13:05 With assistance from the west | |
| Political crisis in Iran has gained momentum in recent days, showed the world not only the hard aggression of the repressive regime in relation to their "subjects", but also how to use modern technology can monitor network activity for the whole state. Go into the political details are not going to - not a place, wrong time, and I, frankly, not the man who is able to adequately assess all the facts, arguments, and to separate the wheat from the chaff. Especially in a situation where the language of the country absolutely unknown to me. We're talking about a topic we are all much closer - to censorship. 22 th of a respected The Wall Street Journal (hereinafter WSJ) appeared most interesting material in which reporters tell of an ultra-modern system of deep filtering of Internet traffic, which is used in Iran. Guess that "the government reads" for the Iranians, as well as foreign observers, there is no trouble - from the moment that thousands of people took to the streets to hold rallies against the rigged elections, the speed of your Internet connection has dropped an order of magnitude: about This is indicated by the bloggers and journalists who have difficulty with the transfer of information across the network. Obviously, the cutting capacity without special reason no one will, then WJS and decided to dig a little deeper into the history of the problem and found an interesting contract, signed in 2008 between the Iranian government having a monopoly on all forms of communication (cellular, Internet, TV, radio) in the country and a joint venture of Finnish Nokia and German Siemens - Nokia Siemens Networks to supply modern equipment plays all cell phones and, as it turned out, the analysis of the total national traffic. Let's start from where, and should start - with the background. In the second half of 2008 Nokia Siemens Networks has provided Iran with special equipment under the agreement on "lawful termination of access to information and filtering Internet content." Can not say that there is something weird - the government of each state tries to protect its users from child pornography, terrorism and other network, known criminal, actions of the intruders. Says company spokesman Ben Roome (Ben Roome): «If you sell networking equipment, then you are, oddly enough, sells, and the equipment with which these networks can be monitored and, if necessary, kill them in context" . Monitoring Centre, established a joint venture between two giants of communication was part of a larger contract, which included technologies like cellular and internet. It is worth noting that over the past 10 years the number of miles of optical fiber in Iran increased 50 times - the need for a tool of "control" in this situation is not questioned. Still, what surprised - a Muslim state that lives by its own rules, it is not any there, France or Sweden. The Iranian government has suited the short inspection of equipment for the past few months, but did not go talk about the heavy use of filters or listen - no one worried, life went on as usual. Until one fateful day: June 13, 2009, when the network and mobile traffic in the country virtually to a halt. Today, Iranian engineers and Internet experts say that "nobody could have foreseen that the government is capable of such control. We knew that some equipment there, but now we know that it is very powerful, modern and sophisticated technical solution that is almost completely analyze the information through the network. " The method used in Iran's data center, called deep packet inspection - the flow of information, whether the packets of Internet data or phone call, SMS, picture - everything, "understands", reviewed for key words, then going back and comes to the recipient. Matter of milliseconds, but unlike China, where the same scheme is used provider and decentralized, in Iran the whole procedure takes place in one single place. Digital life of the whole state is filtered in the same room, if so just to simplify, and therefore the speed of the connection dropped at least 10 times. The reasons for such behavior on the part of Iran's conservative government, again, obvious. If they are still able to block / mislead people through national television and radio stations, then for sure on the Internet, nobody will say "the truth" looking away. Today, we all know the greatest possibilities of Twitter in the coverage of any details - so it was in "Tibetan History", so it was in Moldova, now the same is repeated in Iran. The government is trying to introduce deep into the network situation and it turns out it's simply, simply, magnificent. Bradley Anstis (Bradley Anstis), director of the agency on technical strategy for the U.S. provider Orange said: "It looks like a huge step forward in comparison with what is happening in any other country in the world managed" regime ", including China." In the latter, however, 300 million Internet users in Iran "only" 23 million, which, however, essentially no difference. And now the masses have already begun to respond - the buyers send angry letters to the Nokia and Siemens, saying that they had destroyed their phones and advise you to do the same to all your friends. Until then, until the company can not make a "true ethnic solutions. But Mr. Roome commented: "Every company has a choice to do business in a particular country or not." And if in the Nokia Siemens Networks, and can assume that their equipment will be used for censorship, the massive spying on their citizens are unlikely to occur to democratic Europeans. Now, I think, not a gray hair has fallen from the heads of people who took this decision, trying to justify himself to the fact that surveillance of communications is usually the kind of makeweight to actually respect - it is a normal situation for many is quite civilized countries, and in some even is a standard requirement for equipment (in England, for example). During its existence (in March, the company sold its communications business German investment company) Nokia Siemens Networks has put similar data centers governments of 150 countries, but officials said that neither China nor Burma, nor of other countries with heavy censorship story not in the list. Do not, however, think that Iran and China are the only countries that have no hesitation afford such liberties. As already mentioned, Britain has a list of "tight" blocked sites, and the German government recently bought myself the same equipment. In the U.S., during the "reign" of the Bush administration, in a project to combat terrorism, and similar equipment has appeared at the National Security Agency. It is not known, however, whether it is now. The Australian government is still experimenting with systems of web content filtering. Russian Federation ... looking at his colleagues may also wish some indiscreet desire, especially now, during the active internetifikatsii everything. Perhaps the most effective way to protect yourself, your personal data and ensure privacy of correspondence is to encrypt its own traffic - no one will spend money, time and power to ensure that analyze such data. But this is a topic for another story. When writing materials used The Wall Street Journal, Wired (1, 2), Gizmodo, Mashable, Textually. | |
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