Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-that's-not-very-nice dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nokia and Siemens selling the censoring technology to Iran's government. Do you believe that the public relations damage to these companies can persuade them from selling this kind of technology to other dictatorial regimes?" I don't believe there will *be* any PR Damage, and that makes me a little sad.

12 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Point! by Dr_Ken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure first and second world dictatorships all over the world will be looking at buying that technology.

    --
    "If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
  2. Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure that here in the UK the government is already enquiring on how they can do the same.

  3. it's the kind of world we live in ! by po134 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These are capitalist corporations. Their goal is to make money. People are willing to buy censorship technology (just look at any government office). Why do you act shocked that this is happening?

    1. Re:it's the kind of world we live in ! by laughingcoyote · · Score: 5, Insightful

      agree. That, and if we were to have some sort of a committee to decide who could sell what to whom overseas, (beyond existing limits to say, military technology) we'd never be able to get anything sold overseas.

      Is it really up to the public to decide who I can do business with overseas? I think not.

      You damn well bet it's up to the public, if they so decide it is. Who exactly do you think grants corporate charters? Santa Claus?

      We, as the public, have a shameful record of actually expecting, much less enforcing, that corporations be expected to behave in an ethical and appropriate manner. However, we do have every right to demand it if we'd get off our asses and do it. We give them the charter, we grant the limited liability, and usually, we pay a substantial portion of that nine-digit bonus the CEO got last year too. Sometimes, many members of the public are even part owners of the company via stock purchase. So yes, the public has say over corporate behavior, in a much more general sense than just overseas conduct.

      Now only if we would start to use that on a regular basis. I can dream, can't I?

      --
      To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
  4. More propaganda by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From TFA

    "It couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection."

    So in other words a European venture sold a bunch of equipment to Iran for network usage and (also FTFA)

    If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them."

    It sounds like a beat up to me. What would the story be if a US company had sold the equipment to Iran? (yeah I know .. trade embargo etc) This story smells of sour grapes.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  5. Nokia aren't doing anything wrong by petrus4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All they're doing is selling the Iranian government some mobile telecommunications infrastructure. What the government decide to do with said infrastructure is entirely their responsibility.

    Sophistry, I hear you say? Only about to the same degree as that moron who was arguing with me here, that the author of the World of Warcraft Glider bot should not be sued by Blizzard; because he wasn't doing anything against the rules himself. All he was doing was creating a macro generation program; what other people did with it was entirely their own responsibility.

  6. Like the Nazis by slimjim8094 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It just occured to me that I Godwin'd this story already, but this is just like when IBM sold adding machines to the Nazis to help them tabulate Holocaust victims.

    Way I see it, who cares? The corner store selling smokes isn't to blame for the lung cancer - ultimately the smoker is. Except it's even more generic than that.

    - Siemens sold network technology to Iran - the same you'd use for all sorts of network admin - and they used it to censor. That's Iran's bad.
    - IBM sold adding machines - they'll count anything - and the Nazis used them to count Jews (and others). That's the Nazi's bad.

    In short, don't blame the maker for the use of the tool.

    --
    I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
  7. Re:Surprise surprise by pirhana · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Iran, regardless of all the shortcomings and issues IS a democracy. Most of the other countries in gulf region(Like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) are under family dictatorships and worse tyrannies. And US/EU governments and corporations sell everything including weapons to them. I think this is far worse than selling technology to Iran.

    --
    http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
  8. Remember South African apartheid? by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why single out Iran? Are you saying Nokia shouldn't operate in Iran; they should break the law there; what?

    I'm guessing a lot of people reading this have the former in mind: information technology companies in the industrialized world shouldn't operate in countries that place restrictions on political speech to the extent seen in the countries on which the United States already has sanctions. In the 1980s, near the end of South Africa's counterpart to the U.S. "Jim Crow" era, there was an effort to boycott companies that did business in South Africa: disinvestment was a result.

  9. Party Talk by AB3A · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "...so, what do you do?"

    "I sell net censoring software."

    "Really? Who buys that stuff?"

    "Oh, lots of people. We have ISP customers from around the world."

    "What do they use it for?"

    "You know, censoring kiddie porn sites, blocking mail spammers, and so on." ...

    I think that's a pretty good description of what this is about. People are selling tools. The problem is how those tools are used. There are evil shit-heads all over the world. That does not mean the tools themselves are evil.

    --
    Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
  10. Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin by EatHam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not after seeing what a piss poor job it did at actually preventing information leakage.

  11. Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin by aembleton · · Score: 5, Informative

    Correct, according to this article from the BBC:
    "Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality."