Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Firm Helps Iran Spy On Citizens
New submitter politkal excerpts from a report at Reuters: "A Chinese telecommunications equipment company has sold Iran's largest telecom firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications, interviews and contract documents show. The system was part of a 98.6 million euro ($130.6 million) contract for networking equipment supplied by Shenzhen, China-based ZTE Corp to the Telecommunication Co of Iran (TCI), according to the documents. Government-controlled TCI has a near monopoly on Iran's landline telephone services and much of Iran's internet traffic is required to flow through its network. ... Human rights groups say they have documented numerous cases in which the Iranian government tracked down and arrested critics by monitoring their telephone calls or internet activities. Iran this month set up a Supreme Council of Cyberspace, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said it would protect 'against internet evils,' according to Iranian state television."
That's terrible they're taking marketshare from Cisco, Bluecoat and gang!
how about a headline like: "Israeli firm hels USA to spy on citizens" or "American firm helps Sweden to spy on citizens".. this is happening everywhere. Google "lawful intercept".
And before that the US and UK Gov helped overthrow Iran's government and install the Shah. I won't be surprised if most Iranians are still aware of that event in their history.
The Chinese are just selling to whoever wants to buy from them. If the Iranian people don't want their current government that's a different issue. The Chinese never claimed to be the good guys, nor do they go around telling others how to run their countries.
Not long ago the Palestinians democratically elected their government. The US Gov didn't like the election results and promptly said so in public.
So to me the USA has little credibility whenever they talk about what government the Iranians (or others) should have, and what the Iranians actually want. The USA has been overthrowing democracies for a long time.
If governments can produce such powerful systems, as they claim, why cannot they do something as simple as stopping spam, which, by the way, really hurts economies.
My guess is that these systems suffer from the usual contracts' weaknesses: kickbacks, wow-presentations, bugs, etc.
Some bad things are going to happen in Iran in the next couple of years. The worst: Israel goes in and bombs the shit out of them and starts a regional war. Best: Persian Spring (or Summer, Fall, or Winter)
The dystopian future I see is the US turning into a Christian Theocracy. And as what all religions do when they become political, they'll turn this country into an oppressive and backward shit hole.
I do not know about landlines, but regarding mobile, this technology is part of the 3GPP standard, and all operators in the free world have this equipment installed as well.
Without this monitoring Iranian children could be reading all sorts of evil perverted stuff on the internet. The Bible, the United nations declaration of human rights, or even the Bhagavad Gita.
Anonymous Coward is an unusually apt username today...
the uighurs, and a few other minor exceptions, yeah. the chinese communist party doesn't tell anyone what to do.
some people will complain, especially americans, who keep brining up this old 'korean war' thing, where chinese troops were killing UN troops who were trying to drive out a horrible dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of people. but hey. there are whiners in every bunch.
So, what your saying is that a site like Slashdot would result in a lot of people in trouble with the government? It's common for people to very extremely critical or their governments on this site. Then there is a difference between the West and China.
I'm sure people who kept their mouths shut were happier in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union too.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
How dare the Iranian gov't of the 1950s try and nationalize the oil under their land that rightfully belonged to British Petroleum! Those evil people weren't respecting the rule of law, the same way Chinese people refused to respect the British right to sell them opium!
Furthermore, we all know the great democracies of the USA and Britain never stole any land or resources from any other people (remember how the Cherokee left Georgia because they new the African slave volunteers needed a new home?), which of course grants them the right to intervene in other, inferior democracies.
Thank god we have people like you to clarify our rights.