Five Technologies Iran Is Using To Censor the Net

alphadogg sends in a Network World piece on the unexpectedly effective technologies Iran is now employing to thwart their citizens' access to the Net. "While the government's initial efforts to censor the Internet were blunt and often ineffective, it has started employing more sophisticated tools to thwart dissidents' attempts to communicate with each other and the outside world. Iranian dissidents are not alone in their struggle, however, as several sympathetic hacker groups have been working to keep them online. One such group is NedaNet, whose mission is to 'help the Iranian people by setting up networks of proxy severs, anonymizers, and any other appropriate technologies that can enable them to communicate and organize.' NedaNet project coordinator Morgan Sennhauser, who has just written a paper detailing the Iranian government's latest efforts to thwart hackers (PDF), says that the government's actions have been surprisingly robust and have challenged hackers in ways that the Chinese government's efforts at censorship have not."

Comments

Re:Don't Worry Folks

[ServerIrv]

Agreed. I'm optimistic that there will be a day when there are no wars, but unfortunately I think that will be right after the meteor wipes us humans off the face of the earth.

So...

[TitusC3v5]

I'm waiting for the follow-up article, 'Five Technologies Iranian Citizens are Using to Bypass the Censors.'

technical assistance

[Red Flayer]

And who is providing the Iranian government with the technical know-how to implement these censoring measures?

Is it private consultants? Is it foreign governments?

Is there sufficient know-how within Iran's pro-government citizenship to effect the censorship?

I'm very curious who, if anyone, is helping Iran's government do this. Because I do control a decent amount of spending, and I'd like to know if there's anyone I do business with that I should think twice about renewing contracts with. I'd be disappointed, and more than a bit shocked, if any of my suppliers are helping Iran do this. But there is precedent. And my (and my employer's) dollars can speak a lot louder than this comment.

Re:technical assistance

[ducomputergeek]

And what if they're using *gasp* linux. A local coffee shop I frequent use many of the same techniques to try to stop people from downloading torrent files after getting a couple infringement notices. They do it via a Gentoo linux box and off the shelf FOSS tools. They don't do the DPI or SPI, but everything else, such as QoS, blocking ports, and IP blocks they do and it doesn't take a super consultant to set it up. I know the kid who set up this box. He's knows enough to do it, but isn't any type of super genius.

Can you get around the blocks here at the shop? Yes, but only if you know what you're doing. I can do it. I know a couple others who can as well, but 95% of the people sipping coffee around me don't have a clue. And it's enough to thwart the average attempt to use services like limewire and Bit Torrent.

Re:technical assistance

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And who is providing the Iranian government with the technical know-how to implement these censoring measures? Is it private consultants? Is it foreign governments?

This is a good question. I've asked a few people and no one is fessing up to suppling Iran publicly. I've worked in that particular industry so I have some good contacts who should know. We know they use software from CA based Secure Computing, but the company denies having sold them a license so it seems they're just pirating the software. The Nokia Siemens partnership is selling them some gear but denies selling them monitoring software for anything other than cell phone networks.

Is there sufficient know-how within Iran's pro-government citizenship to effect the censorship?

There is a surprising amount of network traffic shaping and monitoring software related to the middle east. Half the startup companies in the business a few years ago had founders educated in Israel. It is possible, therefor that the locals do have such knowledge, but on the other hand the Israelis and Iranians don't really get along (understatement of the year nomination please).

And my (and my employer's) dollars can speak a lot louder than this comment.

I'm all in favor of accountability. I'd like to think the press would be competent enough to figure do some serious investigation of this and that the US government would make sure any companies involved were exposed as such to the public as well as subjected to punishments for doing business there (at least being unavailable for US contracts for a few years). I'm afraid I've become more of a cynic iver the last decade and I have little faith in either the press or the US government to push for the truth and hold people accountable. But seeing as most of the public has the attention span of a fruit fly and doesn't care enough to vote based upon such things anyway, I suppose we get what we deserve.

Re:technical assistance

[grcumb]

And the company themselves debunked this rumor. http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm

That's a rebuttal, not a refutation.

Nokia-Siemens are basically stating (correctly) 'we didn't do anything there that we aren't required to do elsewhere.' That's all well and good, but it doesn't address the fundamental question: Is what they did in Iran (and do elsewhere) the Right Thing?

The whole question about how - and when, and who - to intercept in the context of the Internet is particularly troubling. Here's an excerpt from a longer piece I wrote about the situation:

Nokia-Siemens, defending its role in the creation of a centralised mobile telecommuncations network, stated recently that:

In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran. Lawful Intercept is specified in standards defined by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

Yes, decentralised communications come at a cost. They make surveillance efforts of all kinds more difficult. The two competing questions we need to ask ourselves are:

1. How far are we willing to compromise ourselves in the pursuit of state security?
2. How much are we willing to compromise state surveillance capability in order to protect our own freedom to communicate?

These are knotty issues with complex and often subtle ramifications on society. They demand a level of public engagement on the principle - and more importantly, the practice - of free speech that we havenâ(TM)t seen since the Red Scare of the 1950s.

No business

[zhilla2]

"China has several gigabytes per second of traffic to deal with and has a lot more international businesses," he says. "They can't be as heavy-handed with their filtration. The Iranians aren't as concerned about that⦠so they get to use all these fancy toys that, if the Chinese used them, could cripple their economy."

I myself ordered Chinese products from sites using SSL. I don't think even they would be crazy enough to turn down money - but it seems Iran's leaders are. Are they going North Korea style? At least Chinese have a positive side to their repressive government. They have the money, they'll transform that to power and influence. Iran's policy is VERY bad for business - who seem to really WANT their people to be poor and unemployed. Which also leads to emigration of smart, competent and anybody willing to work. So yes, killing protesters and having a idiotic clerical fascistic system will make Iran poor and irrelevant in time. Countries with saner systems will benefit from importing their disgruntled intellectual elite - because smart people might be more tolerant by average, but also have lower tolerance for being served hypocritical crap.

Re:No business

[aaandre]

Oppressive regimes see their own countries' intellectual elite as an enemy.

Censorship is absolute or doomed.

[jd]

If there exists any means of communication that is not blocked, that means can be subverted to support every form of communication. As a result, any partial technological block will inevitably be defeated.

The alternative to censorship is self-censorship - alter society such that it no longer wants to communicate in such-and-such a form, or to transmit such-and-such information. This has mixed results. Certainly, China and Iran haven't done well in convincing their citizens not to communicate with the outside world. On the other hand, the Pitcairn Islanders are not exactly broadcasting the facts behind the crimes of the power-brokers there.

I guess the difference is that all the Pitcairn Islanders are, to some extent, guilty of the crimes that only a handful were actually convicted for, and talking could lead to their conviction as well. On the other hand, dissidents in Iran and China don't see themselves as guilty of the crimes of their leadership and so have no need to protect themselves.

(One wonders how many other people have been silent of things they should have spoken up over, to avoid being convicted. It's a part of the censorship debate that IS important, as it is the only part that cannot be technologically circumvented. Well, not until mind-reading machines have been developed.)

In a way, I guess the Iranian censorship technology is a good thing, in that it seems to be pressing the technologists more, forcing them to come up with cleverer solutions. It's good for the mind and may, someday, lead to Iranian inventors and innovators gaining some clout in the world. Adverse conditions tend to produce some brilliant minds.

Re:Censorship is absolute or doomed.

[mindbrane]

>The alternative to censorship is self-censorship

The Iranian, Farsi speaking people have a complex and fascinating history. Farsi, like English, is an Indo-European language, and, the Persian Empire could be said to be the catalyst driving the birth of Europe. The Spartan and Athenian alliance bringing the victory of the Persian Wars was thought by the Greeks to be caused by the Gods as the Persians were seen as Asians and, it was thought, the Gods would never allow one people to rule both Europe and Asia. The matter grows complex as Alexander Hellenized the Persian world. Although in Persia lower caste people would abase themselves before someone seen to be a superior, but the Greeks only bowed to a God and thus the Persian custom was seen as Alexander elevating himself to the ranks of the Gods. But for my money the big fillip was introduced, perhaps by the Jews, when sin was passed from the King to the people. Some ancient civilizations were known to have beaten the statues of Gods when things went wrong and, further down the road, Kings and priests were punished when things went wrong as it was thought they were custodians and servants of the Gods and thus responsible if the Gods should be made angry. Some tyrant, somewhere, came up with the truly remarkable idea that if sin was ascribed to the people s/he ruled, then, if the Gods punished the people it was the peoples fault. This ascription of sin to the populous was one of the neatest tricks a ruling elite ever effected on an enslaved population. I think all western theocracies are supported by this central idea, that each person is born into sin and is a sinner and thus accountable for anything and everything that goes wrong.

We're creatures of context and our ideologies are drawn from and enforced by the symbols that surround us. From this it follow that freedom of speech is fundamental to democracy and personal growth. If Iran is to grow and the Iranian people free themselves, then they must always have available to them the symbols of freedom.

Just my loose change, btw "hello", a decade or so ago we exchanged what I enjoyed as some interesting posts here when I was new to Linux and /., but that was another incarnation.

Re:Censorship is absolute or doomed.

[aaandre]

Not if the government decrees and installs mandatory censorship backdoor software/hardware on every communication device sold. Passing laws for that to happen in the name of the children or the security or freedom is easier than we think. It will probably be called Free Speech Protection or something similar.

Then, even though communication around it will be theoretically possible, the threshold will be high enough from technical standpoint and if tampering with the device is punishable with harsh enough measures, then few enough people will make efforts to go around it, which is few enough from the governing entity's standpoint.

Possible future solutions are being beta tested in places like UAE, China, Korea, and now Iran.

And speaking of bright minds, history shows that oppressive governments never mind putting a bullet through one.

Interesting Name

[Philip K Dickhead]

In the 90's, Iran's principal start-up ISP was called neda.net

I can see why the new effort is named after the late Ms. Soltani. Still a coincidence of note.

Iran's gateway out - due to embargo issues - used to be a pair of 9600 Bps USR HST modems, located in Austria. That changed around '95.

Mirror of pdf

[pirodude]

http://diode.mbrez.com/docs/SoIN.pdf