Iran to Filter 'Immoral' Mobile Messages

jb.cancer noted an article running on eweek about plans in Iran to censor phone messages sent within the country. At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!

So what is Iran actually like?

[bestinshow]

According to this article [mailonsunday.co.uk] (well worth reading, despite the newspaper it is from), Iran's not that bad.

Sure, the elections may be dodgy, but it's democratic. Nobody seems to like the leaders as they don't represent the people and it's unlikely they'll be in power long. The people are pushing the boundaries in all walks of life. In fact they're far more Western than a country like Turkey. And as for the political situation, it doesn't sound unlike any other Western country - unpopular leadership, dodgy elections, etc.

But no, the Western media portray Iran as a country hell bent of destroying the West, destroying Israel (the viewpoint of one politician who doesn't have that power), and evil evil evil. But in a country with 40% of people under the age of 15, you really don't want to invade badly like in Iraq, and turn them ALL against you for the rest of their lives.

Now whilst the article above is but one story that gives an idea of life within Iran, it is counter to the rhetoric and fearmongering that is so popular within our media.

Predictive text

[evilgrug]

Some of my friends are quite lazy and will not deviate from the first suggestion their phone's dictionary gives them. I've become quite adept at deciphering what predictive text words are likely to correlate to, and that "Safe? sub" is likely to be "Paddys Pub"

I suspect the Iranians will be able to cyber their "citags" and "dual" their "yet" "aunts" just as well as anyone else. Then there's l33tsp3ak, backwards text, intentional misspellings, number sequences, and the like.

Re:Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the US censored IMs, phone conversations, e-mail, or any other means of communication

Yes, they've censored websites. Over and over again. Even Slashdot and Google, courtesy of the DMCA and Scientology's lawyers. Or 2600.

You see, the USA government isn't as concerned with morality as Iran (although they still are a bit, consider the fines associated with Janet Jackson's nipple), but step on the toes of big business, and you'll get slapped down pretty hard.

lp.org

[el_munkie]

Check it out. They're a little out there, and they'll never have any success, but they exist.

Re:Give it a few years.. yes, spread of Islam

[PHPfanboy]

Living in Israel, I'd love to believe you. But seeing as:
- most of the countries round here are full of Muslims and they aren't pushing for a Caliphate (not caphilate you ignoramus)
- and the fact that most of the Muslims in Europe actually ran away from the traditional societies they lived in previously (and seems they liked it enough to stay in Europe) ....your posting is basically crap.

However, it would be an interesting variation on the "we buy your oil, you buy our goods" relationship. It would be "you keep the oil, and we take all your loonies to make sure you don't get toppled". Sounds quite reasonable actually and certainly cheaper than a land invasion.

Leet?

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Isn't this kind of crap easily gotten around with leetspeak (substituting similar numbers/symbols/creative misspellings for the original words)?

Reaons for the Iranian Revolution....

[arthurpaliden]

So, is histroy going to repeat itself???
Among the reasons stated for the revolution:
Focusing of government surveillance and repression on the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, and other leftist groups, while the more popular religious opposition organized, grew and gradually undermined the authority of his regime;
Wikipedia..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Re volution

Re:and the problem with them doing this is???

[ScentCone]

why does it matter to us what Iran chooses for messages in its own country

Because it provides some more insight into a country with a culture (or, at least - and worse - a government) that thinks it's reasonable to arrest people based on hair styling [cnn.com]... and which is busy cranking up a uraniam enrichment program, and which speaks in terms of wiping other countries off the map (you know, countries that don't tow their line, religiously). It DOES matter, because it helps to come to terms with the fact that the people running that country are sitting on a huge oil reserve, are running their economy into the ground (making them more likely to make bad decisions about their dealings with others), spend a lot of their cash on directly and overtly supporting terrorist organizations, are busy doing plenty to destablize the new governments in their neighboring countries.

Because we don't live in a vacuum, and what happens in that country can dramatically impact what China does, what Russia does, and what the rest of the world does. They CAN govern as they see fit, I suppose - but if you want to put your head in the sand about the coupling of a soon-to-be-nuke-armed crazyland of medieval-minded thugocrats with their slightly-slow-on-the-uptake new realizations about net-based communications, fine. But don't act surprised when they spend some of their oil revenue to fund violent third parties that would like to see that same world view shape the future of, say, all of Africa - where they're already getting traction.

Death Penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

If the jury is prepared to die in the event the accused is exonerated, then yes - let's have the death penalty. If there is no death penalty for the wrongful administration of the death penalty, then that is an even bigger hypocrisy. We have the benefit of education, centuries of judicial experience. Some emotional restraint on the state's part is necessary. Besides, warehousing humans is cheaper than the over-extensive due process (necessary appeals to avoid the inevitable mistakes) necessary in death penalty convictions.

Re:Question:

[morari]

The problem is similar to Cuba, it is pretty easy to keep a regime going for a very long time if there is a widespread perception of an iminent external threat. If a country is attacked the people are going to side with their government regardless of what it is like. The Russians sided with Stalin, the Cubans side with Castro, the Iranians will side with the mullahs.

And Americans initially sided with George W. Bush...