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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."
I wonder how hard the Iranian people need to be shit on before they do something about their awful government?
what is wrong with google (in the eyes of iran) is that it allows for easy access to education. education is the enemy of a religious based government such as the iranian government. education makes the masses less likely to believe in religious doctrine.
basically, this is the equivalent of burning the library of alexandria.
Sounds like a big LAN to me. But, it might be harder for us to get viruses into them now.
In the end it won't be about viruses, but Twitter, Facebook, various blogs and forums, which they want to keep their people away from, so the only source of information becomes the state. If you can't trust the state, whom can you trust?
BTW, Ahmadinejad has won the next election by a landslide, take their word for it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"self-contained version of the World Wide Web"
You're doing it wrong.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Is this going to free up a bit of IPv4 address space?
Unfettered access to information? How unacceptable to my locked-in dogmas.
But nuclear power? That's a technology my stupid caveman government can support.
The Iranians I've met buck the trend with Islam in general -- they seem to be cultured and enlightened people who have a lot of respect for education.
This would present obvious problems for the odious theocratric tyranny they suffer under at home.
Attacking education and the free exchange of idea is the old standby of reactionaries everywhere.
BTW, Ahmadinejad has won the next election by a landslide, take their word for it.
No he hasn't because his final term is up soon and he can't run again. That doesn't matter though as he is just a disposable puppet, the real power lies with the Supreme Leader who doesn't need to concern himself with silly things like elections.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The are specifically targeting Google because Google is not censoring their content. I held a couple shares of Google a couple years ago and censorship based on the demands of certain countries went up for vote. The vote ruled that Google would not censor their content because of governmental demands. This was specifically put up for vote because of their move into China.
Back when I was in college 10 - 12 years ago the internet was this thing that would never be tamed. It was the wild west of free expression that could never be taken away. Censorship would be automatically routed around and all was good. That was a common belief by many here and in academia. I had one professor, philosophy professor with an undergrad in comp sci from Berkeley back in the 70's and a masters in math, who thought it very differently. He felt by 2020 the beast would be tamed, the powers that be would find ways to regulate it and bring it back under their control. The genie, he insisted, would indeed be put in the bottle. Not only that, but it would be come the tool of easy mass surveillance and that the internet would be the end of privacy as we knew it. I didn't want to believe him either, but a decade later here we are. And it seems like he was more right than wrong.
When China erected its Great Firewall it proved the internet could indeed be censored. Is it perfect, no, but it doesn't have to be. Just good enough. Soon a lot of countries were doing it.
Now, if (and I stress if) Iran can create their own internal network and succeeds then it is the end of the "internet" as we know it. The world wide web will be Balkanized so that content can be better regulated by local regimes.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I think we know enough about Iran's internal power dynamic to know that Khameini and the Guardian Council themselves are just figureheads. It certainly was the case when Khomeini was Supreme Leader that the position was unassailable, but Khameini was always considered a relatively weak man, and almost certainly since 2009 Iran is now really run by the Revolutionary Guard and the leadership of the Basij. If Khameini was independent before, he is now a sick old man dominated by the "guardians of the Islamic revolution", and most certainly when he kicks the bucket, the next Supreme Leader will be the Revolutionary Guard's man. The day when the Supreme Leader was an independent authority capable of bringing the other factions to heal are gone. Iran is essentially a thinly veiled military dictatorship.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
IPX/SPX FTW!
...
Half of me wants to punch you right now.
The other half want's to climb to the mountaintop and shout "APPLETALK!!!"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
My relatives tell me that the Shah was reasonably fair â" 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 â" 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.
I really like the United States of America. I stayed there for many many years, and there, I have met with a lot of very, very good friends.
I love the American spirit. I truly admire the original intent of America - At least according to what the founding fathers (and also President Abe Lincoln) had written, including the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address.
However, I have to confess that I simply can not understand what the government of USA is doing, for the past few decades.
Instead of carrying out the mission of the founding fathers, the US government has been doing a lot to the opposite.
Many years from now, historians in the future will compile the things the the government of the United States of America had been doing, since World War I, and they will find out that the United States of America is no more than a "name", a "label", a "billboard".
The spirit that made America so much different from the rest is long gone.
It's unfortunate, but it's the truth.
Nowadays it's not cool to say things that I've said, and I know that I will be modded down.
But, if this message (and others) can be archived, so that future generations get the chance to read, they may get to see a clearer picture of what is happening right now.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !