How does Iran censor cyberspace? -iranian cyber army

gAtO tHiNk the same software that we might use to prevent our children from looking at porn on the Internet is basically the same software that is “sold to regimes everywhere”, but instead of entering pornography-related terms, you put in terms like student union, protest or democratization. or Deep Packet Inspection which I’ll explain later.

** Some of the best commercial grade censorship software sold “to regimes everywhere” comes from Nokia-Siemens and out of Silicon Valley **

The gathering of information as well as covert action against computer networks that occurred in Iran in 2011 can be expected to continue and grow during 2012. Iranian counter-action in the form of a stepped-up cyber and sabotage campaign of their own citizens and against American installations in the Gulf will continue. 

** Control over the flow of information is a key issue for Iran — home to most Internet users in the Middle East with more than 36 million people of the 75 million populace. **

June 2009 Was the first time Iran Internet was turned off – Following the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, the country was cut off for about 24 hours.

Iran-Cyber-Guard Network

The Iranian government asked the three (3) largest Internet service providers to shut down, the problem was they didn’t bother with the smaller ones and a few activists with satellite phoneswere ready and connections to Internet service were providers thru friend and activist in Europe, Dubai or Cyprus.

The technical underground is available to the younger people and they are spreading the word, the pictures, the videos and news from the world that they matter, their voices are being heard. gAtO tHiNk that is the best example of “power to the people” in cyberspace.

** What the west has yet to learn is, there are not many Muslim countries which have a population as networked as that of Iran. :—: The good news is that the more Iran uses cyberspace the more vulnerable they will become **

Instead of using landlines, some Iranian bloggers have taken to using satellite dishes to access the Internet, but they are increasingly being destroyed by special police units. Some of the problems that the Iranian government is facing is that Universities often have their own distinct connections to one another Universities. Major trading houses or major financial centers also sometimes have backup connections.

** Ali Hakim Javadi, Iran’s deputy minister for communications and information technology **

If Iran shuts down the Internet, the price wouldn’t just be political (€€€-$$$). Were Iran to disconnect its oil industries from global information flows, the impact on those industries’ ability to deliver what little they can sell would be enormous. When Hosni Mubarak shut off the Internet in Egypt during the protests there, the impact was disastrous. The five days offline cost the Egyptian economy an estimated €250 million.

Another problem for Iran is other countries are helping the dissidents hide in cyberspace, the US is working on developing the ability to send digital packets that are invisible and are only interpretable for other machines that you set up on the network that know what to look for. It’s called a dark Web infrastructure.

** Tor Project is another source that enables anyone to be anonymous in cyberspace and gain access to otherwise blocked sites **

One way that Iran may be able to control cyberspace in Iran is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) (also called complete packet inspection and Information eXtraction – IX -). The idea is to slow down the Internet traffic so much that you can use a program to inspect each piece of information that comes and goes.

President Ahmadinejad has indicated he wants to provide an alternative, a so-called intranet (internal network Iranians only) which will allow Iranians to communicate among themselves, as the song said recording “every word you said”. China has the best example of a national network that is relatively disconnected from the rest of the global information infrastructure. The Chinese have built software that basically mimics anything we develop in the West and embed surveillance algorithms deeply into them. But I’d be very surprised if the Iranians were able to launch all of this.

** It’s a lot easier to say “you have a cyber army and have defenses to do battle in cyberspace” and let them prove other wise. We are talking about diplomatic bull-shit -mEoW -mEoW gOsE gAtO**

Proxy servers are one of the things that activists have put to work for themselves. So when the state tries to shut down the Internet or when you learn that an authoritarian regime is watching particular sites or trying to disable YouTube or Twitter, proxy servers are very helpful as ways of getting around some of those barriers. They open doors where other doors have been shut.  Gaming consoles such as PlayStation or Xboxes can be turned into devices for sending out information without having to go through Internet exchange points. Learn from the young they know the technology and they will out live you anyway.

As long are there are ways for freedom of speech to get out it’s OK “the world is watching you now”. gAtO oUt

References:

http://www.gatewaygulf.net/teleport.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points

http://www.payvand.com/news/11/dec/1273.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection