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Iran Developing 'Halal' Domestic Intranet
An anonymous reader writes "The WSJ reports that Iran is beginning a crackdown on Internet use by its citizens, creating new blocks against foreign content and stepping up surveillance of browsing habits. Internet cafes in Iran have 15 days to set up security cameras and start collecting information on customers, and people are finding it increasingly difficult to use social networking sites. The new restrictions are likely being implemented now to head off dissent and protests about the upcoming parliamentary elections. According to the article, 'The network slowdown likely heralds the arrival of an initiative Iran has been readying—a "halal" domestic intranet that it has said will insulate its citizens from Western ideology and un-Islamic culture, and eventually replace the Internet. This week's slowdown came amid tests of the Iranian intranet, according to domestic media reports that cited a spokesman for a union of computer-systems firms. He said the intranet is set to go live within a few weeks.'"
creating new blocks against foreign content and stepping up surveillance of browsing habits
Sounds familiar for some reason.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why is Iran doing this to itself? It's so needlessly self destructive. Just stop it. Behave yourself, the sanctions will come off, and we can all get along. Aggressive posturing, locking your people off from the world, and developing variants of nuclear technology best able to produce weapons grade material... what is the point of all this? Best case you'll get a bomb and then what? Hundreds of years of MAD as the rest of the world contains you? That sounds like loads of fun. If you just stopped all this we could normalize relations to everyone's benefit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
and has begun implementing it. The corporations will be pleased!
The good news is that soon, we may have some left over IPv4 again.
This gives a strong signal that your ideology doesn't stand up to whatever else is out there. Alright, so it's strongly worded against "the west", for which read American Freedom And Liberty And Democracy (And Republicanism) And Commercialised Happiness For All[tm], which is strongly evangelised by the world's highest tech army, navy, and air force. Before you bristle: Yes, there is a strong case to be made that it is in fact an ideology with religious fervour backing it to match. The lot of you aren't nearly as Christian as you think, you're American[tm] first. Bristle on.
The point, however, is that ultimately such a strong signal of negativism will be self-defeating. They're defining themselves as something they are not, instead of as something they are. The more they have to denounce most of the world to keep to their way, the more of their people will stray from that way and find other ways to life fulfullment. And it leaves lots of attack angles for competing ideologies. Nevermind the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, that's just the pry-bar. The more you clam up, the more others will poke at you.
in terms of popularity halal will rank above gopher but below telnet
I doubt Iranians want any of this. But the three power blocks have to posture and jockey for position, and this is what happens.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And I mean clerics of every stripe and color. Once you've empowered people with the weight of "the word of gawd", allowing them to govern based on that authority is a recipe for suffering and injustice. It has always been so, and it always will be. The world will be a far, far better place when we can tell all the believers to STFU about what everyone else must do and to focus more on walking their own spiritual path.
Yeah, okay, that was a cheap shot. But I couldn't resist. And while the U.S. is certainly no Iran when it comes to repression, it is good to keep in mind that there is a slippery slope that's all too easy to slide down into once you get going. Right now the government/coporatocracy in the U.S. doesn't face any real threats, so it's easy to be generous with freedoms. But what would happen if something like the Occupy movement really started to gain ground and actually started shutting down cities and firebombing corporate HQ's? Would the powers-that-be hesitate to start using some of that power we've given them to start suppressing internet access here? It's already happened here at least once, on a smaller scale.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... the same, oups wait, no they never had an open Internet.
Iran is on the Internet since approx: 95/96 (ok at that time they had about 19200b/s to connect them to the university of vienna...
KSA started to authorise Internet only around 2001 and only after they had installed a "country firewall"....
But all this shows that Internet is a tool, not a "solution"... Internet does NOT "route around sensorship", people do using the tools at hand, and it is not easy because the means of sensorship are many...
Making in country hosting very expensive and throttling international internet access are the most comment means...
Manipulating the search engine, either because you own it, or through various "preservation" laws another...
Make laws about what you are allowed to say is an all time favorite..
The Jim Crow laws have been repelled, including the laws forbidding to critisize them, but equivalent laws about drug policies, Intellectual properties policies, etc... abound in all the world...
With the effect that even with an "open internet" the info might "be there", but no local person therefore no "locally connected" person can point to it... (thing thai monarchy for an example concerning another "ally")
Only civic movements can change things, and even then "your mileanage might vary", (see the result of the "arab spring", now the new arab winter...)
In Iran, they build a halal closed internet. Here in the US they let the entrenched media conglomerates control the flow of information by abusing civil law to maintain a de facto cartel.
Iran has a state enforced religious code, in the US they privatize the enforcement to self serving corrupt economic interests that want to maintain the status quo by eliminating competition. Without meaningful competition there is no functioning capitalism.
The difference in only in the execution, not the result. The US version is more sophisticated, and the Iranian version is more crude. That's about it.
Why is Snark Required?
But what would happen if something like the Occupy movement really started to gain ground and actually started shutting down cities and firebombing corporate HQ's?
Why would they have to shut down cities or firebomb corporate HQ's?
The treatment of "Occupiers" in public parks (or pseudo, "it's a park on private property that is required to be available to the public 24/7 by terms of agreement with the city" bullshit) was a good indication of how it goes down.
Step 2 has been SOPA.
Last time we had a movement like OWS, they were the Hoovervilles and the Bonus Army, and just like today, the Republican response (courtesy of Herbert Hoover) was to send in troops to beat them up.
and just like today, the Republican response (courtesy of Herbert Hoover) was to send in troops to beat them up.
Republican? Try Political response. Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter and hasn't mattered a damn for years now.
While I agree with a large part of your statement, don't put this on any one particular group - aside from rhetoric, there is no fundamental difference between the two parties.
Obama is a moderate Republican and Romney is a moderate Republican - regardless of with which parties they affiliate themselves.