The “electronic curtain” in Iran

“Iran developed «smart software that will limit citizen’s access to social networks and allow controlling this access” - local Mass Media quote the head of the chief of police’s, Ismail Ahmadi Moghadam statement.

“Smart control of social networks will help not only to nullify its disadvantages but also allow benefitting from its advantages”, said Ahmadi Moghadam.

“Smart software designing for web sites governance are in a full swing”- he added.
Facebook, Twitter and many others social web sites were blocked with the help of the official mechanism of filtration within strong Internet censorship that was introduced by the heads of Islamic republic.

But many users Of the World Wide Web in Iran, that is the half of the 75 million population, have Internet connection, found ways to avoid blocking by using VPN software, despite the fact that it was rendered unlawful.

Ahmadi Moghadam hinted at new software will really limit the access to social networks for Iranian citizens.

“Smart control of social networks is much better than its filtration”, - he said.

His comments took place after Facebook startup in the middle of December. This site was devoted to the page of the Supreme Spiritual Leader of the country, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This account attracts attention of the country and abroad. 

 
Authorities regularly warn Iranian citizens about the danger, that social network fraught, saying that these sites are the part of the East supported conspiracy aimed at Islam regime derogation. But the blogger Sattar Beheshti’s death In November of the last year caused international protests, which lead to the head of the policy unit layoff.

In 2011 Iran developed a “cyber-police unit” to resist attempts to criticize ruling regime in the Internet.

Iran also works at the development of the national Internet that, according to his words, will be “cleaned” of any unislamic content. Authorities said that “National Internet” will not block the Global Internet.

Social websites and networks, such video-sharing site as Youtube were used in organization of street protests after disputable reelection of the president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

It was reported that several activists, bloggers and journalists were arrested because of their posts and comments in social networks.

The USA accused Iran of the “electronic curtain” creation that fenced off country’s citizens of the outside world
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Russia will not get the sovereign right to regulate the Internet

ITU ( The International Telecommunication Union) published the regulations text, that had been signed by the countries-members of this Union at the conference in Dubai. This regulation had not been changed since 1988 and it was expected that it will include several points about the Internet in the future. A number of countries, including Russia offered to allow ITU countries, according to this document, to regulate domain data and addresses in their countries. China, Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Alger, Bahrain was Russian allies, but their offer faced with a serious opposition.

“New regalement offers countries to develop their position according to the Internet question, it means technical issues and ITU state policy”, - said the press service of Russian Ministry of Communications on Friday. The resolution of ITU members charged MC general secretary with taking measures to allow RMC to play an active role in broadband communicating and Internet model developing, as it is said in the report. “The paragraph 3.8 reflects and juridically consolidate current situation in this sphere”, said the MC representative, “but the delegations from Canada, Australia and several other countries didn’t agree with it”.

The offer to give rights to national Internet regulating caused a kickback among the trade members. Google accused some countries of the intention to “get the Internet control”, that will cause( according to their opinion) a censorship. Though, during the conference Hamadoun Touré the MC general secretary said that the matter is not about the Internet contents controling and the Internet governance. The document is oriented on technical standards development for International telephony. It is not right to consider the ITU conference as a discussions of the Internet freedom, proves Andrey Kolesnikov, the president of the Coordinating Internet Domain Centre.

According to the information from Russian ministry of communications more than 100 countries signed the regulation. But the USA, Australia, Canada and a number of EU countries didn’t agree with this regulation, despite the most arguable articles about the Internet have been excluded. Countries that didn’t sign the contract will not follow this recommendations concerning issues about roaming, Internet etc.




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Tajikistan authorities had a second though about blocking 131 sites

December 26, 2012
Tajikistan Communication Service ordered to unblock 131 sites, that had been blocked also by their order on December 21. This was reported by the RIA Novosti with a referring on 3 different sources of Tajikistan Internet providers on Tuesday, December 25.


“ On Tuesday we had a call from the Communication service. They said that the letter of the Rafik Shakirov the deputy administrator had been annulled”, - told the agency’s representatives. Though there were not any information about a reason of a such decision.

On December 21 sources in the Internet provider told that they’ve get an order to block 131 sites. The matter was mainly about resources which contain music and video. Besides, this list included Twitter, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and also a number of blogs.

On December 24 Informational Agency reports that according to a letter of the Rafik Shakirov the deputy administrator, the agency said to block the access to this sites because of “technical and economical works”. It is unknown what these works included.

Tajikistan Communication Service is used to often block and than unblock popular sites. The same was with the Facebook.

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Chinese people have no access to social networks

Chinese authorities blocked all the programmes and services that allowed them to visit prohibited sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This was reported by the The New York Times (Chinese version of which is also blocked for users in China).

For a short period of time 3 more companies announced that their sites are also blocked. Chinese authorities advise all companies, which are interested in running their own business on the People's Republic of China territory to use private networks for the information transfers.
Several foreign Media experts notes that if this situation continues, all the informational agencies and bureaus that transfer news from Asia will have to move from Beijing to Tokyo.

We remind that there is a strict Internet censorship in China. All the sites are scanning on the existence of the key words, that are connected with the information about state security. Also there is a “blacklist” resources filtering. The country’s government blocked the access to portals which, according to its point of view, spread prohibited information promoting violence, pornography etc.

Each video will be published in the Internet only after being modernized.
From 2010 Chinese people, (due to the population) being the most numerous group of the Internet users, have lost the access to the Google search.

Beijing explains that this virtual policy is a measure that will secure  mental health of the oncoming generation.

The Google search engine and other companies servers have been blocked on the whole territory of China on November 8 of the current year. The representatives of  SecurityLab said that Google blocking had been coincide with the process of the Communist Party Congress were elected their new leaders.

The information about blocking was transferred by the Chinese on-line monitoring service GreatFire. According to the site’s information, the authorities of the country deprived users of visiting Google search, Google mail etc.

Such services like Google maps, Google Docs,  Google Analytics, Google Drive had been also blocked.

“The Chinese government took a step up to the whole independent of their Internet from the global network”, - notes GreatFire. Analysts think that the reason of this blocking probably is connected with the fact that Google had been for a long time disputing with the Chinese government about the censorship in the cyber space.

“Izvestia” reminds that 2 years ago the Chinese government came into a conflict with Google, demanding of the company to block searches of certain words and transfer information about users (in specific cases).  The American company rejection led to the the blocking of the Hon-Kong page.

The situation becoming more complicated due to the wide popularity of Google Android among Chinese users. According to the representatives of GreatFire.org, this can lead to an undesirable for government effect - more Chinese Internet users will know about Internet censorship.



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Russian Internet does not afraid of censorship

The economic of Russian Internet raise the grows rate and its influence as a media channel becomes stronger. RAEC sets a price for a value of the Russian Internet as a several bln dollars and prognoses its increase by 30% in 2012.

2012 discovered a new phenomenon in Russia - the state, for the first time was interested in the Internet sphere. And the first measures concerning this were prohibitive. So, due to this a law about child security from the Information, that provide the creation of the blacklist of sites and blocking illegal content in the Runet.

The first question was about the overall results of the Internet of the current year and also about the “child security from the information” law. In whole, experts pointed out the unavailability of the infrastructure to execute a law and the ambiguities in the questions concerning a content marking and blacklist.

According to experts points of view the main value of this law is that parents began to pay more attention on what their children do in the Internet, said Yuri Sinodov, the chief editor of Roem.ru. He also explained that this question is far from real problem of business. And this is very good that this law isn’t used as a mechanism to pressure business.

It is essential that a part of Internet users are worried about the “law of the Internet”, which deputies are going to make by the next year and of course users afraid of the Internet censorship. So, how tough will be the Internet control?

Generally, the representatives of this sphere do not deny the possibility of a “soft Chinese variant” of the Internet censorship. But also they consider this way as an unlikely but although a possible one .

Oleg Seidak, the head of the FINAM Global fond noticed that “Russian Internet is characterized by more technically educated and mentally active users groups. And right this groups are the main users of the information that can be prohibited by the state regulation.

I think that active and mass State actions towards the limitation of the access In the Internet can lead to a great increase of the users awareness of the ways to avoid this limitations that will have a wholly opposite effect that was not expected.

The state can close this technical possibilities only by using the Chinese variant, that means not only blocking access to the certain information or resources but also a blocking of a part of ways that allow to avoid such blocking. However this method is too cruel and this can cause the “arm race” between Internet users and a state, that none of the countries can win without destroying the Internet at all”, concerning the current situation.

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China intends to straighten up the Internet control

According to a web resources, Chinese authorities considered the possibility of the adoption of legal measures, aimed at “stopping rumors and vulgarity spreading”



We should remind that in the beginning of the current year the rule that had micro blogers to register stating their real identifying data came into a force in China. It was made, as it was said, to secure Internet users interests and for the improvement of the trust in the web”. This measure, according to the authorities will not harm the development of micro blogs but will make such services better”. If the subscriber refuse to state his passport data and the phone number he won’t be able to leave any comments.

This offered rules will oblige users to prove their identity concluding any agreement on getting services for access the Internet. The matter is about both fixed lines and mobile Internet. It is not known yet how this new measures will be realized in practice. Observers notes that Chinese citizens are obliged to provide documents signing the contracts with the Internet-providers.

However, any additional limitations, according to user’s point of view, will negatively effect a development of the Internet sphere and will limit the freedom of speech in more intense. Even now Chinese web companies use special programs for a content monitoring, messages with “illegal content” blocking and deleting. “Politically unconscious” posts, “provocative publications’ etc. are filtered and deleted.



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UNO decided to control Internet

The Internet is familiar to everyone. Nowadays Internet content is very important, that is why all world powers want to control it.

So, who will control it?

Today the main Internet regulators are several American non-government organizations. they are IETF, W3C and ICANN. Officially they do not depend on governmental and intergovernmental organizations. But practically American authorities have a great influence on them.

Russia, China, India, Brazil and Iran are the countries that support the extension of ITU power. USA afraid that if this countries get the right to influence the Network regulatory policy they will limit the freedom of speech and raise censorship.

Independent Internet in fact is between the devil and the deep sea. The regulated companies are in the USA and they are influenced by the American Power. From the other side if the Iran, China or Saudi Arabia get the right to vote it is unlikely that the Internet will be as free as now.

Washington worries the possibility of the Internet control transfers to UNO as it  was announced by the USA State Deputy. According to experts Americans concerns primary are connected with economic interests. Huge American Internet corporations want to influence on rules that regulates the Internet. In general experts believe that the USA opinion is a combined position of all biggest Internet companies.





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