Rapid Internet Growth In Iran

securitas writes "The BBC's Abbas Azimi reports on the rapid growth of the Internet and Internet cafes in Iran, apparently with the tacit approval of the government. Seven million Iranians have Internet access, or 10% of the population - double the rate two years ago. Access costs 60 cents/hour. The article describes how the Internet is used for everything from VoIP phone calls to chat and Web logs. Even Iran's vice-president has a daily blog on a popular site with 'musings about politics and life.' All of this despite the ban on many sites, which is easily circumvented by Iran's webmasters and geeks. An interesting point is that most of the PCs used in Iran are assembled from smuggled parts and run pirated versions of all the latest software (due to foreign embargo?). It sounds like a great opportunity for open source software."

Comments

Compare to the increasingly repressive Europe laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Just compare this undeniable explosion of freedom to communicate in the "Axis of Evil" to the ever-increasingly repressing law arsenal in Europe: for instance, no sooner than last week, in France, the "LEN" (Law on Digital Economy) makes the provider responsible for the legality of the contents of whatever its customer are communicating over the internet, including web, mail, and so on, and must give information, mails and web logs to the police without the need of a subpoena.
Time to move to free countries...

Computer Language in Iran

[Dukeofshadows]

I know a few programmers with ties to Iran. Some of their computer scientists do things with Assembly that few of their peers in the West can match. Given that most of their population is 25 or younger, and that they are having to become so efficient with so few resources, I think that when Iran opens up to the outside world we could see the next India opening up inside of five years.