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U.S. Authorizes Sales of American Communication Tech To Iran
An anonymous reader writes "A report at SF Gate notes that 'The United States has lifted portions of two-decades-old sanctions against Iran in an effort to bolster communication between the country's citizens — and potentially aid organization against a repressive Iranian government. Thursday afternoon the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control authorized the sale of hardware and software that pertain to the Internet, instant messaging, chat, e-mail, social networking, sharing of media, and blogging — basically, all things digital. The Treasury Department wrote, 'As the Iranian government attempts to silence its people by cutting off their communication with each other and the rest of the world, the United States will continue to take action to help the Iranian people exercise their universal human rights, including the right to freedom of expression.'"
Do you have to pay extra to not have Stuxnet installed out-of-the-box?
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
>> U.S. Treasury Department: "universal human rights, including the right to freedom of expression"
The fine print: "...unless you advocate the rule of law based on the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights."
You do realize this is simply a cold hearted attempt to bring Iran to it's knees. Hear me out ....
- Iran is subjected to crushing economic sanctions. Their economy makes Newark, NJ look like a paradise on earth.
- Now, Apple and Sony can dump their high priced, effete toys on a naive, unsuspecting populace.
- Billions of dollars flow outward from the Iran economy which, heretofore, had been largely supported by itinerant photoshop interns.
- Profit
- Iran collapses in a heap of shiny trinkets!
USA! USA! USA! (oh, and China...)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Treasury Department wrote, 'As the Iranian government attempts to silence its people by cutting off their communication with each other and the rest of the world, the United States will continue to take action to help the Iranian people exercise their universal human rights, including the right to freedom of expression.'"
Translation: Some very powerful people with a lot of connections made us OK this.
Change that to "a repressive government". No need for the US, of all places, to single out Iran, unless of course, you're trying to sell a war.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As an Iranian I see this as a very positive development.
The computing technology sanctions were doing exactly what the Iranian regime wants, that is to prevent average Iranian from uncontrolled access to information. They filter the web, ban VPN services, limit home Internet access to a maximum of 128Kbps. When people are already sanctioned by their own government, better not to add to that.
I don't see how this solves anything. If the users can have access to VPN/encryption to communicate, the government can now also buy network devices with advanced features such as Deep Packet Inspection or Lawful Interception or Man in the Middle - anything Next Generation Firewall can do, or dedicated devices can do better. Since they are the government they can easily push their own certificates so you wouldn't even know they do MitM unless you look very closely (not many people do).
All of this is rather easily doable, the only cost is performance and scalability, and you only need to throw more money at this to solve these issues.
Particularly after what we did to Saddam's folks with IT equipment in the first Gulf War...
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Hard not to believe they won't be bugged. As an Iranian citizen I'd just grin and bear it, and take an opportunity to learn about trojan codes if possible. The American analogy to this is to grin and bear it over cheap Chinese products, get scrap metal from two-year old appliances people leave at the curb, and perhaps make some things of your own with the really cheap machine tools they send us... like... machine tools that don't break down or contain toxic heavy metals.
There are two sides to this coin.
The other one is that the censorship technology Iran uses is directly based on slightly out-of-date SmartFilter equipment from Secure Computing out of San Jose, California, and some instances of ProxySG software from Blue Coat Systems, also out of California. Secure Computing deny having licensed it to Iran and are claiming they are using it illegally. Blue Coat have not, to my knowledge been approached about their involvement, but would likely claim no knowledge as well. It is not within my own knowledge whether their positions are accurate reflections of reality or mere wilful blindness. It is clear that all the software used is now supported in-house, and they have created several rather exotic in-house modifications.
This change would potentially allow those two companies to actively support the Iranian censorship regime itself. That would be a profoundly negative consequence. (It may seem as though it disallows that, but the Government of Iran does not directly run the censorship regime, and operates through intermediaries, which allows those working for it to claim no knowledge.)
It is also unclear to me what effect this has on the export of cryptographic software - would this also affect the ITAR regulations, removing Iran from the list of countries it is not permitted to export US-produced/hosted cryptographic software to? (Not that people developing cryptographic software don't actively avoid the US anymore, after PGP and the many years of much stronger export controls there.) Clearly no communication software can be effectively private in Iran without strong encryption and quite possibly some form of steganographic protocol masking. That would make the point entirely moot: any unmasked traffic merely gives the authorities more to monitor.
They're going to have to allow the export of high-grade encryption to Iranian customers. Otherwise they're just inviting the regime in Tehran to oppress anyone who tries to use this technology for the purposes specified in the OP...
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
To: Cisco
From: Iran
Subject: OMG HELP!
Body: Dear kind sirs of Cisco,
My name is Barrister Allahu Akbahara Salami Mozambique. I am trying to install your router system here in order to oppress my population in the name of Allah. However, I have been trying to change the root password for your switch. Whenever I try to telnet into it, the welcome message says "America, Fuck Yeah!" and plays a strange intro song. At the same time, all of the webcams, printers, faxes, document scanners go completely haywire and my network traffic spikes.
Also, I have a large inheritance that I believe is meant for you. Could you send me your bank account information so that I may deposit a sum of 89 billion rial ($18 US) into your account?
Yours in kind regards,
Barrister Allahu Akbahara Salami Mozambique
sudo make me a sandwich
Until we want to detain someone without trial and torture them, that is.
When has selling banned items to moderates in Iran ever come to any good?
CAPTCHA="madman". Wow, just wow.
Cisco's lobbying pays off.
Stuxnet Part Deux and add potential eavesdropping capability?
Hmmm... One would think the ability to insert more eavesdropping and spying capabilties ("hidden features? :>) ) may be more the reasoning behind something like this. Perhaps another bonus gift inserted into the software, hardware, or microcode, like Stuxnet did?
They have a big bang for the buck: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash
They would love to see high level Iranian officials using their products.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What if they use this equipment to download american Movies...?
(Filter error: Too much repetition. Fuckyou, slashdot.)
The Iranians already own Bell Labs
Please, just install it. No you can't examine the source code. Just run it. It'll be ok...
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Do US citizens get some sort of sick twisted feeling of satisfaction from this?
"Blame the victim" is SOP in DC. Most Americans would prefer sugar in their Coke and premium cigars but they're too complacent to do anything about it. Neither the gang nor its subjects care much about the people of Cuba, though there are certainly exceptions.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Just another USG subversion campaign. If you don't bend the knee to the USG-led globalist finance system, you are targeted. I wonder what color of Soros-funded "revolution" is coming soon to Iran?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
The mob wants its casinos and plantations back. The mob has a longer memory than any administration or any corporation. So until they are satisfied, nothing will happen.
That order of back doors has arrived.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just a thought that comes to mind.
Part of the reason is the Cuban American Terrorists in the USA and their large political following in Florida. If you look into the history of it, you'll see that they have attacked (even bombed) people in the USA besides just blowing up airliners. Politicians here are not even safe. Some more conspiracy minded people think they were involved with JFK... The ones trained by the CIA are too old today so I'm not so sure they need to worry as much about the younger generation of cubian terrorists.
They get funding from organized crime; which lost all it's ties to Cuba after the revolution and Castro even tricked the USA taking in refugees by sneaking the criminals in with those refugees. The mob doesn't forget stuff; plus the CIA has connections to that mob as well (see the BBC doc 638 ways to kill Castro.) Mob money, political forces, and fear in Florida help perpetuate the irrational politics regarding Cuba. Then you just have to look at the children of the fanatics, who at least sound more fanatic than their parents; to no surprise, because the 1st gen of children of such movements often are much worse than the parents. 3rd generation might be a time to safely transition to sanity without much homegrown blow back. These people are so crazy they want to kill Castro even though he is old unhealthy and out of power - I expect them to be concocting plots to go deface Castro's grave or body for decades to come.
How does starving a 10 year old kid in Cuba help America? Seriously. Most of the people in Cuba today, living with US sanctions, weren't even alive during the revolution. Do US citizens get some sort of sick twisted feeling of satisfaction from this?
If they live in Miami.
Ah yes, the freedomogiston hypothesis.
.: Semper Absurda
Most of them never think about it at all. Anymore than most Cubans think about traffic problems in Nashville (not to imply that there ARE traffic problems in Nashville - don't really know, since I haven't driven through Nashville in ten years) on a regular basis.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Well, now it's OK to sell " hardware and software that pertain to the Internet...basically, all things digital" I guess the flights to Iran will be full of salesmen.
Of course, big business will be taking care that the right stuff will not fall into the wrong hands, eh?
After all, look what happened last time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair#Indictments
Oh wait, looks like they all got a presidential pardon...
Meanwhile, I'm sure that the regime in place will continue to control access to everything, and the chances of this trickling down to the populace are nil.
Better to get the CIA, USAID or whoever to dish out free stuff (satphones, encrypted laptops...) on the borders for smuggling in; compared to the billions we're pissing away in Iraq & AfPak, I'm sure the "coalition" could spare some millions for that.
If the equipment has lawful intercept capability I would think that it would make it much easier to monitor and control communications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception
Here's what happens with oppressive governments - they crack down on people organising to oppose them so sometimes the only people left that can meet in public are the religeous groups. When the oppressive government is overthrown the only groups with their shit together are those religeous groups. That's how the current situation in Egypt developed, and that's more or less what happened in Iran. The difference in Iran is that there was active culling of other factions that had been allied with them during the revolt (eg. they killed off all the communists which really pissed off the USSR), leaving bloodstained fanatics as the only ones left standing.
The people wanted to get rid of the Shah. The Islamic groups wanted an Islamic state. Now with the Islamic state being run by a vanishing group of geriatrics with no line of succesion it's only a matter of time before we find out what the people of Iran currently want.
Dear Sheeple, this message is sponsored by General Atomics - killing innocents since 2001 - and Lockheed Martin - excellence in lethal pork.
It will condition you for the next war. You will have a good feeling until your son dies in some hot place in Persia. But hey, that's how the American Empire Works !
@Censor: Thanks little rodent. Thanks for being part of Killing People For Money And Apartheid
They just wanted to be able to export legally the 171 BlueCoat appliances that are already installed and have been used in Iran for months/years to help the local government's DPI on its people... What about the 34 that are installed in Syria ? Are these legal exports too ?
http://reflets.info/bluecoat-tu-vas-avoir-du-mal-avec-ton-spanous-171-appliances-en-iran-34-en-syrie/
It doesn't change that you are taking the official US state department line at of the time (which had little relationship with reality and was soon abandoned) yet calling me an "Imperialist".
Is this some sort of high school mass debating game?