Iran Allows VPNs To Make Millions In Profit

New submitter Patrick O'Neill writes with this excerpt from The Daily Dot: Anti-censorship technology is de jure illegal in Iran, but many VPNs are sold openly, allowing Iranians to bounce around censorship and seemingly render it ineffective. Nearly 7 in 10 young Iranians are using VPNs, according to the country's government, and a Google search for "buy VPN" in Persian returns 2 million results. Iran's Cyber Police (FATA) have waged a high-volume open war against the VPNs, but it's still very easy to find, buy, and use the software. It's so easy, in fact, that you can use Iran's government-sanctioned payment gateways (Pardakht Net, Sharj Iran, Jahan Pay & Baz Pardakht) to buy the tools that'll beat the censors. To use these gateways, however, customers have to submit their Iranian bank account and identity, all but foregoing hopes of privacy or protection from authorities."

Comments

But who's profiting ?

[invictusvoyd]

Khomeni and the jolly fellas? Is a ban on VPN non enforceable in Iran ?

I thought VPN was easy to block

[fustakrakich]

Maybe the government's censorship stance is a show to pacify the more conservative bunch of clerics.

Re:I thought VPN was easy to block

[invictusvoyd]

Nope , the goverment officials are pocketing all the money .. They dont make the policies ( they are made by religious leaders .. khomeni etc. ) and they dont care .. and dont mind being rich

Re:I thought VPN was easy to block

[fustakrakich]

the goverment officials are pocketing all the money

Well yeah, that goes without saying, and unless the religious leaders own all the financial institutions, they're not making the rules either.

Payment Gateway Access is No Accident

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iranian government benefits from having a list of individuals, identified by bank account no less, who have purchased certain goods or services online. A very handy tool to have when making threats, coercing cooperation or prosecuting those who refuse to cooperate. It also gives a good starting list for surveillance targets, narrowing their initial field to people who are likely to be more interesting and not caught by the blanket keyword filtering on the public and unencrypted Iranian intranet.

Re:Payment Gateway Access is No Accident

[Registered Coward v2]

But merely purchasing a VPN is no proof of illegal behavior. Unless the government is ALSO getting log records of what people see. But the article doesn't make any mention of that, so I assume it's not happening.

Once you have the name and supplier getting the supplier to provide information you want is not that big of a step. You can let most people use a VPN without problems and let suppliers make money; in exchange they provide you with what you want or lose the income stream.

Re:Payment Gateway Access is No Accident

[grcumb]

But merely purchasing a VPN is no proof of illegal behavior.

Yes, yes it is. The very first sentence of the summary says so. I think you win some sort of /. prize for ignoring even that.

Spoiler alert: The story is set in Iran. Turns out the bad guys are actually helping people get around their own laws because they get rich doing it.

interesting application

[nimbius]

If you think this kind of corruption is typical of iran, a bit of light should be shed to help. this type of nearly parasitic marketplace is the direct result of 40 years of unsuccessful economic sanctions and trade embargoes by the west. When Iran says, for example, its nuclear program is peaceful its quite easy to see why: imports of X-Ray and medical isotopes from nato countries are severely restricted if not outright banned. Iran is entirely dependent upon Russia for the nuclear material they receive, and 100% is directed toward the bushehr power plant. Irans every export from rugs to simple spices like cumin are forbidden by western allies. And once every other year, the United States toys with the idea of an invasion, bombing, assassination, or plot to destroy Iranian infrastructure as part of a sadistic and misguided foreign policy of stopping a communist threat that never existed. For americans, this video helps explain some of the market eccentricities of the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:interesting application

[Solandri]

this type of nearly parasitic marketplace is the direct result of 40 years of unsuccessful economic sanctions and trade embargoes by the west.

This is the same bullshit spouted by the Castro government in Cuba. You do not have an inherent right to force other people to trade with you. If they don't want to trade with you, it is their right not to trade with you. If your socio-economic system is robust, it will continue along just fine. Perhaps not as well as if you had had more trade opportunities, but it will continue to function and grow. Just like in old days when transportation was by ox and cart so your selection of trade partners was extremely limited - the economy still grew back then. If your economy doesn't, then the problem is your socio-economic system, not foreign trade sanctions. And the line you give is being trotted out by the people in power in your country to deflect criticism away from themselves (who are the ones truly responsible).

When Iran says, for example, its nuclear program is peaceful its quite easy to see why: imports of X-Ray and medical isotopes from nato countries are severely restricted if not outright banned. Iran is entirely dependent upon Russia for the nuclear material they receive

A nuclear program can be both peaceful and military. Proving that it has peaceful uses does not prove that it doesn't have military uses.

And actually, if you project Iran's population and energy consumption out into the future, sometime around 2030 they cease being a net energy exporter and become a net energy importer. i.e. The oil they produce domestically will not be enough to supply their domestic energy needs, though they may be able to stave that off for a decade or two by increasing oil production. I dropped my opposition to their nuclear program when I figured that out.

On a meta level, due to the inexorable march of technological progress, it is inevitable that rogue nations and eventually terrorist organizations will get nukes. We've been trying to keep the genie in the bottle all this time - that's what all these sanctions and inspections of the nuclear plants in Iran and North Korea are about. But eventually it's going to get out. We need to come up with plans for how to deal with that genie once it gets out of the bottle if we want to survive as a species. Otherwise every petty disagreement we have is going to escalate into a city being nuked.

Re:interesting application

[tacokill]

The market would be more accessible to Iran if they would quit openly calling for the complete annihilation of Isreal. Stuff like that rightfully makes other nations skeptical of their intentions.

The younger generation will eventually rule!

[BoRegardless]

Christian Amanpour, a journalist, who visited her young relatives in Iran when journalists could finally return to Iran, talked with young relatives. She noted those young people just wanted to finish their education and get jobs, homes and families just like their relative who were in Europe; who they communicate with using VPNs, of course.

The young people in Iran are generally sharp and educated (more on VPNs than US kids) and they will eventually change Iran. Even the top leader recently noted they need to break up the monopolies in Iran (read controlled by the Republican Guard) so more innovation and business activity can grow & create more jobs.

Right now, many women in Iran, given half a chance, escape to Europe and never come back. Iran will change whether the Mullahs like it or not.

Re:Bitcoin and Criminals

[Wootery]

No-one can deny Bitcoin is convenient for criminal dealings.

So are vans and baseball bats.