Skip to main content

Filed under:

Iran's private internet: nation looks to control what citizens can see

We've heard rumblings of a state-run, restricted Iranian internet for some time, but plans appear to be materializing of late. The nation has attempted to limit outbound traffic and VPNs that can help citizens evade filters. That's not all: the government is working on state-controlled email addresses for Iranians, and it has already launched an alternative to YouTube free of the so-called "inappropriate" content on the Google-owned service. A fully private Iranian internet would go against the very idea of the web and cut off millions from the free exchange of ideas. We're following the story closely, and this is where you'll find the latest developments.

  • Russell Brandom

    May 13, 2014

    Russell Brandom

    Iranian hacker group targeted US defense companies

    Iran's hackers are stepping up their game, according to a new report from security researchers at FireEye. Earlier this year, an Iranian hacking group called Ajax Security Team targeted US defense contractors at an IEEE aerospace convention, using spear phishing emails to plant keylogging malware on unwitting victims' computers. If the contractors took the bait, installing the phony "proxy" program that was actually Ajax malware, the program would log keystrokes, take periodic screenshots, and automatically extract logins and passwords from browsers and chat programs. Ajax also targeted Iranians trying to bypass the country's oppressive web controls, distributing similar malware bundled with VPN and proxy software like Psiphon and Ultrasurf.

    Read Article >
  • Iran's president tweets with Jack Dorsey, hints at reversing Twitter ban

    Iran President Hassan Rouhani (via president.ir)
    Iran President Hassan Rouhani (via president.ir)

    The people of Iran are blocked from using Twitter and other social networking websites, although Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is one of the few exceptions to that rule. This situation could change however. On Tuesday, Rouhani hinted in tweets traded with Twitter's chairman and co-founder Jack Dorsey that his country's social media ban could eventually ease up.

    Rouhani admitted that his supporters used social media heavily during his presidential campaign and that hasn't stopped just because he took office. "I always welcome their views on these networks as well as those who criticize me, because the government does need to be open to criticism," he said. "There are large social networks at a global level around today and I believe that all human beings have a right, and all nations have a right, to use them."

    Read Article >
  • Amar Toor

    Sep 17, 2013

    Amar Toor

    Iran blames technical glitch for Facebook and Twitter access

    facebook app icon
    facebook app icon

    Internet users in Iran were surprised when Facebook and Twitter suddenly became accessible for the first time in four years this week, but the government says the move wasn't intentional. On Tuesday, officials said a technical glitch is to blame for the apparent reversal of Iran's ban on social media, dispelling speculation that the government may be easing web restrictions under the leadership of President Hassan Rouhani.

    Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, secretary of a government agency on web regulation, says the glitch appears to have arisen from one of Iran's internet service providers (ISPs), and that officials are looking into the matter. According to the New York Times, the sites were once again blocked by Tuesday morning.

    Read Article >
  • Russell Brandom

    Sep 16, 2013

    Russell Brandom

    Iran appears to loosen restrictions on Facebook and Twitter

    Iranian Flag (Flickr)
    Iranian Flag (Flickr)

    After four years of intricate and widespread filtering, Iran today loosened restrictions on both Facebook and Twitter, allowing open access to the servers. Previously, the services had only been accessible using a VPN or redirecting service outside the country, and many on Twitter commented this was the first time they had ever used the sites without an intermediary. Both Facebook and Twitter have been blocked since the election protests of 2009, when activists used the services as tools for organizing rallies.

    The government has yet to make an official statement on the lifted blocks, leading some to speculate that the lapse in filtering is a technical glitch rather than a change in policy. The change is being reported on a variety of ISPs, strengthening the case that the change is national in nature, but the system has gone down in the past without larger implications.

    Read Article >
  • Iran will provide state-run email addresses to all citizens

    Iranian Flag (Flickr)
    Iranian Flag (Flickr)

    Iran is creating the building blocks of a state-controlled internet, and its next major effort appears to be email. Reuters reports that Iran is planning to dole out a government-run email address to each of its citizens and to use the addresses as a way to communicate with them. While that would give the Iranian government a fairly progressive means of communicating with its people, the continued worry is that the state will only use it as another way of monitoring their private lives. Iran is promising to maintain privacy within the service, though full details haven't been revealed.

    Reuters reports that data centers are now being set up throughout Iran to handle traffic for the new service, which will be located at mail.post.ir. Though it's a sign that Iran is continuing toward a closed, censored internet, the country's incoming president may be less keen on such plans. According to Mehr News Agency, president-elect Hassan Rouhani said that he believes strong government "does not interfere in the people’s private lives." It could mean a turn of events when he takes office in August, but for now, Iranian citizens must continue to deal with increased efforts to regulate their internet access.

    Read Article >
  • Jeff Blagdon

    May 31, 2013

    Jeff Blagdon

    US removes sanctions on computer exports to Iran ahead of next month's elections

    Iranian Flag (Flickr)
    Iranian Flag (Flickr)

    The US government is lifting a ban on the export of electronic devices like computers, cellphones, and wireless routers to Iran. Al Jazeera reports that the decision is aimed at strengthening communication and avoiding government internet controls ahead of next month’s presidential elections. According to a Treasury Department press release, the general license authorizes exports of equipment to individuals, but not to the Iranian government, or "to any individual or entity on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list."

    Read Article >
  • Russell Brandom

    Apr 24, 2013

    Russell Brandom

    World Wide [Redacted]: inside Iran's private internet

    mehr iran stock 1020
    mehr iran stock 1020

    For years, the leadership in Iran has been threatening to build its own private, state-controlled internet, but in recent months, we've started to see what that looks like in practice. Since March, the regime has led crackdowns on any technology that might threaten its control of the online space, pulling the plug on outgoing VPN connections, throttling encrypted traffic nationwide and blocking the Tor bridges that would help Iranians escape onto the global web. It’s a broadside attack on the open internet, and a test of every tool in the cypherpunk arsenal.

    Read Article >
  • Chris Welch

    Mar 10, 2013

    Chris Welch

    Iran looks to eliminate 'illegal' VPNs that help citizens evade internet filters

    Flickr Iran flag
    Flickr Iran flag

    In a bid to increase oversight of web usage among its citizens, Iran is reportedly clamping down on Encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) systems. According to Reuters, Iranian web users are reporting that various VPNs — which normally help evade the government's draconian internet filters — are no longer accessible. Ramezanali Sobhani-Fard, who leads parliament's information and communications technology committee, has confirmed that the regime is currently weeding out unauthorized VPNs. "Within the last few days illegal VPN ports in the country have been blocked," he told a local news agency. "Only legal and registered VPNs can from now on be used." As you'd expect, those preferred VPNs are subject to surveillance by officials.

    Private web access is becoming all but impossible in the country as Iran approaches June's presidential election. The timing isn't surprising: in 2009, its citizens protested election results en masse. The revolt was met with severe internet censorship with sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube blocked from public view. Iran's regime is reportedly working on solutions that would grant restricted access to those social networks, but in the meantime its citizens have had to make do with homegrown (and monitored) substitutes. China has also sought to cut off VPN workarounds as part of its own efforts to control internet access within its borders.

    Read Article >
  • T.C. Sottek

    Jan 6, 2013

    T.C. Sottek

    Iran reportedly creating software to allow controlled access to social networks

    Flickr Iran flag
    Flickr Iran flag

    According to local media, Iran's latest effort to control internet access would reportedly give citizens "restricted and controlled" access to prohibited social networking sites, the AFP reports. Iran has had an uneasy relationship with the web, especially as political tension between it and the United States government has widened; the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa outlawing anti-filtering tools that help citizens access blocked material on the internet in May, and the country has reportedly been working on a government-run network that would operate "largely isolated" from the rest of the internet, fearing Western attacks. But some citizens have ignored the bans, bypassing Iranian filters and controls using virtual private networks.

    In an apparent recognition of its inability to completely block the outside world, the country is reportedly now taking additional measures with "intelligent software" to control access to social networks; "smart control of social networks is better than filtering them completely," Iranian police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghadam reportedly said. Iran's government has been skeptical of social websites and other services, and with some good reason: the US has largely maintained an aggressive stance towards the country, with official efforts for agencies and corporations to assist Iranian citizens in subverting the country's "electronic curtain." And Iranian officials claim that they continue to be attacked by Stuxnet, a sophisticated cyberweapon reportedly developed by Israel and the US.

    Read Article >
  • Jeff Blagdon

    Dec 10, 2012

    Jeff Blagdon

    Iran launches Mehr, an alternative to 'inappropriate' YouTube

    mehr iran stock 1020
    mehr iran stock 1020

    With YouTube having been deemed inappropriate by Iran’s theocratic regime in 2009, the country is now launching an alternative site, called Mehr (meaning "affection"), that lets users upload and view content they create, and watch videos produced by the national broadcaster, IRIB. According to AFP, the site’s About Us page states its aims are to lure Persian-speaking users and advance Iranian culture.

    Sites like YouTube and Facebook have been censored in Iran since a hotly-contested 2009 election that saw current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeat moderate rival Mir Hossein Mousavi. More recently, the country has been ratcheting up control over what its citizens do online, announcing plans to launch a domestic intranet in early 2013 (the world's first), although authorities claim access to the global internet will not be cut entirely. Needless to say, not all of the country's citizens are equally enthusiastic about the censorship. Earlier this year AFP pointed out that 20 to 30 percent of Iran’s web users get around current efforts by using Virtual Private Networks (VPN), but the country’s police are trying to crack down on "illegal" use of the technology.

    Read Article >
  • T.C. Sottek

    Mar 20, 2012

    T.C. Sottek

    Obama administration challenges Iran on internet policy, provides guidance to subvert its 'electronic curtain'

    Obama serious
    Obama serious

    Today the Obama administration released a blog post condemning Iran for denying its citizens "a universal right to access information, and to freely assemble online," and says that it is taking steps to make it easier "for Iranian citizens to get the software and services they need to connect with the rest of the world through modern communications methods." In a coinciding statement, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued guidance and licensing information to "support the free flow of information to citizens of Iran" — or in other words, to subvert the alleged censorship efforts of the Iranian government. The US accuses Iran of "controlling the internet" by monitoring and filtering internet content, limiting access, and suspending access, of "creating a culture of fear" with scare tactics, legal measures, spying in internet cafes, and tracking, and of "persecuting foreign broadcasters" by jamming signals, outlawing foreign information, and intimidating journalists. To counter this, OFAC is making certain programs available for export to Iran by US citizens.

    OFAC says that it will allow the export of certain software and services by US citizens, located anywhere, to people in Iran — provided they're free. The agency offers an "illustrative list" of the type of things that fall within the scope of the effort, including Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Microsoft Live, Skype, Dropbox, Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave, and Java. While the move appears to be intended to provoke influence via the actions of private citizens, the tough language in the White House's announcement echoes escalating rhetoric on Iran in recent months over the country's alleged nuclear ambitions.

    Read Article >