Iran's Web Censorship Filters Supreme Leader's Own Statement

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Iran's Web Censorship Filters Supreme Leader's Own Statement

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 10, 2012 @02:52AM from the my-sympathy-is-bounded dept.

halfEvilTech writes "Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's own words have now become a victim of Iran's massive online censorship infrastructure. Khamenei, according to a translation by RFE, replied [to a question about the censorship laws themselves]: 'In general, the use of antifiltering software is subject to the laws and regulations of the Islamic republic, and it is not permissible to violate the law.' However, his own use of the word 'antifiltering' apparently triggered Iran's own filtering system, making Khamenei's words inaccessible to most Iranians." Which seems to be a universal problem with such filters: even for proponents, they tend to backfire.

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Appropiate by colinrichardday · 2012-05-10 02:53 · Score: 0

Those who live by censorship shall die by it.
1. Re:Appropiate by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 02:58 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Ummmmm, no. They are just minorly inconvenienced by it.
2. Re:Appropiate by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-05-10 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  sadly true. all they have to do is whitelist any thing that they want to let through.
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
3. Re:Appropiate by RivenAleem · 2012-05-10 03:57 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  How Iranic.
4. Re:Appropiate by mcgrew · 2012-05-10 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  Poor Iran, they're between Iraq and a hard place.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
5. Re:Appropiate by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 15:01 · Score: 0
  
  Such is the way with sand people, their internet filters can easily backfire on them, but they'll soon be back...and in greater numbers.
6. Re:Appropiate by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 15:27 · Score: 0
  
  No. That's not true. You give the government a ways of controlling the population's way of thinking. Over time, this gives the government much more direct control over public opinion and can keep the masses ignorant.
7. Re:Appropiate by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-11 05:32 · Score: 0
  
  lol @ IRANic (Ironic) :D (But I wished it was really Iranic)....read to end!
  the censors are real idiots over there because this is not the first time that they have blocked their own site. They do block their own so-called "religious" sites as well as any other site (@random) and the connection is so very slow (like 2400 baud modem back in the days). In fact these people (the regime) in Iran is more than dedicated to Israel. They are owned and operted by the Israelis and British. and what they allow in the west they disallow and take to extremes in mid east. (ie freedom of speech and other freedoms which usually the young ppl enjoy), they have heavily targetted the youth and their needs and Internet is one of them!
8. Re:Appropiate by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-12 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  Such is the way with sand people, their internet filters can easily backfire on them, but they'll soon be back...and in greater numbers.
  Hmm... Iranian here. We're "sand people"? We don't live in desert or sand. Iran is mountainous and green. The people you are thinking of are those of the Arabian peninsula (Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia).
why would censors care? by gl4ss · 2012-05-10 02:58 · Score: 1

1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
what crazy filtering would it be if journalists were allowed to circumvent int? they'd know it to be illegal anyways - and if not illegal then frowned upon by the rep. guard, which is all that matters in the first place in a land without decent law.

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
1. Re:why would censors care? by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-10 04:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This isn't secret filtering. This is the government (claiming it is only) trying to block out non Islamic content, it's censorship and they probably have similar policies for other media. In that situation it's no secret that they're filtering, or that they're censoring. In fact we censor child pornography in the west, and as a society people know about and are fully aware of this censorship. We don't make an effort to censor discussions of how to get around the censorship of child porn, but if you believe Islamic values will be compromised by exposure to decadent western culture and imperialist thoughts, or zionist propaganda then discussions of how to get around filtering are very much problematic.
  Journalists here have a certain amount of power to know things which are censored but they don't talk about, or don't talk about yet. Usually the press gets a pre-brief before official briefings, they know what that loud banging sound at the whitehouse is, they know who is accused of a crime even if their name is protected by a publication ban etc.
  Filtering is just an effort to enforce censorship. It's not the only method, and if you're reasonably upfront about what you're censoring then there's no need for secret filtering, it's just filtering in support of existing censorship laws. You may think Iran is not a country of decent laws, but I would argue they are middle of the road. Easily half the world is far more backwards, corrupt and far more arbitrary than Iran. They may not be good, but at least they acknowledge that they're censoring content and using filtering to try and enforce that.
2. Re:why would censors care? by gl4ss · 2012-05-10 04:20 · Score: 2
  
  they're not a country of decent laws because there is a group inside which don't need to adhere to them and which can use them as they wish, hence they're not a real republic and a lot of the laws they do enforce are globally considered morally suspect.
  the article is about how it's against the law to circumvent the filtering. no specific laws are mentioned actually, just that it's the statement from the religious leader that circumventing it is against existing laws(it's possibly revolutionary? you see, they have blanket laws to cover just about anything they want).
  but discussing even the legality of anti-filtering hits the filtering and is illegal to try to find out about, you start making too much noise about the existence of the filtering and how impractical it makes things for iranians and you'll soon find that you don't have a newspaper to work for.
  and that is why israel has such easy time finding iranian folk to do their bike bombing.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
3. Re:why would censors care? by Rasperin · 2012-05-10 04:45 · Score: 1
  
  2nd RULE: You do not talk about
  
  --
  WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
4. Re:why would censors care? by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-10 08:23 · Score: 2
  
  As though the west doesn't have incompetent policies or mind numbingly stupid implementations? Ever heard of the TSA in the US, bridges to nowhere (also in the US), or the dozens of different rules about who can and can't publish mein kampf? Remember when Ted Kennedy, the US senator (when he was alive) was on the US No fly list? Half of europe still have rules on sunday shopping. You know they used to have rules in the EU about the shapes of food so that it looked like the right quality on store shelves? Ya, the rest of us do some mind numbingly stupid and wasteful things too. Iran doesn't have a monopoly on that.
  In the US if you don't like a law and are rich enough you simply pay politicians to remove it for you. If you're in the UK you sit in the house of lords and you vote against laws, and certain laws don't apply to you, even if you don't live in the country and are in prison in a foreign country you still retain these rights and pay by the way (Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour for example), the same with the commons but it's different rules.
  The Iranians system, because they only recently restarted government hasn't formalized the legal dodging of tax by rich people, and all of that stuff the way the rest of us have over the last few hundred years. Do you know that if you rape a child outside of france but are a french citizen they won't extradite you, even to their one of their closest allies? (roman polanski). In Iran they would probably hang you and stone her to death or force you to marry her, or one, then the other 2.
  If you have a law that demands filtering circumventing that law would seem striaghtforwardly illegal. It's also a perfectly viable system to allow laws to be written or interpreted by decree by judges or the clergy. Fairly regularly supreme courts (or whatever you want to call them) broadly interpret or re-interpret rules to their liking, the french have a particularly complex set of supreme courts that cover different things. Until 2005 the highest 'court' in the united kingdom were the law lords (i.e. judges who were made lords), but they, as part of the house of lords lost their supreme court function only in 2009, 2005-2009 is a fairly complex arrangement.
  The UK very carefully blocked the pirate bay by demanding specific action from ISP's. That's different than saying it is illegal for a person to access the pirate bay from within the UK. Even if we discuss those as being effectively the same thing, they are not. Iran, Saudi etc. would ban even looking at pornography for example, and require ISP's to have filtering to enforce that. Part of their system is to have clerics in government who guide the government on how to keep morals pure. And I mean Iran's guardian council, not the Lords Spiritual in the house of Lords in the UK who theoretically serve a similar purpose but are significantly diluted given that the Church of England doesn't get to write laws.
  Iran *is* a republic. They have no monarchy (arguably the Shah is the legal monarchy/government but in exile but that's a whole other problem), and their 'guardian council' is some combination of the presidency and supreme court wrapped into one body. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good idea. But it is a republican system, as they act,, at least officially, with an elected body that is chosen from some defined subset of the population.
  and yes, it's ironic that the filtering blocked the supreme leaders comments about filtering. That highlights why filtering is unlikely to be particularly good, but that would apply to equally to any country or government type.
5. Re:why would censors care? by tnk1 · 2012-05-10 10:24 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, you are right. Iran is definitely a republic, in the same way Rome was a Republic. In the way way that the Senate and People of Rome was oligarchic, Iran is theocratic. Iran does have elections and more to the point, it does have leaders elected or chosen to carry out governmental tasks that represent others. It does not have a monarch, although the Supreme Leader is pretty darn close to an elective king.
  Iran is not is a fully *democratic* republic nor does it have a very large degree of liberty associated with it. You can still have an oligarchy or a theocracy and have it be a republic. Republics get a good name these days because they usually appear after monarchies fell and are usually democratic. The Islamic republic that Iran is set up as is a throwback to an older, more general sense of a republic where the leaders are not necessarily elected in a fully democratic manner or even with reference to the People.
  To understand how certain countries work, we need to understand that censorship is a valid policy that makes a lot of common sense, particularly to people who feel that others cannot be trusted to make good decisions when given information freely. What we understand, living under regimes that do not strongly enforce censorship, is that hiding information is a tool that can hurt a lot more than it helps in the long run. Humans have no inalienable right to not be censored, that is purely a Western liberal legend, but we do believe with some justification that people make better citizens on average if they are free to learn the facts without being limited by someone else's rules.
6. Re:why would censors care? by circletimessquare · 2012-05-11 12:55 · Score: 1
  
  i don't believe that you cross a line in the sand and human nature magically changes. what works ideologically in one place works just as well, or just as badly, anywhere else. you don't have to believe that a free exchange of ideas works for all people, but that idea you have, in and of itself, when it shapes a country or a society, it weakens that society
  and then the society that does allow the free exchange of information beats the censorial one. whether through cultural dominance, because the children grow up and want to live some place else, or an all out war, or whatever
  a land where better ideas are naturally allowed to evolve and bubble to the top naturally and inevitably beats a land where they lock everything down and try to control the flow of information
  the world IS a contest of ideas. and it either plays out freely, or, by locking down the exchange of ideas, you weaken your society, and therefore doom it to failure, and to be replaced by a society where free exchange does happen
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
LOL by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 02:59 · Score: 5, Funny

He should have said: ant1f1t3r1ng...
1. Re:LOL by JaimeZX · 2012-05-10 05:02 · Score: 2
  
  Wait a minute, you mean all I have to do is say "anti-filtering" and it'l#$^&@&O$p1ethi....###NO CARRIER
Haaa haaa ! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 03:05 · Score: 0

Khamenei, you piece of [censored]!
I have a feeling... by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-05-10 03:14 · Score: 1

... they didn't see it coming.
YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
Democracy by Sav1or · 2012-05-10 03:17 · Score: 0, Flamebait

This is why we need to bring some democracy to these savages. By democracy i mean bombs.
1. Re:Democracy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-12 15:06 · Score: 0
  
  *sigh* ... this is why I as an Iranian hate reading comments on Slashdot when it's Iran related.
  >Brutal anti-Iranian regime in charge of Iran ran by mostly Arabs, Turks, and other non-Persian ethnic minorities
  >Brutal anti-Iranian regime in charge of Iran is hated by all real Iranians
  >Call all Iranians savages for the actions of their regime
  *sigh* ... I can't read this nonsense. I bet you don't know one thing about Iran or Iranians other than what you've seen on TV.
lol asshole by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-05-10 03:17 · Score: 0, Flamebait

and you wonder why the rest of the world hates us?

--
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
1. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 03:33 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  No, I don't. Sand niggers hate us because we *gasp* allow women to do such risque things as show their hair and ankles in public. Oh and we don't stone women to death for being raped.
2. Re:lol asshole by Isaac+Remuant · 2012-05-10 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  For every country there are stupid trolls. I'm just concerned for the two idiots with mod powers who modded him funny.
  
  --
  "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
3. Re:lol asshole by Thanshin · 2012-05-10 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  and you wonder why the rest of the world hates us?
  There's also people who hate him but not you.
  And those people don't really like those others who hate you all because of him.
4. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 04:04 · Score: 0
  
  No, I don't. Sand niggers hate us because we *gasp* allow women to do such risque things as show their hair and ankles in public. Oh and we don't stone women to death for being raped.
  Uh, no...they hate is because we won't stop blowing them up for oil, installing dictators for oil and generally meddling in their lives for oil. Get it, stupid?
5. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 04:22 · Score: 0
  
  US gets most of its oil from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela. Only a fraction comes from places it's bombed, so the popular idea that the US bombs for oil has no basis in reality. In fact, after gaining complete military control of Iraq and its infrastructure, the new government was not only free to not sell to the US, but were allowed to sell a majority of their capacity to China, an economic adversary of the US.
6. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 04:28 · Score: 0
  
  Ok, let's pretend you're right about oil not being 'our' motivation. What do you suppose *was* our motivation for bombing them, and overthrowing rightful governments, and installing petty dictators? (Especially given that said behavior toward them is *precisely* why they hate us so much.
7. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 04:30 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  US gets most of its oil from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela. Only a fraction comes from places it's bombed, so the popular idea that the US bombs for oil has no basis in reality. In fact, after gaining complete military control of Iraq and its infrastructure, the new government was not only free to not sell to the US, but were allowed to sell a majority of their capacity to China, an economic adversary of the US.
  You don't get it. It's not about where the US gets its oil. It's about multinationals who contribute to war mongering politicians getting the oil...that's why we went to war. Don't you get anything? These politicians and corporations are GLOBALISTS. They aren't out treasure hunting to bring the spoils back to the US people or even government (supposedly an extention of the people), they're setting their pals who contribute to campaigns up with wars to get their companies into Iraqi oil fields. Where the oil goes once a multinational oil company gets its hands on it is irrelevant. GET A CLUE, OK???
8. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 05:13 · Score: 0
  
  Uh, no...they hate is because we won't stop blowing them up for oil, installing dictators for oil and generally meddling in their lives for oil. Get it, stupid?
  Well, that's nice. You've summed up the motivations of a very large and disparate group of people in to a simple and popular statement. Western collusion with some pretty nasty regimes, and the wars, are not the convenient answer to all of this, although certainly not helping matters at all. To sum things up in such a simple way would be like claiming that the troubles in Northern Ireland is mainly theological in nature. You reckon we'd all be living in peace if we just sat around in our own little areas of the world, minding our own business? Sure, tell that to Denmark. Most of the killing in that part of the world is fratricidal in nature anyway. We're dealing here with a mindset that sends its faithful out to the streets with molotov cocktails because of cartoons or literature. What should we do when these people are looking to pick up some pretty nasty weapons or sponsor attacks abroad? Conflict here is inevitable, and when action is needed, we definitely need to make sure that decisions are not influenced by jobs for the boys - something that was quite evident in the appointments made during the second Gulf War.
  Well, that's a little more complicated, isn't it. Why not just go back to the evil multinational theory, stupid.
9. Re:lol asshole by Lunix+Nutcase · 2012-05-10 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Funny, because the 911 attackers were predominately Saudi yet the US neither bombed Saudi Arabia, installed any dictator in Saudi Arabia (the current royal family came into power through its own military conquests years before oil was discovered there), nor meddled in their affairs. Our presence currently in Saudi Arabia was at the request of the rulers. Your hilariously oversimplified view fails to explain that.
10. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  Funny, because the 911 attackers were predominately Saudi yet the US neither bombed Saudi Arabia, installed any dictator in Saudi Arabia (the current royal family came into power through its own military conquests years before oil was discovered there), nor meddled in their affairs. Our presence currently in Saudi Arabia was at the request of the rulers. Your hilariously oversimplified view fails to explain that.
  Failed to explain it because it wasn't part of the discussion at hand, but if you want to go into Saudi Arabia, that only bolsters my case. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship that the US gets along with great, because they do what we want. Sorry that's so simple. Let me make it even simplet for you; The US gets along with anybody, regardless of human rights, as long as our multinationals are able to do business in their country, they give us basing rights for US military bases or anythinug else we like. And remember, it's countries that benefit Western companies, not Western populations. Yeah, none of this stuff is as complex as the powers that be would have you think. That false complexity is just a way to discourage institutional analysis.
11. Re:lol asshole by dxkelly · 2012-05-10 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  No, some islamic extremists hate us because there are haters everywhere and haters gonna hate. It's no different here. Look in the mirror.
12. Re:lol asshole by X0563511 · 2012-05-10 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  Probably fans of slapstick of schadenfreude.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
13. Re:lol asshole by SirFatty · 2012-05-10 06:36 · Score: 0
  
  Please just shut your fscking pie-hole. You are stating your opinion as fact, nothing more. Save your false rage for facebook.
14. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  Please just shut your fscking pie-hole. You are stating your opinion as fact, nothing more. Save your false rage for facebook.
  Don't project, I'm not dumb enough to have a facebook account. And I don't care if you "like" me.
15. Re:lol asshole by thomasw_lrd · 2012-05-10 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Or maybe we went to war, because some of our politicians have actually read history, and don't want a repeat of WWII. You know the one where Hitler damn near conquered all of Europe, and was on his way to conquering Asia, until the Japanese did something stupid and pissed off the American people?
  Saddam was an insane sadistic bastard.
  It's funny how no one ever complains about the first war against Iraq? You know the one where the UN told us to go and bomb the fuck out of him, for invading Kuwait and killing untolds thousands of people?
  But you're right, the Democrats blame everything on Bush, so it must be his fault.
  
  --
  21st Century Renaissance Man
16. Re:lol asshole by Beeftopia · 2012-05-10 09:06 · Score: 2
  
  Or maybe we went to war, because some of our politicians have actually read history, and don't want a repeat of WWII. You know the one where Hitler damn near conquered all of Europe, and was on his way to conquering Asia, until the Japanese did something stupid and pissed off the American people?
  Hitler raced through his surrounding countries like a knife through butter. Saddam fought an ineffectual multi-year, very bloody war with Iran which ground to a stalemate. He couldn't even fly an airplane in his own airspace due to the no-fly zone after Gulf War I. World War III was not an issue here. And ascribing to politicians any great wisdom is truly a mistake.
  
  Saddam was an insane sadistic bastard.
  Quite true. But he was the only one brutal enough to keep the peace in that country. You saw what happened with sectarian violence after he was unseated.
  
  It's funny how no one ever complains about the first war against Iraq? You know the one where the UN told us to go and bomb the fuck out of him, for invading Kuwait and killing untolds thousands of people?
  The UN does not tell the United States to do anything.
  The UN is a bureaucratic formality.
  
  But you're right, the Democrats blame everything on Bush, so it must be his fault.
  Politics never stops.
17. Re:lol asshole by tnk1 · 2012-05-10 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  Honestly? All the oil mongering corporations had to do to get the oil was convince the UN to lift sanctions. It wouldn't have been that hard. No one else really wanted those sanctions anyway.
  You know why we went to war? Because there is/was a neo-con belief that it was America's job to spread liberty and also that a war in the Middle East was inevitable anyway. They allowed themselves to become convinced that there were WMDs in Iraq and went after them.
  Of course, Iraq fed into that perception because even though they had probably been destroyed by 2003, Saddam had played the brinksman game of trying to convince everyone he still had them. He did his job so well that no one listened when the Iraqis started to deny they had them.
  That's what it was. Ideology and an idea that they were doing "the right thing". Look at other things where people believed that they were honestly trying to do the right thing and bloodbaths resulted. The French Revolution anyone? It doesn't require a global corporate conspiracy to start a war, although you can be sure they certainly did not stand in the way of it when it came time to sell their services.
  You could blame the Military-Industrial complex, and I'd probably be more inclined to go for that, but I've never bought the idea that oil companies wanted to start a war in the middle of their resource areas. The chaos would keep production unavailable for years and destroy infrastructure that they would want to not have to rebuild to extract the oil later on. Building wells and terminals and pipelines is *expensive* and time consuming. You only fight a war over that stuff if you have no other option.
18. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  Honestly? All the oil mongering corporations had to do to get the oil was convince the UN to lift sanctions. It wouldn't have been that hard. No one else really wanted those sanctions anyway.
  You know why we went to war? Because there is/was a neo-con belief that it was America's job to spread liberty and also that a war in the Middle East was inevitable anyway. They allowed themselves to become convinced that there were WMDs in Iraq and went after them.
  Of course, Iraq fed into that perception because even though they had probably been destroyed by 2003, Saddam had played the brinksman game of trying to convince everyone he still had them. He did his job so well that no one listened when the Iraqis started to deny they had them.
  That's what it was. Ideology and an idea that they were doing "the right thing". Look at other things where people believed that they were honestly trying to do the right thing and bloodbaths resulted. The French Revolution anyone? It doesn't require a global corporate conspiracy to start a war, although you can be sure they certainly did not stand in the way of it when it came time to sell their services.
  You could blame the Military-Industrial complex, and I'd probably be more inclined to go for that, but I've never bought the idea that oil companies wanted to start a war in the middle of their resource areas. The chaos would keep production unavailable for years and destroy infrastructure that they would want to not have to rebuild to extract the oil later on. Building wells and terminals and pipelines is *expensive* and time consuming. You only fight a war over that stuff if you have no other option.
  It's just not true that we went to war for anything other than our multinationals (defense, oil, etc and I should have mentioned the array of multinationals that benefitted and pushed hard for war). Sure, there may have been some people who pushed for war to "spread freedom", but the actual planners know why we went to war and it was to pay the piper. You know, the guys paying our politician's bills?
19. Re:lol asshole by tnk1 · 2012-05-10 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  So again, what was the actual benefit to an oil company in starting a war?
  Higher oil prices? They already had those with sanctions. If they wanted to get them higher, they just use their cartels.
  More oil to exploit? With a destroyed infrastructure? It took almost a decade for Iraqi production to really start up again. Just get sanctions taken down.
  Saddam was not playing ball? And they were sure that who went into power would? They could have just waited for Saddam to die and it would have taken less time.
  Perhaps a multinational company could pull strings to start a war, but what was their motive? Being capable of an action doesn't make you guilty of it by default. Trade doesn't benefit from uncertainties, and war is one big uncertainty.
  You're telling me that people you believe are diabolically intelligent would actually opt to start wars to improve their profit margins, when they could do that in a host of simpler and more effective ways. Ways, I might add, that they are masters of, because they know how to make craptons of money without having to use armies to extract it. It just doesn't really make any sense, unless you are determined to consider them just pure Chaotic Evil.
20. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-10 11:24 · Score: 1
  
  So again, what was the actual benefit to an oil company in starting a war?
  Higher oil prices? They already had those with sanctions. If they wanted to get them higher, they just use their cartels.
  More oil to exploit? With a destroyed infrastructure? It took almost a decade for Iraqi production to really start up again. Just get sanctions taken down.
  Saddam was not playing ball? And they were sure that who went into power would? They could have just waited for Saddam to die and it would have taken less time.
  Perhaps a multinational company could pull strings to start a war, but what was their motive? Being capable of an action doesn't make you guilty of it by default. Trade doesn't benefit from uncertainties, and war is one big uncertainty.
  You're telling me that people you believe are diabolically intelligent would actually opt to start wars to improve their profit margins, when they could do that in a host of simpler and more effective ways. Ways, I might add, that they are masters of, because they know how to make craptons of money without having to use armies to extract it. It just doesn't really make any sense, unless you are determined to consider them just pure Chaotic Evil.
  Look, I'm not a college professor, ok? That said, Hussein had nationalized oil production. If you know what that means, you should know what the "actual benefit" was. Taking a decade to start up again is far preferable to never having access. Saddam not playing ball and they're sure the other ruler would? Uh...absolutely sure. Hello, we took over the country. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're sure. And again, even if there was that risk, it's better than no access at all. All this uncertainty you speak of doesn't really exist. The US practically owns the world, so US planners weren't too worried about losing their grip on an impoverished, but strategically necessary country.
21. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 12:45 · Score: 0
  
  Oil is traded in a global market. If Iranian oil stopped flowing, then places like China and India would increase their consumption of oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and the price would go up for everyone.
  It doesn't matter where you get yours from. It's a commodity, there's basically one price for all.
22. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 16:14 · Score: 0
  
  UM No we, USA have not owned the world in a long time. Last I checked we own China like 30 Trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that. I don't think we own shit anymore. u
23. Re:lol asshole by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-05-10 20:57 · Score: 1
  
  That's right - you owe China several trillion dollars. And what's a dollar? Why, it's a piece of paper that U.S. Federal Reserve Bank says is a dollar.
24. Re:lol asshole by doston · 2012-05-11 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  UM No we, USA have not owned the world in a long time. Last I checked we own China like 30 Trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that. I don't think we own shit anymore. u
  It's funny that you think it's all about money. Nope. In the end, people with power understand one thing: Violence. Who can unleash the more violence than anybody? The US. Money is a spoil gained by war, it's not the means, it's an end. Violence is the means.
25. Re:lol asshole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-12 15:01 · Score: 0
  
  Same Iranian from above here.
  >Sand niggers
  I already explained why that term can't be applied to Iranians as we are neither Negroid nor live in sand so I won't repeat myself.
  >hate us because
  Iranians do not hate America, Israel, Jews, Americans, Europeans, Westerners, etc... or whatever your media tells you we hate.
  >*gasp* allow women to do such risque things as show their hair and ankles in public
  You're confusing Iran with Saudi Arabia. Sexist laws are not the will of the Iranian people but the Islamic Regime in power in our country which we oppose.
  >Oh and we don't stone women to death for being raped.
  Try Afghanistan, kid.
Actually a pretty reasonable statement by Arker · 2012-05-10 03:20 · Score: 2

If I am not misunderstanding, he basically just laid down a fine line that implies that using anti-filter technology IS ok, as long as you arent doing that specifically in order to commit another crime. A pretty reasonable line to parse - and one that would give anyone caught in simple possession of such tools a nice legal out. "I only got that so I could read the Supreme Leaders statement! "

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1. Re:Actually a pretty reasonable statement by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Not exactly. To paraphrase more accurately, he said that any antifiltering software must be used in a way that is compliant with the law. The law says that private citizens are to be filtered. Therefore the correct logical deduction is that only 'special' people are allowed to have filter bypasses. I'm sure this "special" group includes the ayatollah, the president, and most of the government. You wouldn't want to obstruct THEIR access... But regular schmoes are boned.
2. Re:Actually a pretty reasonable statement by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-05-10 04:50 · Score: 2
  
  If I am not misunderstanding, he basically just laid down a fine line that implies that using anti-filter technology IS ok, as long as you arent doing that specifically in order to commit another crime. A pretty reasonable line to parse - and one that would give anyone caught in simple possession of such tools a nice legal out. "I only got that so I could read the Supreme Leaders statement! "
  
  No, from TFA, it's pretty clear that he said that anti-filtering tools are illegal, and that citizens are required to obey the law. Therefore, Iranians can't have anti-filtering tools.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
3. Re:Actually a pretty reasonable statement by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  The way "Iran" is reported in our press, it's easy to forget that the Iranian government is not a monolith. It has factions and power blocs within it. The Supreme Leader's view is not necessarily the same as the view of the minister responsible for internet filtering, which in turn may differ markedly from that of the police or other agents who actually enforce it.
  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was actually triggered by some lowly employee who'd been told "Don't change the filter! These are the rules! Stick to them!", and he knew perfectly well that this was the Supreme Leader's speech, but applied the rules anyway because he's that kind of passive-aggressive jerk. What, if anything, will happen to him will depend on where his immediate superiors stand in the aforementioned power blocs.
Re:Not a wise career move... by RobertLTux · 2012-05-10 03:22 · Score: 1

Pine Box?? heck if it comes to that they might not even get that . im sure there are a few "undisclosed locations" where folks can be left for the critters to feast on.

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Why ... by PPH · 2012-05-10 03:42 · Score: 4, Funny

... does this make me recall the scene with the bridgekeeper at the Bridge of Death in Monty Python's Holy Grail?

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Have gnu, will travel.
1. Re:Why ... by MRe_nl · 2012-05-10 03:58 · Score: 2
  
  Ahmadinejad: How do know so much about anti filtering?
  Ali Khamenei : Well, you have to know these things when you're the Iranian Supreme Leader you know.
  
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  "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
2. Re:Why ... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 04:31 · Score: 0
  
  Because your mental chapter selection is off. This should be bringing to mind the Knights who Say "Icky icky icky pitangping zou-boing" (aka. The Knights who Formerly Said Ni).
  (for those not properly educated in Arthurian myth, there is a word the Knights of Ni cannot hear... much like a sort of censorship, except that the word is "it")
Wait for it... by Apocryphos · 2012-05-10 03:48 · Score: 2

Irany
Re:Not a wise career move... by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-05-10 05:20 · Score: 1

Pine Box?? heck if it comes to that they might not even get that . im sure there are a few "undisclosed locations" where folks can be left for the critters to feast on.
Nah, that's too Zoroastrian for the Iranian government to put up with...

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"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This will be blamed on IT by evafan76 · 2012-05-10 06:27 · Score: 2

When policies set by upper management have no effect and the network runs smoothly, upper management takes the credit for the network running smoothly. When those policies, no matter how retarded they are, have a negative effect on network performance, the IT department gets blamed. I don't see how this will be any different in Iran.
Sigh by Dave+Emami · 2012-05-10 10:47 · Score: 1

Once -- just once -- can there be a post about censorship in Country X where the comments are primarily about the censorship in question, and not US policy towards Country X, nor a list of "tu quoque" complaints about the US?

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"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Why do nobody use this method to protest? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 11:07 · Score: 1

I mean, googlebombing your enemy with ridiculously trivial and prolific words so it can't easily be filtered?
Remember the Grass-mud-horse from China? Same thing.
Clbuttic by chrismcb · 2012-05-10 13:15 · Score: 2

Seems like a Clbuttic mistake
Re:Appropiate, the proof is in rocks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-10 17:49 · Score: 0

This should be obvious due to the fact he is not throwing his feces at people, he has chosen to hand pick rocks and then throw them at people. What more do you want for proof of advanced thought in a non-human?
Re:LOL sand niggers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-12 14:59 · Score: 0

Iranian here.
1. We are Indo-European and have no Negroid blood in us.
2. We do not live in sand nor desert. Iran is mountainous and snowy.
3. We do not care about religion, despite whatever our government puts out as the official religion statistics and we certainly don't care about an Arab religion.
Educate yourself, please.