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Iranian State Goes Offline To Avoid Cyber-Attacks

Posted by samzenpus on from the I'm-going-home dept.

DavidGilbert99 writes "The Iranian minister for telecommunication has said that the government will be taking key ministries and state agencies offline in the next month to protect sensitive information from cyber-attacks. However this move is just the initial step in an 18 month plan to take the country off the world wide web, and replace it with a state-controlled intranet. From the article: 'The US began offensive cyber-attacks against Iran during the presidency of George W. Bush when the Olympics Games project was founded. Out of this was [born] the Stuxnet cyber-weapon, which was designed to specifically target the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in Iran.'"

9 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Talk about... by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

    I feel sorry for the Iranian people, who by-and-large, are reasonably normal, but are stuck with a crap theocratic government through little fault of their own.

    Will BP and their friends ever be held responsible for the damage they've done to world peace in the name of profit for their shareholders?

    1. Re:Talk about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Do you think they would still have a crap theocratic government if the US and GB had not overthrown their democratically elected government in 1953 and replaced it with their own dictator?

    2. Re:Talk about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Extremely good point -- unfortunately, few people care nor know about this nowadays, at least in countries where it might make a difference. Don't annoy Americans with actual facts unless it makes our country look good. Go to YouTube, look up "History of Iran & USA in 10 min".

    3. Re:Talk about... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Informative

      He's referring to the reasons the US/UK engineered the 1953 Iranian coup

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    4. Re:Talk about... by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The US and Israel are both governments where you can't be elected without being overtly religious. They're also hyper-aggressive and have engaged in acts of war against Iran, which has done .... what, exactly? Which states have crap theocratic governments again?

    5. Re:Talk about... by Sir_Sri · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe, but the UK and SU overthrew the government previous to that in WW2 because it was on the verge of allying with Nazi germany, and that was 41, and the Shahs dynasty was only installed in 1925 (which is essentially the same period as the ottoman states that were formed after WW1 including Jordan, Egypt, Iraq etc.).

      Political forces have play for a lot of reasons. One of the things you're seeing in the arab spring is that the people of those countries aren't really pleased with their governments for, for example, making peace with israel, making deals with the americans etc. The Shia revolution that ended up in charge did so in large part as a reaction to westernization (secular institutions, relatively liberal economic policies, in particular an alliance with the US etc.). All of those things could have come into being under the government structure from 53, and could have ended up with a similar outcome. The relatively messy revolution might not have materialized the same way had their been more democracy, but you can elect bad leaders rather than have them seize power in a revolution or coup. Just look at india and pakistan, california, israel the US federal government, the Eurozone leadership etc. They've all elected leaders with some really bad, including demonstrably wrong, policies. But that's the risk you take with any form of government. Iran is particularly extreme because they're particularly disliked, but that comes with the territory.

    6. Re:Talk about... by blackest_k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I know it is undemocratic but I really like the house of Lords, hereditary peers especially. They owe nothing to nobody and have proven time and time again to be the only barrier to government excess.

      They say what they think and that makes a difference. I don't even have an issue with the clergy since they are at least principled can you say the same for a retired politician who's been bought and sold their whole career?

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  2. The ultimate in egress filtering by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tough break for the Iranian people, but like other countries with draconian Internet access policies I suspect that a way will be found. As Cuba's government found out; you should never underestimate the ability of large numbers of USB sticks gifted by benefactors to facilitate the free flow of restricted information; it just takes a little longer, that's all. For the rest of us though, this is excellent news. When the next cyber-weapon gets loose on the the Iranian "Halal-net", or whatever the regime is referring to it as this week, we can sleep easy knowing that our industrial control systems are already air-gapped from the Iranian ones. With that element of risk removed, I suspect the next attack on Iranian infrastructure probably isn't going to be quite so "restrained" as the last few have been.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  3. The end of the internet as we know it? by ducomputergeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    10 - 15 years ago I remember professors and others ranting and raving that the internet would usher in a new era of free flow of ideas around the world and because of the way the internet was designed it could not be filtered or stopped. Which given the cost of computing at the time seemed reasonable.

    But by 2002 that had all changed. I remember taking a class which the professor had been teach philosophy and computers for close to 20 years at that point. He went into the theory behind "hyper linked text" and the idea and concept of what the "world wide web" originally meant to people like him. The closest thing we have to their philosophical idea today is wikipedia where you can go read an page with links to other pages about related topics/events/etc..

    By that time "surfing the web" was not a web of interlinked hypertext, but was a rather linear experience. The research at the time showed this was how most peopl thought and used the web and was reflected in general web site design espcially of corporate sites and news sites. Fast forward 10 years later and now we have apps on our phones. Many of those apps rely on the underlying protocols of the internet, but most take you to a single site or service.

    Back to the original point though was this idea that all information wanted to be free and would be free. To the academics the genie was out of the bottle and would never be put back in. My professor thought otherwise and that we'd see a slow march towards fragmenation as the powers that be learned to tame the beast.

    Then came China who seemed to do it with the great firewall. Are the chinese 100% effective? No. But you don't have to be 100% just effective enough. Once they did it and proved it could be done other countries started erecting national filters, firewalls, and monitoring equipment.

    Now China has something the Iranians do not: a billion people. That is a critical mass for a user base and something Iran doesn't have. But, if the Iranians do prove it can be done effectively, and there will be a lot of other countries watching, then it's likely we'll see the end of the internet as we know it over the next 10 - 15 years as more countries and groups will create their own private networks which they can control.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.