Iranian government that has been branded dangerous, not the Iranian people. It's hard to expect you to believe something if you're too ignorant to understand what is being talked about.

Re:freedom as tool

[dracocat]

Nobody believes Iranians are evil. There may be many that believe the government is. If you can't tell the difference, then you better learn. By the tone of your post it sounds like you don't agree with a lot of things your government has done, and as such I doubt you would want people of other countries judging you as a person for the actions of your President.

Secondly, your is not the only negative post so far, and I don't understand it at all. Maybe it is easier to think negatively on short notice and try and get posted first, I don't know. Still, how can you put such a negative spin on this! There is no censorshop going on, the website is allowing them to see anything they want, it is not just propaganda, it is full and complete information.

Maybe I am biased, because I have such a strong believe that freedom of information is the most powerfull weapon against oppressive governments. Be it a democracy or a 'radical Islamic regime', an informed public can be much more powerfull than bombs.

So while you are feel to compain about your government currently restricting your freedom, this story is completely unrelated. Take it for what it is--a good thing, and then make your complaints in another breath.

Re:freedom as tool

[gokubi]

The members of the regime already have the ability to do this anyway. What the US is funding here is the ability for the people being oopressed by that regime to do so. There's a big difference. You show your ignorance by not recognizing the difference.

I put my statement inside -sarcam- tags for a reason. Or government doesn't believe all the WMD and nuclear capability stuff any more than I do.

Iran is a potential threat much in the way that France is or the soviet union was--they present alternatives to our system of running things. The soviet union had to be destroyed because it was a competing system, not because it was evil. The US is much like MSFT in this way. Who cares if other options are better, worse, or indiferent--if they are an option other than ours, they must be destroyed.

Re:freedom as tool

[gokubi]

Ah, if only the US system believed in freedom of information! The reason so many of us are negative is that when you look at this development against the backdrop of lies and deceit, you have to be a polyanna to not be cynical. I'm all for freedom of information in Iran. I think it's great that they now can use anonymizer.com. But when I see that the US government has funded it I think about Iraq.

We went into Iraq to get rid of Husein and his WMDs. We knew they had WMDs because Bush told us. He had no proof, but he said trust me. The NY times published a number of front page stories on WMDs from an anonymous Iraqi source. That source turned out to be Ahmed Chalabi (Harpers, 9/03). We went in to Iraq holding the flag of Democracy. And then after we kicked out the thugs, we flew Chalabi in from Reston, VA, and then gave the country to Haliburton and Brown and Root.

We can all be overjoyed by the opening up of some ports for Iran, but you can't ignore the myriad other events that say we don't give a damn about freedom of information, or the Iranian people.

Awesome!

[Lane.exe]

So potential Iranian terrorists can now go snooping around the net anonymously while the average American citizen is liable to be scrutinized by John Ashcroft... all courtesy of the American government! I'm so glad I live in a world that makes sense!

Re:Awesome!

[randyest]

potential Iranian terrorists can now go snooping around the net anonymously

Eh? Why are they potential terrorists? You do it and it's "surfing" or "browsing", they do it and they're "snooping"? What, is it now your personal private internet or something?

the average American citizen is liable to be scrutinized by John Ashcroft

Total FUD. The average American is most certanly not "liable to be scrutinized by John Ashcroft". That's so far from reality that it doesn't even warrant this response, but I used my last mod point in the last thread, so I have no choice but to post to point out how stupid your post was. Sigh.

When will Americans need it for copyright?

[Thinkit3]

If a country decides to abolish copyright, we'll be forced to block all traffic, right? So we'll be the ones needing anti-censorship proxies then.

Re:When will Americans need it for copyright?

[Sphere1952]

Now.

Aren't you running a Freenet node yet?

Fight the system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could some Iranian please set up a proxy so that we can bounce back and use anonymizer for free. Thanks :-)

So now I just need to ...

[burgburgburg]

spoof an Iranian I.P. address and convince babelfish to translate Farsi and I'm so there! Who'd imagine that GWB would pay to keep me safe from Ashcroft?

Muwahahahahahahahaha

Topsy Turvy.

[Malcontent]

The US is going to institute a national health care program for Iraq, a nationalized educational system for iraq, govt controlled water and power monopolies for Iraq, anonymous surfing for the Iranians.

How come these things are not good enough for US

Re:Topsy Turvy.

[selderrr]

The US is going to institute a national health care program for Iraq, a nationalized educational system for iraq, govt controlled water and power monopolies for Iraq, anonymous surfing for the Iranians.

Em... that's what they promise. Wake up and smell the cofee, dude. If iraq is ever gonna get such stuff, they'll have to stamp it out themselves. And if the US is ever gonna build it, it will be for the powers that be (i.e. the US oil buddies), not for the ordinary people. ALL aid-oranisations agree on the fact that for your above criteria iraq is worse off under US control than under Saddams control.

Might be a good reason

[RealisticWeb.com]

I know everyone will jump to conclusions about this, but before everyone shouts foul and hypocricy, consider that there might actually be a good reason for this!

My guess is that U.S. Millitary special ops who are undercover need to be able to safely communicate back home with out fear of being discovered by the local government. This could also be a big benifit to anyone who is trying to escape to freedom to coordinate things with relitives back home.

How does this help?

[Jason1729]

The spies in the Iranian government can still see who is connecting to the anonymizing service, so they'll be able to treat them as harshly as if they accessed the "worst" possible sites.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Holy crap...

[elwoodblues16]

Holy crap, an arguably good and appropriate use of tax dollars. What is this administration coming to?

Re:iran can just block the service...

[Geopoliticus]

Read the article... "Cottrell and Berman agree that it's only a matter of time before the Iranonymity service winds on the official blacklist. But Berman hints that the U.S. is ready for a prolonged electronic shell game with Tehran. "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."

I admit, this is kind of a silly game to be playing, but at least they recognize what they need to do to ensure this service is available.

privacy for US users?

[cpeterso]

We now need someone to create a system that lets US users tunnel INTO Iran so we can use Iran's privacy protection (funded by the US gub'mint) to protect US users from the US gub'mints warrantless TIA Big Brother spy programs.

Why only Iran

[geekmetal]

This month Anonymizer began providing Iranians with free access to a Web proxy service designed to circumvent their government's online censorship efforts. In May, government ministers issued a blacklist of 15,000 forbidden "immoral" websites that ISPs in the country must block -- reportedly a mix of adult sites and political news and information outlets. An estimated two million Iranians have Internet access.

Why doesn't the US do the same for the Chinese people? Last I heard their government had bolcked off google! (correct me if that is wrong). Is it because the US wants to trade with China but doesn't care for the business Iran can provide? Where is the true spirit of freedom?

Dancing with the devil

[lildogie]

It amuses me that, while anonymizers would likely be condemned as a tool of terrorism by the National Security State in the US, the same spooks use anonymizers as a weapon against their counterparts of old Iraq.

On second thought, it depresses me.

Re:Dancing with the devil

[evilviper]

It's not amusing or depressing... It's not coincidental, or ironic.

US citizens having tanks would be considered a tool of terrorism, but the US uses them all the time. Same goes for M-16s, body armor, and a million other examples.

It's a fact of life that any dangerous weapon belonging to US citizens is considered a weapon of extremeists that want to overthrow the government, while that weapon is quite useful to the government itself. That's just how things work. Look at cryptography as well... Plenty of bad uses, as well as good.

Re:Dancing with the devil

[turg]

No, it makes perfect sense -- in both cases they believe that the anonymizer is a tool for those who want to overthrow their own government.

Re:iran can just block the service...

[KjetilK]

In fact, Anonymizer.com is/has been on their blacklist for some time.

Also, when I renewed my EFF membership, the first thing I did was to drop anonymizer.com a note asking if it was anything they could do to undo the damage of the block.

I haven't had a lot good to say about the current US administration, but funding anonymizer for Iranians is a very good move, in fact, I think it is the best thing the US administration has done for Iran and iranians for a very long time.

And it's **STILL** censored!

[morcheeba]

Mostly unfettered. Like the Iranian filters, the U.S. service blocks porn sites -- "There's a limit to what taxpayers should pay for," says Berman.

So, the object is to provide Iranians with access to political sites that the Iranian government wants blocked. As a taxpayer, I want to know what filter is being used, and what political sites are still being blocked.

Perhaps

[mao che minh]

Appeasing a country that exists on the brink of failure with nearly $100,000,000 might not sound very intriguing or intelligent at first glance. When you take the time to factor in what it might mean if you allow them to continue making nuclear weapons, and how catasrophic a war with them would be (which is no doubt what it would eventually escalate too) in order to prevent them from using them, well than $95,000,000 doesn't sound so bad anymore. In fact, $95,000,000 sound a lot cheaper then the lives of 8,000-10,0000 US service men.

Politics go beyond embargos and wars. With North Korea, it's going to be a game of chess, not checkers.

Re:Perhaps

[saden1]

With North Korea, it's going to be a game of chess, not checkers.

Hay, don't knock checkers! It is a thinking man's game too.

What about China?

[Stargoat]

The real question is, when are they going to create such a thing for China? China has their Great Firewall.

Or is China just too large of a trading partner, even if they have the world's largest oppressed population and a navy designed to defeat the United States.

Re:What about China?

[Shenkerian]

This comment isn't interesting; it's ignorant. From the article:

The service is similar to one Anonymizer provided to Chinese citizens under a previous government contract that ran-out ended earlier this year.

Cottrell and Berman agree that it's only a matter of time before the Iranonymity service winds on the official blacklist. But Berman hints that the U.S. is ready for a prolonged electronic shell game with Tehran. "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.

RTFA.

Re:this is great....

[randyest]

now they can surf anonymously and determine the best way to build improvised explosive devices or whatnot.

No, I'm pretty sure the Iranian government wasn't blocking sites with bomb-making tips since those are so useful for the, er, "cause". In fact, the fine article says:

[Iranian] government ministers issued a blacklist of 15,000 forbidden "immoral" websites that ISPs in the country must block -- reportedly a mix of adult sites and political news and information outlets

So, they were blocking porn and news, but no mention of bomb-making-R-us.com.

they also will get the benefit of goatse.cx

Hmm, wrong again:

Like the Iranian filters, the U.S. service blocks porn sites -- "There's a limit to what taxpayers should pay for," says Berman.

Perhaps most interesting is this little tidbit, which seems to be saying anonymizer.com, and by extension, the US gubmint, is spamming Iran to get the word out:

The deliberately generic-sounding URLs for the service are publicized over Radio Farda broadcasts and through bulk e-mails that Anonymizer sends to addresses in the country. The addresses are provided by human rights groups and other sources, says Anonymizer president Lance Cottrell.

Iran...view from a Barskahye

[Shant3030]

Some interesting observances about Iran:

In the late 70's, students were protesting the overthrow of the Shah because he was corrupt, pro-West, etc.

Now, in Iran, the children of the students who were protesting in the 70's, are the same people who are protesting against the corrupt Ayatollah and his cronies. The students as well as the majority middle class is aching for Western reforms. They overthrew the shah because he was corrupt, but only a handful of the government owns the majority of the wealth in the country. Essentially, they have turned into a socialist nation and the people are fed up.

It is only a matter of time they will be a more moderate nation again, sharing with the world the beauty of the nation. The US's persistent feeding of western ideas is only fueling a fire of revolution that the Iranian people (sidenote: being of Persian-Armenian descent, we hate referring to ourselves as Iranians, sounds so 1980...) will take part in.

What does this have to do with the /. post, probably very little... Just wanted to throw in my two cents about Iran.

Where is the true spirit of RTFA?

[JMZero]

They did have a program set up for China. That contract has apparently run out now, but (also from the article):

A bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month would create an Office of Global Internet Freedom that would have up to a $50 million annual budget to help citizens of foreign repressive governments skirt Internet censorship.

Be Careful of What You Wish For...

[Mad Man]

re: Topsy Turvy

The US is going to institute a national health care program for Iraq, a nationalized educational system for iraq, govt controlled water and power monopolies for Iraq, anonymous surfing for the Iranians.
How come these things are not good enough for US

I suppose you also want martial law?

That'll last all of two seconds

[bugnuts]

If the Iranian gov is censoring the web, do you think this would be an exception?

It'll last until the Iranian goverment puts blocks on their border routers and then it's case closed.

China has followed and blocked all such services from their country and in some cases has recorded what the people were doing through those sites first (IIRC).

wow talk about irony

[jtilak]

"We're providing a system whereby the people in the countries that are suffering Internet censorship can bypass the government filtering and access all the pages that are blocked," says Cottrell.

DECSS... hello????
pretty soon i will have to use a foreign system like this and i live in MICHIGAN!!

since i am not sure if its legal to link to this site i will just post the URL

http://raisethefist.com/index1.html

So let me get this straight...

[lightspawn]

Thanks to the U.S. government, Iranians can now view material blocked in U.S. libraries after being categorized by a private company as violence/profanity, alcohol/tobacco/drug related, satanic, sexual, or otherwise containing information which may be considered harmful or offensive?

Why are Iranians entitled to view more of the web then Americans?

Re:So let me get this straight...

[IthnkImParanoid]

I can't remember one statement (aside from obvious trolls) on Slashdot when the whole library-filtering software debate was a big as SCO now that said filtering software is wrong because it prevents people from looking at porn. The debate centered, and still centers, around two issues:

• Is it really porn? Filtering programs are stupid, and will filter out info on breast cancer or Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) website. They can be unblocked manually, but you have to let the librarian know what you're looking at and wait for them. I wouldn't have been comfortable asking a crotchety old lady to unblock a site detailing human anatomy (with diagrams, not photos) I was using for my Human Development class when I was 13.
• Filtering programs come with blacklists that are encrypted. (DMCA prevents cracking them, though that's a seperate issue) These blacklists can be used to push the agenda of the companies/sponsors of the software. Don't forget that the earliest filtering program were created with the help of very conservative groups, and certain well known sites that gave a liberal view of gay/lesbian issues or abortion were blocked. An anti-filtering software site was blocked for "hate speech."

I find your post disturbing, given your slashdot ID is lower than mine. Did you take a break, or were you just not paying attention during that time?

Re:We are past this point with China

[leviramsey]

Bzzt. Wrong.

If anything the Chinese were pulling for us in Vietnam. Who was the next country to declare war on the Chinese after the US? That's right, it was the PRC.

People have this illusion that the various Marxist nations were lovey-dovey as part of the quest for International Socialism. The reality is that, while most were Soviet satellites, the Chinese were displeased with the USSR for a long time. There are dozens of recorded instances of territorial infractions, shots fired, and planes shot down between the PRC and the USSR. The Chinese basically took a neutral position on the issue of a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact war; their hope was that both sides would nuke each other into cinders.

hmm anonymizers are not so anonymous

[jilles]

Last week a Dutch guy was caught who bribed a producer of yoghurt products. He threatened to poison products that were placed in the super market and as a demonstration placed a few poisoned products in a supermarket.

He used a US based anonymiser service to cover up his contacts with the police. He was caught because the anonymizer sevice in question happily cooperated with the legal forces, after some pressure from the dutch police and their US counterparts.

I don't approve of this guy's actions. He actually poisoned someone (who survived) with his actions. Apparently he actually tried out the poison on his goat to make sure the stuff wouldn't kill anyone. However it's a clear demonstration that anonymizers are just as anonymous as the FBI/CIA wants them to be. Anyone using the anonymizer.com services can be sure someone is watching what they do.

Re:We are past this point with China

[mao che minh]

So, China's giving Vietnam oil, weapons, jets, and training, all while aggressively warning the US against striking targets in Hanoi (even moving your naval ships dangerously close to Vietnamese targets to dissuade US fighter pilots from seeking them as targets) - is pulling for us?

Interesting.

Triangle-boy

[IvyMike]

Here's a whitepaper on Triangle Boy, a solution to allow users to circumvent a censoring firewall (with the help of an external network of proxies, of course).

It's a little complex, so I advise you read the article to get the details, but here's my take: The general idea is the user behind the firewall doesn't connect to a single proxy; instead, it connects to any one of a network of ever-changing mini-proxies. These mini-proxies forward the request to the real proxy.

The mini-proxies can be blocked, but you just switch to a different mini-proxy. In order to reduce load on the mini-proxies, the real proxy returns data directly to the user, but with a spoofed ip address of the mini-proxy.

Pretty cool.

U.S. Funds Anonymizer for Iranians

[johnthorensen]

Am I the only one that read this as the US starting a money-laundering organization for Iranians?

"Funds Anonymizer", heh...

-JT

More Iranian freedom less American Freedom

[ivanmarsh]

This announcement is pretty ironic considering:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/477 9109.htm

Land of the free?

[ChaoticCoyote]

Let me get this straight -- if I go to a public library, my browsing is censored by mandate of the U.S. government (unless the librarians are rebels, of course).

But an Iranian can browse the web free of government-imposed censorship?

Aarrrgggghhhhhh!

Actually, the dichotomy makes sense: the U.S. government wants to control its own populace while mucking about in the politics of other countries. The U.S. government doesn't care about the freedoms of the Iranian people; it just wants to undermine the Iranian government.

Well, I hope those Iranians enjoy their freedom now; as soon as the U.S. trumps up enough false data to "liberate" Iran, they'll be in the same boat we are in terms of censorship and spying.

"May you live in interesting times", indeed.

Re:Land of the free?

[ChaoticCoyote]

Close, but not quite correct. It is the U.S. corporations who wish to quash the rights of U.S. citizens. The government is just their mercenaries.

Indeed.

Capitalistic governments are little more than agents for transnational corporations. There's nothing wrong with business, or profit -- the problem is greed and gluttony. A case in point: profiteering in Iraq by companies associated with Bush's cronies (Cheney and Haliburton, for example).

And don't get me started on corporate-controlled WTO policies in regard to generic medicines for "developing" nations...

Could get people killed

[capedgirardeau]

I can't get to the anonymizer.com site, but if they are not SSL to the anonymize proxy server, its worse than no security, as it's clear text for sniffing with the illusion of security and will surley get people killed if they falsely make use of it.

Otherwise it only makes you anonymous to the site your a visiting. Not the effect they are going for I'm sure.

Even the attempts to connect to the changing ip address as the article states could be tracked and used to identify people trying to use the service, expect a visit if you do this.

Remember the government controls all the wires in the country, it's trivial to sniff the traffic or track usage on the proxy server they use I'm sure.

I would think they would be better off funding GPG so the people could communicate with each other freely and organize. Also no worry about black lists or gambling, or reading slashdot.

It allows for no more abuse than SSL and authentication to a forum site on the web and is probably more accessable to users in Iran anyway.

And it seems more realistic than one point of failure/survelance like anonymizer.com.

Becareful if you use this, make sure you understand how it works and what protections it really provides.

Cheers

cool - maybe they'll do the same for us

[Sean Clifford]

Great, maybe they'll do the same for Americans so we can surf away from the prying eyes of *our* government.

Double standard

[Baki]

As much as I think Iranians deserve privacy and personal freedom, I think it is incredibly hypocrit that the USA is doing this, against the will of another government, while at the same time it is bullying around individuals denying them other freedoms and privacy.

When it comes to so called economic self interests, nothing goes too far, such as procesuting russians for violating absurd laws such as the DMCA, allowing industry lobby groups such as the RIAA to deny people the right to share files and make personal copies, removing the right to reverse engineer, removing the right to invent because of software patents (which it is trying to push through worldwide).

In short: the USA government also is restricting a lot of people (their own and elsewhere), not representing the people (as should be in a democracy) but instead representing those who have the money to bribe the politicians and to buy laws.

Re:Double standard

[Sphere1952]

Sure, but our congressmen get paid to do that. No Iranian company is going to pay a U.S. congressman to supress an Iranian's rights.

An anonymizer for America

[alexborges]

Dont americans want one of this? Arent you the least bit worried about the loss of your freedoms both online and offline.

I say Kudos for America, and lets try and make an anonimizer for american citizens.

Re:Hell yeah...

[mentin]

After U.S. goverment approved so-called "Patriot Act" which allows it to spy what you write in your e-mails, what you read in a library, ...
I'm waiting for Iranian goverment to fund Anonymiser for U.S. citisens so they can browse the Web anonymously without fear of being spied by U.S. goverment.

From the article:

[a20vertigo]

A bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month would create an Office of Global Internet Freedom that would have up to a $50 million annual budget to help citizens of foreign repressive governments skirt Internet censorship.

It's interesting... our government is working to help everyone else have "internet freedom" while other parts of it, and large corporations, are working frantically to repress "internet freedom" as much as possible at home. Does anyone think that they're definitely going to be expecting them to love us, cherish us, and buy stuff from our companies?

Young Iranians are rebels

[tarp]

I'm a half-Iranian American and I have a lot of Iranian friends, some of whom came from Iran just a few years ago. I've yet to meet a single person who supports the regime in Iran. People want their freedom. The women pull their scarves high and show a lot of hair, they wear makeup and jewelry. Protests are a constant occurence. People won't put up with the Islamic republic for much longer.

I wonder how effective the actual blocking within Iran is. I know that many Iranians can be found on Yahoo Chat. Iranians also download mp3's and porno. I doubt the filesharing services and chat would ever be effectively blocked by the Iranian government. Nevertheless, the anonymizer should help Iranians read western media and get a more accurate report of the world's news.

Imagine if most of the rich and educated Iranians had't fled to places like Los Angeles, Toronto, Dubai, Washington, D.C., Paris and London. The Islamic government would have been dead by now.

Re:We are past this point with China

[HiThere]

No. China wasn't rooting for the US during the Vietnam invasion. OTOH, it's certainly true that they weren't rooting for Vietnam, either. Their attitude was mainly ... "Gee. How *terrible* that those two nice people can't get along. I must do something to encourage ..."(whoever was currently loosing).

This sometimes meant that China aided Vietnam. And sometimes it didn't. But it was a "let's you and him fight" kind of attitude.

Quite reasonable, actually, from their point of view. As long as the US was bogged down in Vietnam, it's attention was distracted from China. And Vietnam certainly didn't want a war on two fronts. So the best benefit to China was to help prolong the occasion. Subtly.

Why start at '79

[ziriyab]

Let's go back to 1953. Back then Iran was a moderate democracy (not the pretend-democracy it is now). They decided that the 16% of the oil profits they were getting from the Brits for extracting oil was a bit low. The brits balked. Iranians nationalized their oil. Brits and Americans overthrew the democracy and installed a dictator, the shah, who was corrupt, pro west, etc.

So the students rebelled thinking they were going to get a democracy, but instead got a dictatorship that was even worse than the previous one. One that saw as its mission the export of islamic fundamentalism and the funding of terrorist groups.

Skip many years. Fast forward through Iran-Iraq war and our role in helping both sides with intel so that neither side would wons, etc...

Now we're sponsoring freedom and democracy. About 50 years and hundreds of thousands of lives too late, but better late than never, right?

If all of this anonymizer shit means the people of Iran will get some help freeing themselves from a group of bloodthirsty fundamentalist fuckwads, great. But let's not delude ourselves about our real motivations. We use lofty language about democracy when it suits us, and just as easily discard it to support dictators.

By the way, there hasn't been a Persia for a long time. It's been "Iran" since 1935. If you want to make yourself sound like a rug or a cat, be my guest.

Re:Hell yeah...

[tomstdenis]

Talk to Phil Zimmerman than... apparently he has a program to sell ya :-)

So far as I know PGP [and GPG] are perfectly legal. If you're afraid of mr. govt spying on ya, encrypt/sign all your messages. :-)

Tom

Notes from a months' travel in Iran...

[chathamhouse]

I spent a month travelling in Iran last December. I have a few observations that may surprise some:

1- Internet access is unfiltered, from what I could tell. From pr0n to sites advocating political dissent, people where happy to show me that things weren't blocked in Internet cafes. Since most people access the net from these cafes, they benefit from a layer of anonymity assuming that they can afford the $0.50-0.80us/hour rates.

2- The government is a complex machine. THE PEOPLE VOTE for their elected representative. Mr Khatami, the current president is a reformist. However, he cannot push reforms through too fast for a host of reasons, the first being that the country's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khameini holds veto power over all decisions made by the elected government. Khameini also controls the military and the police. The conservatives, on their part, cannot block all reform, for the knowledge that reformists get violent if there's no progress. The end result is a country that's slowly moving towards reform. Conservatives think things are moving too fast, reformists think things are moving too slowly, but most people agree that the last thing the country needs is another war or revolution - far too many people die then. From my visit, I'm steadfast in my opinion that Iran will sort itself out on it's own, but it will take time. Sort of like Turkey, which has gone from an Islamic Monarchy in the 1910's to a democratic state today.

3- America's allies in the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates (spent 2 weeks there), do have filters, and nasty ones at that. There is only one ISP in the UAE, the governements, and it filters lots. I could frequently reach a blocked site when following links in slashdot stories, and there's nothing that you can do about getting those sites unblocked. The government of the UAE is a big-time monarchy, but is Open for Business. Will the proxy be available to the UAE? I don't think so.

4- Iran isn't as isolated as you would think, and a lot of this is due to the Internet and the availability of cheap international phone calls. For example, I was in the city of Qom, some 180km south of Tehran on the 17th of December. This is the conservative hub of the country. Ayatollah Khomeini was born and operated from there, and the city is home to the important Shiite shrine of Fatimeh's tomb. Through a long sequence of happenstance events, I found myself touring a school, and was amused when a teacher gave a copy of The Two Towers on vcd to the vice-principal who was showing me around. Information flows...

Iran does still leave a lot to be desired, but people seem generally happy, the standard of education is high, and there's universal medicare for citizens... but most medical drugs have to be purchased from smugglers because of some country's trade embargo. Certainly the lifting of the later wourld be a much better perceived sign of goodwill than an unnecessary proxy.

Big Falacy

[dfay]

I hope the US Government is aware of exactly what Anonymizer.com does. Unfortunately I doubt they do.

The anonymizer.com service protects you from the sites that you are connecting to, not really from anyone else. Your web accesses go through the anonymizer site, then get stripped of any identifying information, and then are sent to the destination. This is useful when you don't want to be tracked by Doubleclick, or you want to view a site that you don't trust with your IP address, but it does nothing to prevent sniffers from seeing who you intend to connect to if they can see the traffic before it hits the anonymizer. (Which Iran is surely doing.)

This is actually worse than doing nothing at all, because some mistaken Iranians may believe that their actions are protected from snooping when in fact the Iranian government is probably paying more attention to this kind of traffic. It could get someone killed or imprisoned.

Luckily all those Iranians that want to protect their identity from Doubleclick will be safe, though.

It's really unbelievable how many bad security decisions are made every day by organizations that should know better. All you really have to do is think about a security problem for a second in a real-life context and it becomes obvious how stupid this answer is. Imagine sending a kid into a store to buy you something, but the person you really are trying to avoid is standing right next to you, listening to you tell the kid what to buy.

*sigh* I applaud the intentions, but I guess it's too much to expect that they think it through a little first.

Obligatory Conspiracy Theory

[MotherSuperior]

Maybe they all got modded down, but I'm noticing a disturbing lack of conspiracy theories, for the slashdot crowd.

Personally, I see this as more of the same TIA/PATRIOT nonsense we've been enduring since 9/11. I find it far more likely that the GWB / Ashcroft crowd is using this as a tool for our own 'National Security'. Of the following 2 scenarios, which seems more likely given the practices we've seen from the current US administration?

A> Washington truly and deeply cares for the plight of the Iranian citizen, and the censorship they're subjected to by their oppressive government, despite showing no such concern for its own citizens.

B> Washington provides 'anonymous' internet access, in order to monitor the browsing activities of 'potential terrorists'. (Read: Everyone in Iran). All in the name of national security of course.

Considering the US's track record on things like this, I'm personally voting for B. Total Information Awareness really said it all for me. The United States Government has decided that privacy is the antithesis of freedom and security. I find it really hard to take this act at face value, considering the US's current stance on Internet Anonymity.

Time to offer normalized relations to Iran?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

"My best friend is Iranian and he tells me that people are sick of the current regime and love america."

I suspect either you or he meant "Americans" (people) and not necessarily "America" (government).

Don't be too sure.

Apparently a VERY large percentage of the Iranian people are in favor of normalizing relations with the US. (Up until recently that couldn't be determined very well, given that the regime was still run by people heavily invested in the immediately-post-Shah anti-American rhetoric. But shortly before the start of Gulf War II some Iranian clerics too well-respected to be suppressed were able to conduct a poll.)

Then Gulf War II resulted in the the liberation of the Iraqui Shiites from Sadam's oppression, resulting in still more support for the US among the Iranian population.

IMHO The US is missing a bet by not immediately making a public offer to normalize relations with Iran, and to assist them in cleaning out any pockets of Hammas/Bath/etc. that are causing them problems.

Such an offer should both give the Iranian government an excuse to drop their anti-American stand and give a big push to destabilizing them if they refuse to do so.

But the offer needs to be made soon. (It really should have been made right after the major fighting was over in Iraq.) The longer we wait, the more opportunity for circumstances (such as screwups between the occupying forces in Iraq and the Shiites there) to jepoardize the pro-American sentiment.

Re:Hell yeah...

[oni]

fear of being spied by U.S. goverment.

Ok I'll bite. Please tell me that you understand the difference between being spied on (US) and being shot in the head for speaking out (Iran). Please tell me that you understand the difference between a bad law (US) that we can repeal just by getting enough people informed and an oppressive regime (Iran) that can jail you or kill you on a whim and there's not a damn thing you can do.

It's nothing new

[iamnotaclown]

America's reasons for giving the Iranian government the finger are hardly altruistic. Then again, America has a long history of interfering with Iran, usually to the extreme detriment of the Iranian people.

Re:Hell yeah...

[millwood]

Ok I'll bite. Please tell me that you understand the difference between being spied on (US) and being shot in the head for speaking out (Iran). Please tell me that you understand the difference between a bad law (US) that we can repeal just by getting enough people informed and an oppressive regime (Iran) that can jail you or kill you on a whim and there's not a damn thing you can do.

Guantanamo Bay.

grow up

[Ender Ryan]

was almost impossible to overestimate.

This is the nonsense rhetoric I and him were referring to, and it is absolutely ridiculous. The damage caused by the war was quite mild as far as wars go, and the number of dead was remarkably very few civilians, and the fact is, the naysayers predicted a lot more death and destruction than actually happened. "Impossible to overestimate" is ridiculous.

Furthermore, the Iraqi regime is responsible for far more deaths than were caused by the war, so for all this anti-war talk, within a year or two the war will actually result in a net reduction in the number of lives lost. And THAT is a fact. Just look up the number of deaths in Iraq that were the result of the Iraqi regime, and consider the torture and fear caused by the Iraqi leaders.

Oh sure, you can blame the U.N. sanctions for the deaths related to poor drinking water quality, but the starvation and malnutrition is purely the result of the regime abusing the food for oil program and generally not caring about their own populace. But now that the country is no longer controlled by a dangerous regime, things can be restored, and lives can be saved.

I'm not even saying the U.S. had pure intentions, but this cry me a river nonsense is ridiculous. Boo-fucking-hoo, people died. People always die. The actions of the U.S. will eventually result in far fewer deaths, so what's the problem? You don't like the current U.S. regime? Fine, but you're working the wrong angle.

And if you point out that the Iraqi people don't have electricity and running water currently... Yes, that is pissing me off too, so save it. The U.S. needs to get its act together and show the Iraqi people that they're making a good faith effort to improve their conditions. I don't care how much it costs, get it done! Otherwise, it casts a shadow on everything they've done up to this point. If you want heads to roll, it should be for that!

<snip - of course it's not fun... *rolls eyes* />

For every israeli killed by a palestenian three palestenians are killed.

1. Most Israeli deaths are the result of suicide bombings, meaning at least one Palestinian dies in every attack.
2. The Palestinians are far weaker than the Israelis, therefore their attacks are far less effective.
3. The Palestinians have turned down every chance for peace, and the offers have been good compromises on the part of Israel, I've read them.

And I never said that I support the position of the U.S. w/regards to Israel, nor do I support the Israeli attacks on Palestinians, as they more often than not result in nothing but the deaths of innocent people. However, the Palestinians are FAR from blameless, and are in fact more to blame for the continuation of the violence than the Israelis are.

Now if you were to ask me who I feel the most compassion for in the whole mess, I'd say the innocent Palestinians, because there are many of them, and they're living in very poor conditions. But I feel it's their own leaders who are mostly to blame at this point.

Try looking at both sides of the issues, because there are two sides, and more often than not, the truth is somewhere in-between.

Cheers.