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

give me a break

[segment]

As if someone in any country couldn't throw on a proxy server and download crypto source. Oh wait they might have forms to fill out on a site. I started writing a document about this but got bored with it, so here is a briefer on crypto and government errata...

It's become so fundamental to the operations of these groups that bin Laden and other Muslim extremists are teaching it at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, they add.

How can the then director of the FBI get away with making statements like this without offering a shred of proof that, indeed shows, ANY terrorist organisation using crypto and or steg? It's boggling considering that again, most persons with a decent (note the word DECENT) amount of compsec knowledge, would know, or at least assume PGP would be the way to go in efforts to safeguard messages. 4096 bit keys? They're supposed to be unbreakable, yet those in office are convinced that terrorists are using encryption. So the government has broken it, or are lying.

Another puzzling thing to note, if encryption is being used, and the government can support their claims, someone in government must have the capability to crack encryption, and assuming "Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Albania, Britain, Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Syria, the USA, the West Bank and Gaza and Yemen" are using crypto, some agency must have some ultra powerful quantum based grid computer up to crack anything in seconds.

Reasoning for me stating this is simple, many times these stories break, the government has quickly 'broken the code', 'broken the code', and 'broken the code', in just enough time for most media outlets to report an all inclusive -- from-arrest-to-code-breaking -- article in time for headline news. Perplexing? No. Moronic? Yes.

"There is a tendency out there to envision a stereotypical Muslim fighter standing with an AK-47 in barren Afghanistan," says Ben Venzke, director of special intelligence projects for iDEFENSE, a cyberintelligence and risk management company based in Fairfax, Va.

"But Hamas, Hezbollah and bin Laden's groups have very sophisticated, well-educated people. Their technical equipment is good, and they have the bright, young minds to operate them," he said.

iDefense happens to have government contracts so I would not trust their word on anything in this article, nor any input on the subject. Nothing personal to iDefense per-se but business is business, and iDefense will try to sway the issue to their favour, perhaps on hopes of spooking some business out of government.

I never finished it because I didn't have time to do so, but you should think twice about believing everything you hear.The document is here and keep in mind I never finished, since it was becoming too long and boring to sift through the BS.

Wow! What a modbombing!

[James A. F. Joyce]

nt