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Iran Suspends Google's Email Service
appl_iran writes "Iran's telecommunications agency announced that it would be suspending Google's email services permanently, saying it would roll out its own national email service." From the short WSJ article that is kernel of this Reuters story: "An Iranian official said the measure was meant to boost local development of Internet technology and to build trust between people and the government." Funny way to go about that. Updated 20100211 9:54GMT by timothy: Original link swapped for a more appropriate, updated one.
"to build trust between people and government"
Because, as China has shown, censoring communication is the fastest and easiest way to built trust. Go Iran!
Is this the same Irani government which torturers people to try and gain Facebook passwords so they can better track groups who want to discuss politics freely?
Forcing users to use a government monitored service doesn't sound like something that would build trust. It sounds like a move to crush dissent.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
They are an extremely oppressive government, of course their goal is to crush dissent. Goes double since they are rather worried now since there was a big uprising recently over the rigged elections.
However, something you'll also discover about many oppressive government is they love lying. They are so used to the idea that their official word is "the truth" that they lie all the time and seem to think everyone, including other countries, will believe the bullshit. Hence they don't tell their people, or the world, that this is to crush dissent, they make up BS about trying to build trust.
We've seen it all before in many other oppressive places, and I'm sure we'll see it all again.
Because if you force everybody to use iranmail instead of gmail, you can read everything they email?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
I like how the Iranian gov't is running a national e-mail service but can't stump up for an SSL certificate. mail.ir = localhost.localdomain, apparently.
Look, Bush and Cheney are no longer in office, will you stop with the complaints?
Wait, you weren't talking about the United States? Isn't this Slashdot?
It's because Google recently moved gmail to HTTPS. It was an option before, but now its mandatory. Someone's email snooper device stopped working in Iran's ministry of snooping^H^H^H^H^H^H truth, and they threw a fit. Then their prophet-dude probably received a revelation that the country needs it's own "Islamic" email system to be rid of the heathens... etc., etc.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
It's ironic some people around here only have a problem with Iran's actions because it's not a democracy, rather than because of any freedom of speech, association, or business rights.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It is neither an empty threat, nor foreshadowing of an attack on Israel (or any other country).
The "punch" is going to be Revolutionary Guard, Basij Islamic militia, and regular police taking to the streets to violently oppress the peaceful opposition protesters who will also be taking to the streets on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which is Feb. 11. They will thus stun the opposition, and indirectly "the West" who the Iranian government claims is responsible for organizing the protesters.
The BBC article gets it right. The WorldNetDaily article and your post are piles of FUD-mongering dung.
What, is crushing a peaceful pro-democracy movement by killing its own citizens in the name of peace not bad enough for you?
The enemies of Democracy are
As I said, a dictatorship is a dictatorship is a dictatorship.
This may sound goofy and way over the top, but we in the US live in an oligarchic dictatorship.
I know, I know. Move along, citizen, move along. Don't pay attention to the lunatic.
"Amnesty International is concerned that the USA PATRIOT Act:
- Creates a broad definition of "domestic terrorism" that may have a chilling effect on the U.S. and international rights to free expression and association.
- Allows non-citizens to be detained without charge and held indefinitely once charged.
- Infringes on the right to privacy and removes many types of judicial review over intelligence activities."
http://www.amnestyusa.org/war-on-terror/civil-rights/page.do?id=1108209 ...excuse me if I trust these guys more than your anecdotal experience with unidentified politicians.
-- Terry
Absolutely right, the best way to prevent millions of people from being oppressed by their government is to just KILL them all. You can't be oppressed if you're dead, right?
You fail to understand religions. Religions were all largely created to establish a system of controls over society, by those seeking to attain or maintain power. Religion is basically a derived set of rules to establish a set of morals, these rules are buried within stories and subject to interpretation by the religious leaders and more often by the political power behind the religious leaders. Especially in the period following the demise of the original religious authors. That period where the religion is rewritten to suit the rulers of the days, this is of course obfuscated over time by the simple expediency of killing anyone who disagrees with the later interpretations. This principles is extended in neighboring regions, naturally enough with monotheism unlike polytheism, conflicting gods cannot be accepted but, that provides the excuse to purge, via religious edict unbelievers and confiscate their property (in the favor of the political elite of the day), hence the underlying driver for monotheism as it was actually deployed and used.
See, not pulled out of someones arse, but a concerted conspiracy to enrich and empower a minority at the expense of the majority, the poor get the vacuous promises and the rich and powerful get everything else, including ownership of the poor, modern example of this religious perversity is of course capitalism, where the god worshiped is greed (they still wrap themselves up in other religions but of course they don't show the slightest pretense of adhering to any of the moral principles of those religions, that's for the poor).
The interpretation part is most amusing, take the Christian bible, is it true, absolutely not and I quote "Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown". So the bible is a "story" written in parables, not a factual account. Fascinating how the first line describes exactly how typical politicians use the bible for their own "EVIL" uses. So either these parables are true and the rest is false, or the rest is true and these parables are false, but if that is true then the bible still untrue.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You drank the Kool-aid, didn't you?
Even 2000 years ago there were those who recognized the exploitive purpose of religion:
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca (ca. 4 BC –AD 65)
When you call someone an uncivilized savage, there's an implication that you find your own society superior. When your own society engages in interventionist wars that have killed and displaced tens of millions of people for half a century, you can't simply ignore this integral part of your culture because it suits your argument. It would be like examining the British based solely on how they treat British citizens.
If you find the "middle east" uncivilized because you think it is savage, I think you are swallowing wholesale the idea that our culture isn't savage. Just because it's mildly tolerant of it's internal population doesn't separate it morally from any other state.
And then, you state without a hint of irony:
If you include everyone in the government, you have to give equal power to everyone. And I don't want uncivilized savages from the Middle East having any kind of say about what goes on in my life.
Last I checked, the "middle east" does not have any military bases in America. The "middle east" has not invaded any part of the Western world since the decline of the Ottoman Empire. So, you live in a society 100% guilty of what you fear of "uncivilized savages" and you're too buried in your own worldview to even realize what you're saying is that you are afraid of what your society does to other people.
And now you claim you don't "believe" in intervention. And that nearly leaves me speechless.
Anyone remember the US government initiative in the 90's to be able to snoop on its citizens phone calls?
The Clipper Chip failed because it was subjected to citizen protest. However, around the same time CALEA was passed, which is very very similar in effect.
Aside from abuses afforded by CALEA, the US government's spy networks have repeatedly snooped on its citizens' phone calls. There was no victory with the Clipper Chip. It was just a minor setback.
well, from an iranian national security perspective:
it is better that the iranian government monitor it's people than Google in USA !!!
"I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt