22 June, 2009

Iran engages in packet inspection

Wall Street Journal:
The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale.

Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.

Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.

The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.
Lovely.

One presumes other governments bought the capability.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty much every single major Internet service provider is using deep packet inspection (DPI) to shape traffic. The "World's Most sophisticated mechanism" makes it sound like something the Iranians have that noone else does. DPI is offered by virtually all service provider class network equipment vendors.

Neil Roberts said...

I can cocur with the above. Virtually all Service Providers globally have this technology. In fact, pretty much anyone could buy it off the shelf if you really wanted to. I wouldn't be surprised if most governments use it for exactly the same purpose as well ....

Anonymous said...

Umm.. I can do that myself on a small scale and Iranians have enough know-how to do it in-house without needing some Finnish or German dude to hold their hands through it. I wish people would quit making it sound like everyone in the world is 100% reliant on Western technology and completely unable to oppress their people without Western tools.

Freaking hell.

Neil Roberts said...

Now that is something to be proud of !

"I wish people would quit making it sound like everyone in the world is 100% reliant on Western technology and completely unable to oppress their people without Western tools."

You can oppress people without western help lol

Anonymous said...

Neil,

That is what we call "sarcasm".

Anonymous said...

First develop the technology using immigrants. Then hire some techies to hack the systems. Next sell the technology to newly emerging or I-want-that-too countries. Hack the buyer countries using the 'known issues'. Next sell them protection. Then condemn them for oppression and repression with lots of publicity. That's what you call a win-win situation. The technology sells like 'hot cakes' and the providers win all the time!

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