Tag Archives: Iran

Iranians’ glimpse of Facebook and Twitter freedom was due to a ‘technical failure’

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Iran's taste of internet freedom was a shortlived 'technical failure'

Yesterday, for a brief spell, ordinary Iranian citizens were able to talk to each other via Twitter and Facebook -- services that had been officially banned since 2009. Today, however, they awoke to discover that the government had fully restored its anti-social blockade, with one communications official dismissing the whole episode as a "technical failure" stemming from some ISPs. That's not necessarily true, however, and another possible explanation is that yesterday's events were the result of a tussle between emerging pro-internet moderates like Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, and hard-liners elsewhere in the country's power structure. Alternatively, some fear that the temporary lifting of the ban was a ploy to allow the authorities to trace would-be Facebook users. In any case, the communication official's response to the glitch sounds ominous: "We will take action if there was a human flaw," he's quoted as saying. "We are probing it."

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Source: USA Today

Iran seemingly lifts restrictions on Facebook and Twitter access

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Iran seemingly lifts restrictions on Facebook and Twitter access

It hasn't been outrightly confirmed by the government of Iran, but at least some within the nation's borders are now able to access both Twitter and Facebook. For those keeping score, public access to the networks has been banned since 2009, shortly after the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, seems fairly convinced that Iran itself should not be restricting its citizens to information available via social channels, and a number of trusted accounts -- including Rouhani himself along with The New York Times' Thomas Erdbrink -- have tweeted in recent hours without the use of a proxy. It's unclear whether the lift is intentional, or if it's scheduled to remain permanently, but we're obviously hoping it's a sign of meaningful change.

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Via: Quartz

Source: Hassan Rouhani (Twitter), Thomas Erdbrink (Twitter)

Google Stopped Hacking of Iranian Gmail Accounts

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The hackers’ kamikaze effort came at the exact time of the 2013 elections in Iran. Tens of thousands of emails were about to be broken into when Google saved the day by cleverly averting this...
    


Iran blocks VPN access to global web, cracks down on ‘illegal’ filter workaround

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http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/10/iran-blocks-vpn-filters-internet/

Iran's struggle with the unfiltered internet is well documented -- the nation has spent years fending off cyber attacks, blocking access and potentially fencing its own intranet off from the outside world. Sites like YouTube and Facebook can often only be accessed by using a VPN, bypassing the country's internet filter. Sadly, Iranian users may have to get their Harlem shake fix elsewhere: Iran is putting the lid on "illegal" VPN access. "Within the last few days illegal VPN ports in the country have been blocked," explained Ramezanali Sobhani-Fard, Iran's head of information and communications technology committee. "Only legal and registered VPNs can from now on be used."

Registered and legal VPN access can still be purchased, but the typical filter workarounds no longer work. That's not stopping Iran's most dedicated internet users though: one local took to Facebook to confirm that VPN access had been restricting, noting that he was using an unrelated method to dodge Iran's content control efforts. The crackdown may have also blocked access to commonly used sites, such as Yahoo or Google Parliament plans to study the issue more in the coming week, and will presumably tweak the policy as necessary.

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Source: Reuters

Symantec: work on Stuxnet worm started two years earlier than first thought

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Symantec work on Stuxnet worm started two years earlier than thought

Most of us think we know the tale of Stuxnet: it's a possibly government-sponsored worm that played havoc with Iranian centrifuges in 2009, setting back the country's uranium enrichment program without involving any traditional weapons. Researchers at Symantec, however, now claim there's an untold narrative. They've discovered a Stuxnet 0.5 version that may have been in development or active as soon as November 2005, two years before the commonly accepted timeline. It first surfaced on trackers in November 2007, and would have created wider-ranging chaos at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility by closing vital pressure valves instead of using the subtler centrifuge technique.

Symantec also noticed that this pre-1.0 malware shares traits with the Flamer code base, putting it in the context of an even larger effort than seen so far. Moreover, it would have required extensive knowledge of the Natanz infrastructure -- this was no casual attack, according to the researchers. While we may never know exactly what prompted the revamp, IAEA evidence suggests that Stuxnet wasn't truly effective until the better-known version came into play. We mostly know that modern cyberwarfare had its fair share of growing pains -- and that it's not as fresh-faced as we assumed.

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Via: Ars Technica

Source: Symantec (PDF)

Cisco reportedly drops sales pact with ZTE after claims of roundabout Iran dealings

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Cisco Cius tablet hands-on

ZTE might already be feeling heat from Congressional suspicions, but the company could soon take a more direct hit to the pocketbook. Cisco has reportedly dropped an already rocky seven-year deal with ZTE after it learned that the Chinese firm had been selling Cisco's networking gear to the Telecommunication Company of Iran as recently as July of last year. Being implicated in an end-run around US trade sanctions isn't great for business, as you'd imagine. While Cisco CEO John Chambers wouldn't directly confirm the severed link in a chat with Reuters, he noted that we would "not see that [sort of deal] happen again" -- an indication that his company at least isn't happy with the current state of affairs. ZTE isn't waiting for any public acknowledgment to voice its frustration and says it's "highly concerned," although it's not helped by allegations from its own US general counsel that there was an attempt to cover up the Iranian link. Nothing is definite until the investigations go public, but the Iran connection could make it that much harder for ZTE to keep US customers regardless of its distance from the Chinese government.

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Cisco reportedly drops sales pact with ZTE after claims of roundabout Iran dealings originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iran claims to have been hit by ‘heavy’ cyber attack, pins slowdowns on coordinated hacking campaign

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Iran claims to have been hit by 'heavy' cyber attack, pins slowdowns on coordinated hacking campaign

Whatever you think of Iran's politics, it's hard to deny that the country has frequently been the target of internet-based attacks that sometimes go beyond the originator's plans. If you believe High Council of Cyberspace secretary Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, the pressure is only getting worse. He tells Iranian media that the nation is under "constant" digital bombardment and was just hit with a major assault on Tuesday that bogged down local internet access. Behabadi unsurprisingly contends that the attacks are deliberate efforts to undermine Iran's data, nuclear and oil infrastructures, with a finger implicitly pointed westward. While it's no secret that the country's enemies want to slow down what they see as a rush towards nuclear weapons, it's difficult to know how much of the accusation is serious versus bluster: we've seen individual smartphone users who consume more than the "several gigabytes" of traffic that reportedly caused national chaos in the most recent incident. No matter the exact nature, it's likely that residents stand to lose as Iran fences off the internet to keep outside influences, hostile and otherwise, from getting in.

[Image credit: Amir1140, Wikipedia]

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Iran claims to have been hit by 'heavy' cyber attack, pins slowdowns on coordinated hacking campaign originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iran unblocks Gmail, admits it only wants to restrict YouTube in the country

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Iranians who lost access to Gmail on September 24th should now be able to access their emails again after the government relaxed its ban. Telecommunications minister Rezi Miri conceded that the internet filter used couldn't distinguish between the eponymous email service and YouTube, which has been banned for distributing inflammatory materials. Officials have said that, at least initially, its own proprietary intranet will exist alongside the internet, but didn't go into specifics.

[Original Image: Wikimedia Commons]

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Iran unblocks Gmail, admits it only wants to restrict YouTube in the country originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iran announces plans to create isolated local internet system, fate of global access unknown

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Iranians have been having trouble accessing YouTube, Gmail and other Google services for some time now, but their digital world may be growing even smaller -- Iran announced today that it plans to shuffle citizens onto its own domestic version of the web. Reuters reports that officials plan to connect citizens to the national information network that's currently in use at government agencies. Iran hopes to complete the transition by March of next year, and is already taking steps to isolate its population from certain international services. "Google and Gmail will be filtered throughout the country until further notice," an Iranian official added, noting that the ban would commence in "a few hours."

Some locals, such as the Iranian Students' News Agency, are attributing the ban to recent protests sparked by a trailer for an anti-Islamic film on YouTube called Innocence of Muslims, but the government has made no official comment on the reason behind the ban. The state isn't clear on the fate of the global internet in Iran, either -- although it has talked about creating an isolated national network before. Here's hoping the new network will be a compliment to the Persian web, and not a substitute.

[Image credit: yeowatzup, Flickr]

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Iran announces plans to create isolated local internet system, fate of global access unknown originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iranian Players Banished from World Of Warcraft Thanks to US Sanctions

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World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard has recently blocked Iranian fans of the role-playing game from being able to access its servers. The blockage comes as Blizzard makes moves to ensure that it is complying with US federal law having to do with trade restrictions and economic sanctions. Exactly why it’s taken so long for Blizzard to comply with US law is unknown.

wow world of warcraft logo

What we do know is that Iranian fans of the game have started to pepper Blizzard message boards with complaints that they were unable to log onto game servers. These Iranian players were told recently that the reason they can’t get on servers has to do with US law. Blizzard hasn’t offered an indication of how many players were affected by the ban. However, Blizzard says that only a small percentage of its players were affected.

Blizzard wrote in an e-mail to affected players, “United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran,” the company said in an email sent to players. Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.”

[via Telegraph]