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Iran Continues to Censor Internet Communications
eldawg writes "Iran has recently been in the news after electing a 'hardliner' president. But even previous 'liberal' Iranian governments have been putting together a sophisticated Internet filtering system to prevent their citizens from visiting 'questionable' websites and censoring dissent. An earlier posting at Slashdot outlined the crackdown on blogs, chat rooms and email communications. A more recent research paper from the OpenNet Initiative provides an update on the censoring activity in Iran. Reports indicate that the Iranian authorities are specifically targetting 'content in the local Farsi language using a filterning second only to China.'
We know Cisco has played a large role in bulding the 'Great Firewall of China' but is the Iranian initiative homegrown?"
I wonder if "freedom of information and communication" will ever become an internationally recognized human right? Maybe we'll invade another country in twenty years under the premise that their citizens are "deprived of a free press and subjected to a singular propagandic source of news?
This must have been accepted under the "Stuff that matters," because it certainly isn't news...
Cisco just wanted to be able to say they built the "Great Firewall of China"
So this is almost as oppressive as, say, Utah?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Monitoring internal communications is about catching potential dissenters and organizers of course, but is also about promoting self-censorship. When people know their communications are monitored, they're less likely to say anything negative about the government. That's why the govt makes no attempt to hide the monitoring.
I would say that this is just a sign that the government's scared of their own people and the potential for an uprising. (Which makes sense given that they were revolutionaries themselves.)
Tristan Yates
The ONI report mentions Secure Computing's SmartFilter as the primary means of filtering, http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050 624/tc_cmp/164902259but the company denies ever selling a license to Iran.
would slashdotting iran be considered an act of war? who cares, gimme a link.
Alright, I haven't RTFA yet, but if this is news that Iran is censoring the Net then I dont think it's anything new. There have been a number of recent events that are using the media to direct public attention against Iran now (the most recent of which is probably Rumsfeld's Slam of their elections). As a concerned American citizen who is fast losing faith in the honor of his government, I think this is a ploy, to direct the attention of world citizens, and especially US citizens away from our own flaws and toward the flaws of other countries.
Anybody who read the article a few days ago about the new use of eminent domain can see that the US government has major problems with the way it functions. Instead of anybody pointing out the US censors information also, we all hurry to jump on the band wagon to single out and bash Iran. No, they (the US government) don't prevent you from searching for certain words or anything, at least not yet, but they do force the removal of websites that portray a view contrary to what they want the public to know: see http://www.67cshdocs.com/, a blog that didn't disclose any classified information, but showed you what was really going on on the US war fronts, but was shut down by the government. I'm an American citizen and very patriotic, but I'm not blind. Our government is using the media. No, I'm not saying they are controlling /. or any other news source, I'm saying the media has become the lap dogs who go when the government says fetch.
I don't approve of Iranian censorship. I don't approve of censorship of any sort. But it would be foolish of anyone to believe that the "axis of evil" are the only ones who do this. They simply do not have the size and power to cover up for the mselves and direct public attention elsewhere.
Just my two cents....
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
Just saying...
Get your Unix fortune now!
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmond Burke
There is no difference between setting the policy and implementing it. "Someone else would have done it anyway" is not an excuse. Selling them hardware, much less helping them implement it (like they did in China) makes them equally culpable. Shit like that should not be legal.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The average joe in Iran *hates* the mullahs. Unlike most other Arab governments (which encourage people to blame and hate the US for all of their home-brewed problems) the Iranian government has no easy scapegoat. (And 36 years of economic deprivation is a lot to answer for) That's why the people in power are so afraid of revolution.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
In the USA free speech is only possible with money. Look at elections, the candidates with the most money wins most of the time. And whenever there is a law which tries to limit how much money special interest groups can give to candidates, the courts say that money is speech, and they throw those laws out.
How much does a US Senate seat cost? 7 Million dollars? A US Congressional seat is over 1 Million dollars. Who can get this kind of cash? How? If I raise $200,000 in a fund raiser for a candidate, and that candidate wins, how much of an ear do I get? How much influance? What if I am not even from his state, will he take my call over a local constituent? I bet if I call him and say "Law Z is being voted on tomorrow, and I would really like to see you vote for it". If he does not get my $200,000 the next time, he might not win. What does he do?
There is no free speech in the USA. In the USA there is SPAM from advertising, it drowns out everything else. 10 minutes of sit coms or reality TV followed by 4 minutes of commercials. If I was more cynical, I would wonder if they were trying to train my brain to accept information in small tiny sized nuggets.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
It's not that there aren't valid things the U.S. government does that are, broadly, "anti-freedom". But drawing a parallel between eminent domain and the actions of a totalitarian theocracy (despite it's elections, Iran remains dominated by the Revolutionary Guard and its supreme religious leader) and saying "The US is just as bad" is foolish and naive.
Sure, the U.S. government (or, more precisely, a small number of members of the U.S. government) are, time and again, doing something stupid that isn't what you'd expect of a free country, and the examples go back to the founding of the country (counting slaves as 2/3 of a person, etc). Things like Jim Crowe, Viet Nam, Watergate, Iran/Contra, etc etc.
But almost without exception these events are noted in the press, analyzed, criticized, written about by thousands in letters to the editor, protested in the street and very often -- tada -- CHANGED. Civil rights act, voting rights act, Nixon's impeachment, Iran/Contra hearings. And no secret police organization decended on private citizens and beat them, impisoned or tortured them for having an opinion contrary to the government or its policies.
Are we perfect? No way. Are we more free than just about any other place? Absolutely. Will we continue to make missteps from time to time? Sure. Human nature isn't always pretty.
You can be a pessimist and argue that evidence points to a declining level of freedom and government accountability. Maybe. But that hardly means that we're even comperable to North Korea, Iran, Syria, or any of a number of other totalitarian/dicatorial/theocratic societies.
Most people from Iran I know don't consider censorship a part of their culture. It could be that the people who choose to immigrate to Canada are more likely to want more rights than others, but I suspect many people in Iran feel the same. I think the desire for free speech and access to information is pretty much constant everywhere. It seems in every country there are those who want to limit this, and those who don't. Just because censorship is winning does not mean it's a part of their culture, or that everybody wants that.
How is having access to information forcing others to put up with your "crap" Unless someone is forcing you to view information or material against your will, why should you care what they are doing?
Or are you one of those people that finds the very existance of opinions that differ from yours offensive?
What does the restriction of information have to do with locking your doors?
By that logic and assuming things continue as they are, in 20 years we would have to invade ourselves.
If things continue as they are, in 20 years the only "alternative" media (i.e., not owned and operated by corporate plutocrats) the USA might have is Pacifica Radio, and that's assuming there IS radio in 20 years or that it wasn't bought out by AirAmerica and its corporate sponsors.
Oh come on man. The US has blogs and media of all stripes and flavors coming out the wazoo. There simply is not censorship here even remotely similar to the horrible things that take place elsewhere, and to even hint we are close at it is to demean those that suffer from REAL censorship. Have you been arrested and thrown in prison and then beaten for suggesting you do not like the president? I don't think so. And in twenty years it will most likely be the same, only more so. I'm not likley in twenty years to be bricking up my old copies of Reason behind a wall so the governement can't find them.
I just cannot stand to see people use the argument that America is the next Facist state when they obviously have no idea what the hell that really means or what happens when you are really in one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the '80s, the US was providing technology and supplies to Saddam's chemical weapons factories. Now, the US is cleaning up the mess, with body parts of it's own young. What goes around, comes around.
To quote the Regans: "Just Say NO!"
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I understand that I am using "anti-US relativism" in my argument, but I am using it because the media is so far biased in favor of pro-US relativism instead and I believe it important to express alternative view points. That was pretty much the entire point of my post. I realize I do not have the best examples listed.
As for press coverage of scandals within the United States, there are two inherent flaws in this belief: first of all, if the mainstream media does not focus on it, then how would the general public know that it happened at all? They wouldn't! This sounds all conspiracy-theory and theoretical on the surface, but my favorite example is the Chinagate scandal. Ask your average citizen walking out the door of your local supermarket about it and I can guarantee that 49 out of 50 or more will respond with a blank look. I know because I've tried it for a history class.
For those not in the loop with this, the Chinagate scandal was the event that was manipulated by the government and the press to become the stupid and superficial Monica Lewinsky scandal. It occurred in the mid-90's and it boils down to Bill Clinton providing China with classified US nuclear technologies and bringing them up to a full scale threat. Regardless of his reasons for doing so, the press got ahold of this in the mid 90's and began printing stories.
The 'letters to the editor' that you speak of were beginning to come off the home desks of the American public. But there was a problem: neither of the two major parties in the US wanted the public to know about this!! The democrats of course because Clinton was in office and the blame would fall partly on his shoulders. The Republicans because Bush Sr. had been doing the same thing!! Of course it would be disasterous to both parties if the public knew they were both involved with it, so both parties wanted it hushed. The result: the Monica Lewinsky scandal grabs American attention instead. The press did not have to be forcefully silenced or censored: they chose to write about those stories on their own, but they were manipulated into that position by politicians. This how the government runs its censorship.
The Chinagate scandal blew over. You can still find it from third-party sources all over the web, but it never really got the public!! If the government can censor something like that, then what is to stop them from using the same means to censor other events? None.
And I am being the pessimist here and pointing at our declining freedoms. You say that we're not even comparable to the Axis of Evil, etc, and I would like this to remain true. The only way for it to continue, however, is for people like me to point out our own flaws. If the American public remains in the dark and directing their attention toward other countries, then by the time people like yourself believe that we ARE comparable, it will be far too late!
As for the "secret police" argument, I say to you that if a single American citizen is held by his own government against his will, without evidence and because he has stated views contrary to those of the US government, then it is just as bad as the many who are suppressed in other countries. One is one too many. But guess what? It happens! That one actually gets to the news fairly regularly! But does the public care? No, because the media soon directs their attention to the evil OTHER COUNTRIES.
It is you, my friend, who are foolish and naïve to argue that there is not a parallel between the US and these other countries. The US may not be "just as bad", but without vigilant citizens, it will be.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
There is no free speech in the USA.
And you are not presently reading this message either. Slashdot is a figment of your imagination.
10 minutes of sit coms or reality TV followed by 4 minutes of commercials. If I was more cynical, I would wonder if they were trying to train my brain to accept information in small tiny sized nuggets.
Maybe Steve Jobs has the answer:
When you're young, you look at television and think: There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
In short: most people are dumb and demand to stay that way.