Researchers Find Gaps In Iranian Filtering

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "With all the turmoil and internet censorship in Iran making it difficult to get an accurate picture of what's going, security researchers have found a way to locate gaps in Iran's filtering by analyzing traffic exiting Iran. The short version is that SSH, torrents and Flash are high priorities for blocking, while game protocols like WoW and Xbox traffic are being ignored, even though they also allow communication. Hopefully, this data will help people think of new ways to bypass filtering and speak freely, even though average Iranians have worse things to worry about than internet censorship, now that the reformists have been declared anti-Islamic by the Supreme Leader. Given the circumstances, that declaration has been called 'basically a death sentence' for those who continue protesting." Reader CaroKann sends in a related story at the Washington Post about an analysis of the vote totals in the Iranian election (similar to, but different from the one we discussed earlier) in which the authors say the election results have a one in two-hundred chance of being legitimate.

Comments

Internet filtering

[bcmm]

The Internet is The Internet.

Information will get from anywhere to anywhere unless Iran completely disconnects itself from the rest of the 'net. There are as many ways to hide "communications" as there are protocols and servers out there, and no one can do a bloody thing about it. Even a "whitelist" style system would have holes in.

I keep asking myself why we care about Iran?

[erroneus]

We pretty much know what Iran is all about. It is rather overt and obvious to most everyone. Any illusion about a democratically elected government can pretty much be put to rest. And now that they are invoking religious law (not that they haven't been all along) it is clear exactly where the source of power is. (Save the comments about the U.S. putting the Ayatolla into power, I already know.)

But I keep asking myself, why should we care at all? Will we care and demonstrate as much as the Iranians when the next freedom eroding thing happens in the US? Will we take to the streets in protest of ACTA? Will we collectively burn our required government healthcare cards? I seriously doubt it. The government controllers in the U.S. long ago learned the secret that other governments have yet to figure out. Keep the slaves comfortable, busy and distracted, and they won't put up a fight.

Re:I keep asking myself why we care about Iran?

[batrick]

... because this is an example of how censorship (of the Internet) can have dramatic effects on rebellion, revolution, and government? Nerds everywhere should be closely watching.

Please take off tag NOMOREIRANPLEASE

[GabriellaKat]

I dont know about anyone else, but reading the tag of "NOMOREIRANPLEASE" Even if you have mixed feelings about Iran and their relationship with the US / World, there is no reason to flag a topic with such a tag line.

Re:... and publicly announcing this

[bbernard]

"and publicly announcing this will help these gaps to stay unfiltered?"

It is in Iran's best interest to filter as little as possible. If you're a devout WoW player, they'd rather let you spend time on that, being oblivious and happy, than risk you being pissed off that you can't play. The most important thing for Iran's government to do is to try and make sure that no more people join the protests, and that those who have get discouraged by the hardship and return to their "comfortable" lives. They want people to return to "normal" even if it is just a sham because they can control the people that way. That requires people not paying attention to what the government is really doing, which requires giving people somewhere to "bury" their heads. The Internet is GREAT for that. I never found so many ways to waste my own time until I first opened that Mosaic browser one day...

What Iran's government has been doing with regard to filtering has been disturbingly effective. Yes, the protesters are getting together and communicating with each other, but there's no reliable sources of verifiable news. No reliable death count. No clear picture of what is happening. Citizen journalism is great, but it pales in comparison with what real news-gathering resources can do. So foreign governments are limited in their response, and that response is even more limited in the audience within Iran that can see it.

Don't discount the ability to keep information away from the militia men as well. The Iranian government is more dependent than ever on the blind faith of their security forces. They must be fed the party line, and be made to swallow it. You don't get that kind of obedience when those forces are allowed to think for themselves. So you deny them the ability to gather data to make up their own minds.

So yes, Iran is not blocking all possible methods of communication, but they're effective enough that they still may pull this off.

Information is power, and the information required to make your own decisions is the ultimate expression of that power.