Slashdot Mirror
Iran Blocks Google, Moves Forward With Domestic Network Plans
hlovy writes "Iran moved forward with their previously discussed plans for a domestic version of the Internet over the weekend, as government officials announced that Google would be one of the first websites to be filtered through their state-controlled information network. According to Reuters, officials are claiming that the country's self-contained version of the World Wide Web, which was first announced last week, is part of an initiative to improve cyber security. However, it will reportedly also give the country the ability to better control the type of information that users can access online."
The Iranian revolution was anything but. My relatives tell me that the Shah was reasonably fair — sure, kind of a dictator, but he and his father had taken the country from an agragrian backwater to a modern industrial society in a matter of two generations — and basically... the U.S. funded student groups, pro-democracy organizations, &c and sowed dissent so that none of them would agree enough to stand in unity... and then gave guns to the Ayatollah. All because the Shah had the audacity to defy U.S. regional interests... funny, since the U.S. basically cemented the power of the Shah too (didn't count on an educated populace making a gradual transition to democracy, eh?). Left to their own devices, in all likelihood there would have been a democratic revolution in the 80s and the entire geopolitical situation would be different.
My father and many of his friends are still here in the U.S. because they were in a University exchange program learning various engineering disciplines when it all went down. It really is a shame... and then the youth attempted a real revolution just before the Arab Spring, and ... well, where was the U.S. when people started disappearing and the Revolutionary Guard was slaughtering people on the streets? Really, the work of the CIA in 70s is amazing: they managed to install such a brutally repressive regime that any hope of the people revolting has been quelled for over 30 years. It's not in our best interests to have a free Iran, or a free middle east. But, hey, when we think the populace is sheepish enough to accept a puppet... time to liberate!