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Iran Developing 'Halal' Domestic Intranet 248

An anonymous reader writes "The WSJ reports that Iran is beginning a crackdown on Internet use by its citizens, creating new blocks against foreign content and stepping up surveillance of browsing habits. Internet cafes in Iran have 15 days to set up security cameras and start collecting information on customers, and people are finding it increasingly difficult to use social networking sites. The new restrictions are likely being implemented now to head off dissent and protests about the upcoming parliamentary elections. According to the article, 'The network slowdown likely heralds the arrival of an initiative Iran has been readying—a "halal" domestic intranet that it has said will insulate its citizens from Western ideology and un-Islamic culture, and eventually replace the Internet. This week's slowdown came amid tests of the Iranian intranet, according to domestic media reports that cited a spokesman for a union of computer-systems firms. He said the intranet is set to go live within a few weeks.'"
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Iran Developing 'Halal' Domestic Intranet

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  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:49AM (#38608834)

    creating new blocks against foreign content and stepping up surveillance of browsing habits

    Sounds familiar for some reason.

    • by buchner.johannes ( 1139593 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:17AM (#38609088) Homepage Journal

      Check out this great and inspiring talk by the Tor project: 28c3: How governments have tried to block Tor [youtube.com]

      There are more Tor users in Iran (second-largest IIRC) now than in Germany!

    • Yeah, there's a lot of pot calling the kettle black going on here isn't there? "It's only evil if they do it" seems to be the ridiculous message we are expected to accept.

      But all this talk about Iran makes me ask "why is Iran an enemy of the US?" Iran is an enemy of Israel to be sure. But I would really like to see it spelled out for me one day what it is that makes them an enemy. When we are talking about China, the former Soviet Union, Cuba or the like, we can paint pictures of authoritarian governmen

      • by betterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:51AM (#38609484)

        why is Iran an enemy of the US?

        Might have something to do with this:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Iran [wikipedia.org]

        Also, this:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax [wikipedia.org]

        This too:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution [wikipedia.org]

      • by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @10:08AM (#38609716) Homepage Journal

        As a US citizen you can still travel to Iran freely for business and tourism (for now). Technically they aren't an enemy (unless you buy the whole "Axis of Evil" rhetoric). The problem is that "we" don't want the Nuclear club getting any bigger, and when people say "would destabilize the region" they mean "Israel is likely to nuke Iran back to the stone age in a preemptive attack". This would cause several arab and muslim states to strongly consider nuking Israel, of note Iran and Pakistan. Syria doesn't have nukes but they wouldn't need a lot of convincing to start lobbing bombs across the border. It's a small region (think New Jersey) and they don't need to go very far.
         
        If you look at the activity that's been going on lately, we sent an expensive spy drone over in to Iran, a missile research lab just outside of Tehran mysteriously exploded, and both the Chinese and the US both launched some high tech gadgetry in to space that orbits over Iran every few hours. Whatever they see down there must be pretty fucking juicy if we've talked the entire European continent to stop buying Iran's oil (1/5th of total current production) in the middle of a global recession.
         
        So yeah, as always in this region there are a lot of things going on here -- Iran is a huge country (population 75 million, geographic size, wealth) with Nuclear ambitions, doesn't like Israel, and we don't want them getting the bomb. We are trying to protect Israel* via economic sanctions against Iran and stabilize the region, Iran is fighting for their ability to defend themselves and is holding the world's economy hostage.
         
        *Why? This is the real question. Zionism sounds like a dirty word (it's not), but that's my guess

  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:53AM (#38608872)

    Why is Iran doing this to itself? It's so needlessly self destructive. Just stop it. Behave yourself, the sanctions will come off, and we can all get along. Aggressive posturing, locking your people off from the world, and developing variants of nuclear technology best able to produce weapons grade material... what is the point of all this? Best case you'll get a bomb and then what? Hundreds of years of MAD as the rest of the world contains you? That sounds like loads of fun. If you just stopped all this we could normalize relations to everyone's benefit.

    • by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:56AM (#38608900)
      You really haven't been listening have you? The Iranians have been telling anyone who wants to listen why they are doing this. They have said that their goal is the subjugation of the entire world to Islamic rule, as understood by them.
      • by Kupfernigk ( 1190345 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:04AM (#38608948)
        You don't think that ordinary Iranians want this? Iran is run by three power blocks: the religious authorities, the "revolutionary guards" aka "just another set of Middle Eastern military rulers that have stolen the oil revenues", and the very weak civilian Government with a President who, just like a Republican candidate, has to pretend to be a religious fruitcake to keep power.

        I doubt Iranians want any of this. But the three power blocks have to posture and jockey for position, and this is what happens.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

          Man, the Iranians have it really bad. I mean, it's not like the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches keep trying to outdo each other in new levels of stupidity over here in the good ol' U S of A!

        • by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:34AM (#38609280)

          with a President who, just like a Republican candidate, has to pretend to be a religious fruitcake to keep power.

          You haven't been paying much attention to Ahmadamnutjob or his Republican counterparts lately, have you? It's obvious they actually believe their religious fruitcakery. There's no pretending involved.

          Especially that Santorum guy. Wow. He's basically Ahmadamnutjob in a sweater vest.

        • Sorry if I gave the impression that I was talking about the average Iranian, I used Iranian to refer to what those in power in Iran have been saying since the Revolution.
          However, I think that you overemphasize the distinction between the three power blocks. In order to have significant power in either the Revolutionary Guards or the "civilian" government you must be a member of, and have a power base within, the "religious authorities". Your summary implies that the three groups are competing for power, w
      • by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:09AM (#38608994)

        It's kind of an "in one ear, out the other" thing. Like when you get down into Muslim theology, the concepts of dar al-harb vs dar al-islam, the fact that Mohammed - a rapist, a pedo, not to mention a liar who repeatedly broke treaties - is the idea of the "perfect man" whose example Muslim leaders are expected to follow.

        Nobody wants to believe it when they hear what comes out of the mouths of Iranian leaders, or Palestinian leaders, or Muslim Brotherhood leadership in countries like Syria or Lebanon or Egypt, because it means some pretty awful things. Kind of like how the world didn't want to think that the Nazis were REALLY that bad when Chamberlain was negotiating with them (how'd that turn out again?).

        Personally, I'm not one to believe that all Muslims are bloodthirsty, nor hate-filled. But there are enough of a minority that are to do some really nasty things in the world, and it's a religion in desperate need of something akin to the Protestant Reformation that Christianity went through to inject some much-needed sense and throw out a lot of the nastier stuff.

        • The Protestant Reformation injected sense and threw out 'nasty' stuff? Like what exactly? They went from burning heretics to burning witches? Oh, and the Thirty Years' War was a barrel of laughs too.
          • by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:56AM (#38609572)

            Did I say it was easy? No, but the reforms that happened - and not all of them happened all at once, nor cleanly - wound up massively cleaning up the Christian religious problems. Throwing out a ton of corruption, and leading up to the rise of secularization and separation of church/state that the US, Canada, and most of Europe now take more or less for granted (Ireland/England being two notable exceptions).

      • by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:10AM (#38609004)
        Apparently you have not been listening. The majority of Iranians are just as pissed off about this as you, and wish their government would stop it. However, their government has more guns and the standard of living hasn't descended to levels in Egypt or Syria yet. It'll get there soon, and then they'll the latest to join the Arab Spring. The Iranian people aren't the problem.

        What I'm scared of is we have Cold War 2.0 in the Middle East. With troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran posturing in the Straights of Hormuz, it wouldn't take much to push the US to shift the carrier fleet over there and up the proposed trade embargo to a compete military blockade. I would personally not like that to happen; We've spent enough on pointless wars. However, we're dealing with political leaders who believe in religious fundamentalism. All bets on a measured and diplomatic response to any situation are off when you come up against that level of outright lunacy.
        • by jpapon ( 1877296 )

          With troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan

          Not to be pedantic, but there are no longer US troops in Iraq.

          it wouldn't take much to push the US to shift the carrier fleet over there and up the proposed trade embargo to a compete military blockade

          I disagree. The USA has no desire to cut off 5% of the world's oil production, not to mention seriously pissing off the Chinese (who get 20% of their oil from Iran). The only thing that would incite a complete military blockade of Iran is a nuclear test.

          • Iran has threatened blockading the Straights anyway; That can only mean military escorts for freight vehicles passing through, which will only raise tensions. Or s it all just impotent posturing, as I'm hoping?
        • by Moryath ( 553296 )

          Apparently you have not been listening. The majority of Iranians are just as pissed off about this as you, and wish their government would stop it.

          And yet, every time there's a chance to show it and tell their government "knock it the fuck off", they... go to rallies calling the US the Great Satan, Israel the "little Satan", and calling for Islamic theocracy.

          However, their government has more guns and the standard of living hasn't descended to levels in Egypt or Syria yet. It'll get there soon, and then the

          • by Moryath ( 553296 )

            for disobeying his orders when she told him not to date a non-Muslim guy.

            Curse my editing. Should have read "when she told him she wanted to date a non-Muslim guy."

            • Yeah, done that a couple of times myself. I understood the point, though.

              To reply to your post; I never said that Iranians didn't hate Western democracy. They can hate their current political leaders and America at the same time; They're not mutually exclusive activities. I don't know what they want, but I do know they don't want what they have right now.
              • by Moryath ( 553296 )

                I think that becomes the problem, though.

                The majority of Iranians may "dislike" their current theocratic regime, when it stops them from doing perfectly normal, human, inconsequential things like choosing a certain haircut, or women wanting to wear makeup, or a thousand other things. But they are willing to put up with it because these are "religious authorities" telling them so. And they are willing to go along when these same religious authorities tell them that anyone not of their sect of Islam, much les

      • It's not the Iranians, it's their government.

        • Yes. Iran gov't found it to be very tricky business. On one side - improve education to match the standards of the developed nations. On the other side - keep people contained to Islamic dogmas.

          That's just impossible: highly educated people tend to be libertarian.

          But at least one thing Ayatollah got right [wikipedia.org] is to not try to forcefully prevent the brain drain nor prosecute or condemn those willing to leave Iran.

          • by jpapon ( 1877296 )

            That's just impossible: highly educated people tend to be libertarian.

            Citation??? There are so many important philosophers, economists, scientists, etc... who were not Libertarian. Now if you had said that "highly educated people tend to be less religious" then sure... but Libertarian? Do you not realize how many highly educated socialists there are?

            • That's just impossible: highly educated people tend to be libertarian.

              Citation??? There are so many important philosophers, economists, scientists, etc... who were not Libertarian. Now if you had said that "highly educated people tend to be less religious" then sure... but Libertarian? Do you not realize how many highly educated socialists there are?

              Sorry, I haven't realized that thanks to US political propaganda the word is so loaded.

              I meant of course "libertarian" in its original sense [reference.com], not the loaded one [wikipedia.org].

              To quote the dictionary:

              libertarian
              noun
              1. a person who advocates liberty, especially with regard to thought or conduct.
              [...]

      • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        [[citation needed]]

        Everything they've been saying is that they have a right to defense (they do) and protect themselves. This is what India and Pakistan did, quietly, about 15 years ago. Now, they may have ulterior motives (they've stated before that they wouldn't mind turning Israel into a glass parking lot) but nuclear deterrence is something any nation* should strive for, and we're less than 20 years off from ICBMs being an off the shelf part/system that nearly every country will have. India and

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why is Iran doing this to itself?

      Because the theocrats are in control. The Mullahs, if you will.

      Behave yourself, the sanctions will come off, and we can all get along. Aggressive posturing, locking your people off from the world, and developing variants of nuclear technology best able to produce weapons grade material... what is the point of all this?

      The point is, as with all despotic regimes, control of "their people." There's a major flaw here in failing to take into the lengths to which a despotic regime

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jpapon ( 1877296 )

        But Mohammed created a religion that divides the world into "us" and "not-us" (dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb) with a primary mode of interaction consisting of antagonism and violence

        That sounds like Christianity for most of it's history... until separation of church and state prevented Christianity from starting more wars.

      • But Mohammed created a religion that divides the world into "us" and "not-us" (dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb) with a primary mode of interaction consisting of antagonism and violence, and that's the perspective by which the Iranian theocrats view anyone who isn't of their particular sect of Islam.

        Iranian fundamentalism is being fed with constant sanctions from the other side. One has to also consider that Iran as a whole not yet completely over the Iran-Iraq war. And we in West are not helping Iran to get over.

        Otherwise, the dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb doesn't seem to be much different from jew and goy, a non-jew.

    • by Coeurderoy ( 717228 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:06AM (#38608960)

      First what is good for the majority of iranian is not necessarely good for the current leadership..
      Second foreign influence in Iran do not have a very good track record, so it is not "that tempting".

      You can look at the situation in North Korea where it's even crazier, but obviously there are enough people benefiting to control the rest.

      And maybe closer to your home: why are the US doing this to itself ? It's so needlessly self destructive. Just stop it. Behave yourelf, you do not need to put 1% of your adult population in prison, and rob the rest of all their saved, current and future cash with shemanigans like subprime financing, inflated student loans, etc.. what is the point of all this ? Best case a couple of manager get more money that they could possible spend in their lifetime, and then what ? Hundreds of years of eroding of civil liberties while the rest of the work shakes it's head ? That sounds like loads of fun. If you stopped all this you could have a nice life and everyone benefit..
      And you know what ... not gonna happen real soon now ...

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:18AM (#38609108)

        The US problems are nothing like the problems in Iran. US problems stem from greedy people just being greedy. Iran problems stem from morons believing in horrible ideas that are illogical and tend to violate human rights. Really, like the fucking heavens opened up and a voice boomed out that said "LOCK DOWN YOUR INTERNETS BECAUSE I SAID SO" Religion is poison. If you spend time obsessing about it, you are tainted.

        • As far as I'm concerned, no deity would stand for its blessed creations being stifled.

          If Allah blessed them with brains, why would he then command they be restrained?

        • It is exactly the same thing, agreed life in Iran is worse than in the US, but there are much less differences than you think between the ideas of the majority of the US citizens and Iranian citizens.

          "The voices said" : Homosexuality is really very very bad, nonono => no to gay mariage in the US, being gay is " choice" (yea after all they could just all because priest and not have sex...), etc ... in Iran the government offers "free" operations to "solve the problem.
          "The voices said": Drugs are bad, ok i

      • It's interesting.

        In both cases, the citizens are being ass-raped by the government.

    • You could ask this about all the stupid things any government does. Replace Iran with Soviet Union and you get pretty much the same questions. Or North Korea. My opinion is that governments are not run for the benefit of the people, so it is easy to understand.
    • by arielCo ( 995647 )
      It's rather the theocrats doing it to Iran, for their own benefit. They know that it's better to be kings amid misery than having the country prosper and kick them out of power.
    • by Kozar_The_Malignant ( 738483 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @11:22AM (#38610606)

      Why is Iran doing this to itself? It's so needlessly self destructive.

      Super simplified answer is, "They're Shia." It is essentially doctrine that everyone's out to get them. They don't trust anyone. Also, the country is run by religious zealots who truly believe that's it been all downhill since the Fatimid Caliphate in the 900s. The educated class is seen by the leadership as both traitors and heretics who must be rubbed out.

      • Because education is the universal anodyne to religious beliefs of all sorts.

        This does leave them in a quandry, not unlike the Nazi quandry in WWII. In order to function in a competitive way in modern global society, you have to master technology. Technology cannot be mastered by the stupid and uneducated and ignorant and culturally isolated -- it requires education and open communications. Education is the universal anodyne to religious beliefs of all sorts.

        This is a pretty serious Catch-22. A r
  • by A10Mechanic ( 1056868 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:54AM (#38608876)
    The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
    • Truly, a "Halal Mary" towards cyberspace.
    • Can I pilot the Millennium Camel?

    • This is going to be a golden age for Iranian hackers ... just imagine the magnitude of bugs reimplementing the internet!

      Aside from the fact that the average person might not have a computer. And that they might get beaten/imprisoned/killed for hacking.

    • by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

      I look forward to the new technologies that will result from this.

      They take away the arms in Poland during WW2, and the Polish build bombs, guns, and APCs (!) in their garages and basements.

      They take away the Internet in a country full of energetic, intelligent youths like Iran and we'll instead have coders working on a sophisticated darknet that is easy to use and difficult to track. Stuff like Tor and Freenet are nice but neither can be called user friendly or efficient.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:56AM (#38608902)

    and has begun implementing it. The corporations will be pleased!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:57AM (#38608910)

    The good news is that soon, we may have some left over IPv4 again.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:00AM (#38608920)

    This gives a strong signal that your ideology doesn't stand up to whatever else is out there. Alright, so it's strongly worded against "the west", for which read American Freedom And Liberty And Democracy (And Republicanism) And Commercialised Happiness For All[tm], which is strongly evangelised by the world's highest tech army, navy, and air force. Before you bristle: Yes, there is a strong case to be made that it is in fact an ideology with religious fervour backing it to match. The lot of you aren't nearly as Christian as you think, you're American[tm] first. Bristle on.

    The point, however, is that ultimately such a strong signal of negativism will be self-defeating. They're defining themselves as something they are not, instead of as something they are. The more they have to denounce most of the world to keep to their way, the more of their people will stray from that way and find other ways to life fulfullment. And it leaves lots of attack angles for competing ideologies. Nevermind the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, that's just the pry-bar. The more you clam up, the more others will poke at you.

    • by jpapon ( 1877296 )

      The lot of you aren't nearly as Christian as you think, you're American[tm] first. Bristle on.

      I don't know many Americans who would bristle at that. Most Americans strongly believe that "Americanism" is an ideology and way of life, and back it with religious fervor. Most Americans would agree with the statement "We're right, they're wrong" with virtually no hesitation.

  • by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:03AM (#38608934)
    in terms of popularity halal will rank above gopher but below telnet
  • Wear a burka.
  • Atheism (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 )

    will insulate its citizens from Western ideology and un-Islamic culture

    No wonder atheism is on the rise. Religion was a great idea a thousand years ago, but it's time it was consigned to the history books.

  • by Jawnn ( 445279 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:09AM (#38608992)
    And I mean clerics of every stripe and color. Once you've empowered people with the weight of "the word of gawd", allowing them to govern based on that authority is a recipe for suffering and injustice. It has always been so, and it always will be. The world will be a far, far better place when we can tell all the believers to STFU about what everyone else must do and to focus more on walking their own spiritual path.
  • So Iran is going to be the next state where the people finally have had enough and overthrow the overbearing dictatorship.
    You'd think these dictators would get a clue from recent history and simply ease up a little instead of getting deposed by a popular revolution (and usually executed) but they never seem to get it.
    Have the freedom protests started in Iran yet?

    • by dintech ( 998802 )

      They kind of tried a little bit already and got totally stomped on.

    • by fnj ( 64210 )

      We've been waiting more than 60 years for North Koreans to get a clue and a backbone, yet you think Iranians will wake up after half that time under the most cynically intolerant religious bootheel in living memory? It took being ground into dust by the world's two mightiest powers, with very outsize help from a third power that was no piker, to snap the people of the Third Reich and the militarized Japanese Empire out of their acquiescence to evil. And their respective religious fervor wasn't even driven b

  • Wrong name (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:16AM (#38609076)

    They should call it "Crackdown on Internet Piracy" and they would become best buddys with some congressmen.

    The current political elite is loosing it's grip. So it is only natural that they start fighting. Same here, same there.

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      The current political elite is loosing it's grip. So it is only natural that they start fighting. Same here, same there.

      No they aren't. The political elite in every government, every society has always had infighting, ranging from "office politics" (for lack of a better term) to outright armed struggle. And it isn't even limited to government. The political elite (or its equivalent) in any organization have infighting to some extent. Its human nature: there is always the desire to consolidate power or wield as much authority as possible. As long as there are multiple elite in an organization, the amount of power that ca

      • by mseeger ( 40923 )

        IMHO: The internet is as destructive for the current form of politics as for the music industry. If we will have a free internet, ways and means of politics are changing massively and render most political capital of the current political generation meaningless.

        Since they start to realize it, they start fighting the free internet. Just my POV.

  • by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:21AM (#38609130) Homepage Journal

    This can only work towards continuing the psychopathic elite control over people and causing problems that otherwise would not exists.

    It is by the people of the planet talking with each other that the power of the psychopathic elite lose their power over the people, as the people find there are no ghost in the closet or monsters under the bed in reference to people around the world.

    Such censorship and control need to be deteriorated in every way possible..... As a matter of peace.

    When you see "US", "China", "IRAN" etc., in the news in terms of insinuating all they people of that country...... you are being lied to. i.e. US is going to war... does not mean the people, but rather the few who think they are a country called the United States and lied their way into a position of commanding war.

    The mass majority of the people of this planet are to busy living their daily lives to have time for war. Its only the few who play their game at the expense of the rest of us. And they need to be ended.

  • by Coeurderoy ( 717228 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:30AM (#38609206)

    ... the same, oups wait, no they never had an open Internet.

    Iran is on the Internet since approx: 95/96 (ok at that time they had about 19200b/s to connect them to the university of vienna...
    KSA started to authorise Internet only around 2001 and only after they had installed a "country firewall"....

    But all this shows that Internet is a tool, not a "solution"... Internet does NOT "route around sensorship", people do using the tools at hand, and it is not easy because the means of sensorship are many...

    Making in country hosting very expensive and throttling international internet access are the most comment means...
    Manipulating the search engine, either because you own it, or through various "preservation" laws another...
    Make laws about what you are allowed to say is an all time favorite..

    The Jim Crow laws have been repelled, including the laws forbidding to critisize them, but equivalent laws about drug policies, Intellectual properties policies, etc... abound in all the world...
    With the effect that even with an "open internet" the info might "be there", but no local person therefore no "locally connected" person can point to it... (thing thai monarchy for an example concerning another "ally")

    Only civic movements can change things, and even then "your mileanage might vary", (see the result of the "arab spring", now the new arab winter...)

  • by FunkyELF ( 609131 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:31AM (#38609216)

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX46Qv_b7F4

  • He's convinced every young person in Iran to hate the regime...

    GrpA.

  • If I'm not mistaken...and I think this came from the PBS/Frontline eppy about it...wasn't the Mubarak regime's decision to cut the internet the last straw in their revolution? That is...when the cut the internet...things really blew up. Pissed the ppl off big time.

  • by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:33AM (#38609250)
    Just go back to the previous Slashdot post http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/004211/ap-and-28-news-groups-to-collect-fees-from-aggregators [slashdot.org].

    In Iran, they build a halal closed internet. Here in the US they let the entrenched media conglomerates control the flow of information by abusing civil law to maintain a de facto cartel.

    Iran has a state enforced religious code, in the US they privatize the enforcement to self serving corrupt economic interests that want to maintain the status quo by eliminating competition. Without meaningful competition there is no functioning capitalism.

    The difference in only in the execution, not the result. The US version is more sophisticated, and the Iranian version is more crude. That's about it.

  • by davide marney ( 231845 ) * on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:54AM (#38609530) Journal

    creating new blocks against foreign content and stepping up surveillance of browsing habits.

    . OK, which Satanic US corporation has the contract to deliver this technology and support it?

  • I predict a sudden increase in the wearing of niqabs or burqas in Iran. By both women and men.

  • Iran is pursuing the same approach as China. Rather than block social media sites, leverage their citizen's desire for them by replacing them with similar state-approved (sic - controlled) duplicates. Nothing new. I would be more interested in what Western technologies are making this possible, a more interesting discussion for Slashdot.
  • Internet cafes in Iran have 15 days to set up security cameras and start collecting information on customers

    Which means 16 days from now there will be a massive increase in the popularity of burqas [wikipedia.org] among Iranian internet cafe users.

  • by G-Man ( 79561 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @10:37AM (#38610084)

    A big government program without Pork? Good luck with that...

  • by ducomputergeek ( 595742 ) on Friday January 06, 2012 @11:01AM (#38610326)

    ...is that there has been this "Myth" that nothing can stop the internet. We've all heard the saying: the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.

    Well I've always had a theory that it would only remain so until the powers that be sat around and figured out how to get the genie back in the bottle. There were those who claimed it could never happen, but I remember looking that the vast majority of the backbone of the internet is controlled by only a handful of companies.

    I think a lot of countries have been waiting to see if countries like China and Iran can implement restrictions on the internet and frankly they've done so quite successfully. Has it been 100% successful. No. But it doesn't have to be. It just has to bee good enough to keep those that don't know technology trapped into a small little corner.

    It's the fact countries like China and Iran have had enough success at it that we're now seeing it happen in the US, only we're calling it SOPA. Which is what I was predicting to friends and co-workers about 10 years ago that by 2020 the "internet" would become fractured and restricted most likely by law.

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