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In Censorship Move, Iran Plans Its Own Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Iran is taking steps toward an aggressive new form of censorship: a so-called national Internet that could, in effect, disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world (summary of paywalled WSJ report). The leadership in Iran sees the project as a way to end the fight for control of the Internet, according to observers of Iranian policy inside and outside the country. Iran, already among the most sophisticated nations in online censoring, also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes."
The article also mentions unconfirmed local press reports suggesting that Iran is building its own national operating system.
in Iran.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
MohammeDOS?
Sure seems like the technological savvy of Iran would be pushing private, wireless, encrypted, mesh networking as a means to counter these efforts. For Iranians, censorship is but one of their their problems. Communication and control is the leadership's real desire. Censorship is just a means to an end - control.
No, that was in fact quoting the Fox News article verbatim.
Even if we don't like copyright, we like correct attribution, right guys?
"disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world (summary of paywalled WSJ report)".
Oh snap.
unfortunately this second attempt will be owned by the censors.
they cross breed and pollinate with each other, and therefore survive and prosper. when cultures wall themselves off in isolation, they wither and die. you can't preserve your country by locking it up. that's a recipe for obsolescence
iranian govt: you want persian minds to grow up in an echo chamber, unaware of the wider world. which simply means you want persian minds to be inferior minds. you are also extremely condescending and insulting to your own people: you don't think that they can handle exposure to other cultures. you think they will lose their persianness, as if iran is a weak thing that will go *POOF* at the first exposure to the decadent west. well, considering your street protests you brutally suppressed in 2009, you are close: the iranian GOVERNMENT is weak and will go *POOF* when it's people see how much better it is without your control freak nature at the helm. soon enough, you ignorant, arrogant assholes, your people will understand the problem is not the decadent west, but YOU
you would rather hobble your own people than liberalize the iranian government. all you do is hurt iran, just because you are insecure
long live iran: death to its feeble govt
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just file it under yet another example of the Iran's absurd, paradoxical sense of governance highlighting their poor sense of irony. It's almost as if they want to educate their populace and then send them abroad to work and live elsewhere. They encourage denial of employment to women, yet allow them to seek higher education. They encourage rigorous university standards to discourage men from using college to avoid conscription. Couple this with a failed economy and what do they get? A highly educated youth populace with nothing to do but emigrate or rebel. These days getting accepted to Tehran University is just a ticket to go abroad on scholarship, how is taking away internet going to help any of this? The government may think they're exercising a technocracy here, but it's only going to create more incentive for young Iranians to develop their subversiveness. And every day that the '79 revolution falls farther behind them, the old guard find themselves in less of a position to use propaganda to cover their asses. The future for Iran may look pretty bright yet.
I know, you could call it
*long drawn out drum roll*
Iran-ternet
Summation 2
The country and regime couldn't survive that. But if they want to: Good luck in your little bubble Iran.
I think you are mistaken. An Internet is formed by connections between many computers. But if none of THEIR computers are connected to any of OUR computers, they have their own Internet. Every connection has to go over some kind of wire or radio link. Those are mostly controlled by the state, apart from a few satellite uplinks. Then, they can make sure that the Iranian Internet addressing system conflicts with the "real" one, for example by reusing popular IP addresses for essential services in Iran. Same for the DNS servers. They would only resolve addresses within Iran. Heck, they could build their entire Iranian Internet on IPv6! Wouldn't that be fun! And if they change the protocols just slightly, it would make it very hard to interwork/tunnel with the rest of the world. There is nothing new in any of this. But it's hard to do, because you would have to develop a whole lot of stuff from soup through to nuts to make it work, and nobody else will have any incentive to help you with it.
How many IPv4 addresses will this free up?
Does this mean we can reclaim their IPv4 address space? Forget their oil, we want their IP addresses!
The Iranian people are generally nice and progressive, it's their government that sucks. So go fuck yourself, I'm sure your country (whichever) has some assholes in charge itself.
There's a HUGE difference between a theocracy (and an islamic theocracy *stones* people, mainly women) and a few (or even a lot) religious politicians.
You know the stoning story from the Bible ? Where Jesus saves the woman. Well here's the islamic version :
Abdullah b. 'Umar reported that a Jew and a Jewess were brought to allah's messenger who were accused of committing adultery. Allah's messenger came to the Jews and said: What do you find in Torah for one who commits adultery? They said: We darken their faces and make them ride on the donkey with their faces turned to the opposite direction (and their backs touching each other), and then they are taken round (the city). He said: Bring Torah if you are truthful. They brought it and recited it until when they came to the verse pertaining to stoning, the person who was reading placed his hand on the verse pertaining to stoning, and read (only that which was) between his hands and what was subsequent to that. Abdullah b. Salim who was at that time with the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Command him (the reciter) to lift his hand. He lifted it and there was, underneath that, the verse pertaining to stoning. Allah's messenger pronounced judgment about both of them and they were stoned. Abdullah ibn 'Umar said: I was one of those who stoned them, and I saw him (the Jew) protecting her (the Jewess) with his body.
Now imagine this being law. And that's just the beginning.
Never let a muslim tell you differently : following the paedophile prophet means following that story. It is the duty of every muslim (if he's male) to impose those punishments, everywhere, which obviously includes western countries, and there is -zero- disagreement under muslims about this. There is disagreement, however, on whether a muslim can lie about this to protect himself, 3/4th of islam thinks it is, the taliban "school" thinks it isn't.
Btw why don't we call the religion by it's English name ? "islam" translates simply to "submit" in the sense of "conquer" (as in, the actual word generally used is "submit", but not self-submission, which is another word, "islam" is a command you could give to someone that means he is to force someone to submit. If a general were to order some refugees out of a country, and he would order his soldiers to do whatever it takes to force them to comply. That order could be given in arabic by the word "islam")
Iran "bans" satellite television, too. But everyone there has a dish, and they all saw Iron Man II before you did.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"In fire."