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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."
The old saying, "if it aint' broke don't fix it," seems to apply here. With no laws against pirating retail software, what would the advantage be to OSS? I know it wouldn't cost them any more, or less, so why change?
FisterBelvedere -- Putting a whole new meaning to "streaks on the china" since 1996.
Why would there be an embargo on modern operating systems? I wouldn't guess that missiles use windows xp. And if they did, it's not like they wouldn't be blowing up in mid air. Seriously, someone I knew used to say that in Ukraine he couldn't find a legal copy of any MS software... only burned copies.
Call open source the software of choice among terrorists. If it takes hold and any terrorists there get caught with it on their machines look for microsoft and the government to start pointing fingers.
PCs used in Iran are assembled from smuggled parts and run pirated versions of all the latest software
Glad to see I'm not the only one.
It's interesting to see yet another government try to circumvent web sites that don't agree with their particular world view. And even better when the web-sites re-appear under different names. Sounds exactly like the situation in China. I wonder if the Iranian geeks are learning from what happened to the Falun Gong et al. They are obviously realizing that the filters are almost worthless to people who really want to get at the material.
However, I still think the filters are effective because they have a very powerful psychological effect. If the government says you shouldn't be viewing said material, and if caught(even though it's almost impossible to catch you, but how many people realize the true power of the government) there will be big trouble. Thus I think most banned sites just wind up preaching to the choir, very sad indeed.
For how long? The 'rulers' overthere just banned several THOUSAND canidates from the elections because they where too 'progressive'.
Once the hardliners regain control there is a good chance this trend will reverse itself.
How about we use this as another tool of diplomacy? People to people, building things like networks and cross communications.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
So yea, its a great opportunity for them!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,6532 82,00.html
(More Detailed News Article)
" Meeting girls is easy this way," said Amir, as he continued typing, "You can be relaxed no worries."
Apparrently Iranians need the love too! Just like Internet access first got booming over here, it seems porn and interent romance will probably be a big thing over there too.
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...
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.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
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?).
the pirated software is not Iran-specific, this occurs in many parts of the world, most notably India, China, and other Asian countries, in some parts of china you can go to your local computer store and pick up a copied version various software
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
This has nothing to do with anything, but it just occured to me that internet cafes are an absolutely natural target for Knoppix. Everything you need goes on the CD, the instant someone signs off everything they've done to the filesystem's cleared, you don't even need a hard drive...
Someone could probably do pretty well for themselves if they made a customized version of Knoppix with software tailored to what an internet cafe needs, the interface made windows-user-friendly and with some big "WEB" "EMAIL" buttons on the desktop, Evolution set up with a quick "connect to your specific email" wizard, and some sort of hooks to some sort of central use tracking/billing system. They could print up a bunch of cds of this and sell it as a no-setup-required "internet cafe in a box" system...
I dunno, it's an idea.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In a big crackdown at the end of last year, hundreds of internet cafes were shut down and new rules introduced for new proprietors, requiring them to restrict customer's access to a long list of "immoral and anti-Islamic sites".
It's interesting how every country is trying to control the Internet and the flow of Information. Just isn't working, is it. (grin)
-
It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Internet has evolved into a force strong enough to reflect the greatest hopes and fears of those who use it. After all, it was designed to withstand nuclear war, not just the puny huffs and puffs of politicians and religious fanatics. - Denise Caruso, (digital commerce columnist, New York Times)
If every one in Iran started using linux, SCO could stage a come back by suing all Iranians in the Islamic court in Iran
If you google for "internet iran" you'll get pretty much the opposite impresion.
When you hear the word smuggled, you think that the item smuggled is illegal itself. This is not the case with computer hardware in Iran. If hardware is smuggled into Iran, it is because it is difficult to find, but not because its illegal. A year ago, I sent my Iranian fiance's mom and dad back to Iran with a suitcase that contained a complete desktop computer with Win98 minus the monitor. Upon arrival in Iran, their luggage (just like all luggage, mail and packages entering Iran) was opened and searched, and they were allowed to proceed.
Here's a little bit I copied from his site:
(Glad he's not one of the leaders of my country)
True story.
They even have a site for linux in Iran. linuxiran.org says that " We, at linuxiran.org! are happy that with your help Iran's first site dedicated to GNU/Linux and FLOSS, is the most active GNU/Linux site in Iran today. To find out more about linuxiran.org! and our group or GNU/Linux and FLOSS in general, please read the FAQ.
Pirated Software isn't a problem only in Iran. So don't blame it on embargo. The problem is economic. To buy MS Windows and Office is some time more expensive than buy a computer in the country where i live (and computers are already expensive without it.). People buy software for bussiness, but don't remember a friend of mine buying MS off-the-shelf software for personal use.
It's easier to sell a computer with a pirated Windows because it's cheaper and some people don't know linux yet, and prefer to buy a computer like their neighbor one.
It will be interesting to see if this continues. The reformist government is getting clobbered, and the hard-line clerics are prepping to take over in the next presidential election. Sad to see, but Iran may be getting ready to take a step backward. What will be interesting is to see what affect the internet does in fact have on this threat to their recent "freedoms".
It sounds like a great opportunity for open source software.
Speaking from personal experience from the good ol' Russia, I would disagree that open source software will proliferate. Strike it as flamebate, but given the choice of ANY software available for FREE (beer), the software that has the highest number of the most "common" applications will become ubiquitous. This means - everyone will have windows, photoshop, office plus whatever else that has high value, without any regards to price/advertising. Average Joe might not want to invest his time into less polished Linux for desktop, thus M$ is what everyone will have. Apparently, to the average consumer, the value of OSS is not stability or openness, but the word FREE.
<begin flame here>
Let's call the BSA and the RIAA on them. Let's see how well these two orginizations do with their sudo draconian tactics in a draconian state. Should be pretty fun to watch I figure.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
I think that Iran would benefit from imitating India. Given the proximity to Dubai (*major* international trade center), educated population, loyal diasporia, etc. they could easily become a regional economic powerhouse. Several of my friends here in the US are Iranian, and most of them identify heavily with Persia/Iran even if they were born here. That population is among the hardest working and most educated per capita I've ever seen, if they are any indication of what their countrymen are capable of then Iran immediately after the revolution would be the Korea of 1970, the India of 1980, or the Japan of 1955.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
> Call open source the software of choice among
> terrorists. If it takes hold and any terrorists
> there get caught with it on their machines look
> for microsoft and the government to start pointing
> fingers.
You're not the first to say this, but it's one of the most idiotic arguments I've ever heard. I can't believe either Bush or Microsoft would push this line.
Have any terrorists been caught with Windows on their PCs? Are the latest breed of "computer terrorists" (aka virus writers) running Windows on their PCs? If the answers are "Yes" and "Yes", don't you think you could construct a counter argument that Windows is actually the terrorists' choice?
One of the first things the media would do with such an issue is to consult "respected FOSS spokesman (insert any of several names here)". Do you think Microsoft would risk that person pointing the finger of blame back at MS based on the above argument?
Equating FOSS with terrorism is both absurd and unrealistic.
Microsoft aren't likely to support whatever language they speak in iran, since they are unlikely to sell their software because it'll just be pirated.
IIRC kde runs just fine in farsi and localizing other OS applications should be very straightforward.
I find it very interesting that even in countries where piracy is unchecked, people still choose to run OS.
I am pretty certain that most terrorists, mobsters and other criminals that get caught with computers are probably running Windows on their computers. Nobody ever says "Windows - it's the OS of criminals!".
Unforunately all the ads read like this:
swf. black head scarf. inexperienced at dating. enjoys long walks in the desert. i do not sing. please no public stoning.
The hardliners are tremendously unpopular. If free elections were held, estimates are that the various reformist parties would've won a massive landslide of somewhere around 70-85% of the seats in parliament.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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.
Well, they could know these groups are using encryption without actually having broken any particular message. For instance, they might have seized a computer and found a PGP installation on it.
My guess, though, is that the government angle is all spin. This makes it into the headlines for two reasons.
First, the government and government contractors are genuinely worried about encryption, because its use really does reduce their ability to eavesdrop. The issue of U.S. encryption policy was a major political issue throughout the 1990s, which reached ridiculous extremes with T-shirts with the RSA algorithm on them which were legally classified as munitions. Legislation is so unenforceable now that it would be hard to make it stronger, but the "threat" of terrorist use provides enough political weight to check any forward movement.
Secondly, the notion that terrorists are fully versed in all our Western skills, and thus may be able to exploit them to advantage against us, scares people and therefore resonates with them. Scaremonger broadcasters on local news stations live and breathe on this kind of stuff.
Maybe terrorists are using steg and crypto; maybe they're not. In either case, it's politically desirable for the government to claim they are, and for the media to report it.
Dont be too sure.
Even now MS even offers input language support for Kazakh, Estonian, Kyrgyz so farsi shoudnt be too difficult. Though of course I cant believe anyone cares abt that enough to use MS.
Yeah, given OSS's robust and pervasive support for right-to-left, Arabic script languages, it'll be a cinch to get a foothold in Iran.
Iran has a per capita GDP of USD 1800 (not adjusted for "PPP", which in itself is not exactly an uncontentious measure), yet the BBC's correspondent claims that access costs of 60 cents per hour are "well within the reach of the average person".
While access in (the comparatively affluent) Tehran province may indeed be growing rapidly, this is not where the bulk of Iranians live and therefore puts paid to any notions of rapid democratization of knowledge via the Internet - it seems more like a pastime for the urban elite ('twas ever thus).
Also note that all his "postcards from Iran" are in fact about Tehran. I think the BBC is in need of a major quality check. They're getting as bad as CNN.
I've never been to kazakhstan or kyrgyzstan but i have been to estonia a couple of times and it's got a very well developed economy, 100% nationwide cellphone coverage and a fairly well developed internet infrastructure (though it was slow in 99).
It's pretty inconcievable to think of microsoft not covering estonian - even though there are only ~4 million speakers (maybe less, i cant really remember). It's also very close to finnish and uses a western character set, so relatively easy to work with.
US companies aren't permitted to do business with iran and so it'd be a fairly gray area if they chose to develop an iran-localized windows.
That said, iran does seem to be the most internet developed "axis-of-evil", they even have an ipv6 prescence.
How long will it take for the USA and Microsoft to announce that OSS supports terrorism, fundamentalist islam, and dictatorships?
Think about it.
Second of all, if the market for open source were limited to those who already knew about it, then open source could not grow.
Third, it seems clear to me that if officially registered software is, as a rule, not used, then open source would indeed have a great opportunity here.
I read an interesting article in cnn.com the other day about bloggers in Iran and their fear of an eventual clampdown. These blogs not only allow Iranians to voice their opinions about difficult issues, but they give an interesting view of Iranian society and people to the world. Links to some blogs can be found via the article.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
For a second, I thought the story blurb read:
"The BBC's Abdul Alhazred reports..."
Come'on, you know it's funny. For the uninitiated among us: Abdul Alhazred
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Allthough the article talks about cafes, I know for sure that there are also a whole lot of home PCs in Iran, most progressive middle-class people have them.
I was thinking, in urban areas, for example Tehran, if it existed a few Wi-Fi hotspots, and others started buying base stations, and kept them open, you would soon have a complete urban network where authorities would not be in control of any of the nodes. They could perhaps crack down on base stations, but at the time it hits them that there exists a complete, independent network, the airwaves would be so full of them, tracking them down could be well beyond their ability.
But, that's just an urban network, to make it really useful, you would need to connect it to the Internet. So, you would need to ensure that some nodes have a connection to the Internet that the authorities can't control. You probably want to have several different connections to the Internet, and I guess several different types, so even if one kind of connection is identified and shut down, traffic can still route through other connections.
This is going to be expensive, but I figured, at least in Europe, there are many companies doing business in Iran, and they probably want to continue after the revolution comes. It'll be a small investment for them to secretly distribute a few satellite phones to willing Iranians to establish an uncontrolled connection to the Internet.
So, what do the /. think, is this viable?
Why is a free Internet important? I think that it is extremely important to keep the communications flowing, so that western policy-makers can decide how to help the Iranian people based upon information flowing from a wide spectrum of Iranians. Not only that, if we on the outside can maintain an open debate, the revolution is more likely to be a peaceful one.
First, you've confused shia and sunni.
Second, Persians speak Parsi/Farsi/Persian, however you want to call it -- not Arabic. Yes, it's been altered by Arab colonizers, but it's still Persian.
Finally, ask some Persians about where the high culture like art, architecture and poetry of the Arab Empire come from.
Kill, Tux, kill!
Dear People. You should know the following: 1. Iran is not an ARAB country. 2. The fact that who is the leader (mullah or not mullah), doesn't change anything. The computers will always live. 3. Internet will always find its ways to any country. 4. We don't hate the western people, rather they hate us. Example: IT is concidered prohibited by the American government the entry of powerfull encryption technology to Iran, and some other countries, which includes MD5. Therefore, we aren't allowed to d/l Linux (any reasonable distro) from US mirrors. 5. You know, there also exist some geeks, who don't care about politics at all. (Like me). 6. I am very intrested in OSS coming to Iran. It already has, to some extent. Check out: counter.li.org iranlinux.org and, kdefarsi.org . 7. Anyways, Linux and OSS will eventually take control of everywhere, including IRAN. 8. We are not TERRORISTS. We live like other people in the world. What is the point in being a terrorist anyways? How do you dare call us (including me) TERRORISTS? Have I killed you? Or what? 9. Religion has nothing to do with Open Source. Open Source is actually a special type of religion, if you put it that way. 10. May the source be with you. (NOET: Soorry for louzy spelling and grammar) --Regards, Darioush
Really? There isn't a cost benefit to using OS software when the alternative is bootleg commercial software. Both sell for the same price -- a dollar or two per CD. I think in Iran the government will not be in any hurry to let the BSA audit anyone.
No doubt for servers Linux and BSD have a major role, as everywhere.
...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?).
Even with no embargo, software piracy is rampant in the third world. I live in Mexico and it's rare to see anyone with a legal version of software. Though, that is changing.
The equivalent of the IRS down here is Hacienda and my understanding is Microsoft has given them a lot of training and now Hacienda has started checking businesses for pirated software (financial audits are frequent down here). Apparently MS gives Hacienda a chunk of change when they score one for MS.
So things are changing here a bit, but the truth is, a lot of business are simply looking for new ways around it. One business I know of is talking of setting up an Windows Terminal Services machine which will reside off of the property, and everyone will connect to it to get to all the pirated software (and of course, the WTS is unlicensed).
So, really, I doubt an embargo has anything to do with the piracy. Frankly, most third world businesses simply can't afford the price of software.
Heya people. I normally read /. and do not reply much useful stuff, but I hope this may help you guys get a bit more understanding at how quirky computer users are in Iran!
;-)
Firstly, the overall population seems to be very easily adaptable to computers. I was first introduced to the PC when I went back there as a teenager.
Over there, we would purchase software by the megabyte at the time. This would all be for cracked software of course. Now it's usually by the "app" and different applications have different values accordingly. You just go to your local computer shop and look through their list of available software. Service is very professional there!
At first there was no control of any form, then the strangest thing happened. Companies started making their own dongles for cracked software.
Imagine getting your latest H2O music program and realising that you need the H20 Warez Enabler
Then it got even stranger when people started getting cracks for the dongle of the cracked version (I am not a good writer I hope this makes sense still!).
I havent been there for a few years now, so I would love to know if the crack/dongle nesting is still going on!
It would be more precise to say that the Muslim world hates the secular/Judeo-Christian democracies. The Muslim world reached its zenith in the 13th century and has been in a long decline since. Islamic law has proven to be just as weak a basis for good government in modern times as Christianity was in the middle ages. Most of the muslim world has not fully come to grips with this.
an ill wind that blows no good
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Buddy, have you only been reading history written by your good Uncle Sam?
Go back to 1953, when British and US intelligence agencies removed Mossadegh from power, only to give power to the capitalist-friendly Shah. Mossadegh had nationalized the oil industry after failing to negotiate higher royalties, and so had to go. Oh, and he was a nasty commie.
The Shah used torture, repressed and killed scores of communists and lefties, leaving all dissent to right-wing anti-American religious nuts. Remember the Iran hostage crisis? That was the first modern Islamic fundamentalist revolution.
The US and Brits destabilized democracy, by taking away non-violent options for people's legitimate aspirations, they made violence all but inevitable. We reap what we sow. (Note: this is not to say I agree with violence, far from it).
So, with that little historical perspective, you can understand why I seriously doubt the administration would encourage a revolution because of the hardships the population faces: they have caused it to further their economic interests.
Now if you told me they wanted to destabilize them because of the fundies, well, that would be believable
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"