Iran designing its own version of the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#31

Post by guard-of-terra » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 8:47 AM UTC

moo wrote: post #28

dfc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will be able to harness a lot of the network effects of the Internet. Contrary to the linkbait title, they are not building "their own version " of the Internet; they are building a separate special purpose network of networks, much like SIPRNet. As long as they don't mess with any of the protocols they will be able to take advantage of advances in COTS hardware and software. Furthermore they seem to be taking a…

The West also censors. My understanding is Britain censored Press TV for spurious reasons using front organization Ofcom. French embassy refused visas for Iranian reporters. Germany also blocks Iranian news. Noam Chomsky, an old man who preaches the Golden Rule, was refused entry into Israel. Lily Sussman had Arab characters taped on her laptop keys and the Israeli border security shot holes through it. Fretting abou…

Under "potatoes", do you mean something like the promise by Ahmadinejad to spend money earned by Iran to feed Iranian citisens?

If the answer is yes, don't you see a fatal flaw in such political programme?

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#32

Post by borplk » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 9:25 AM UTC

zingahgud wrote: post #26

rdl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate Iran. They aren't quite the US or Japan, but ahead of any middle eastern non Israel nation, probably ahead of India in many ways, and on par with Brazil or Spain or maybe Italy in terms of domestic engineering talent and ability.

I fear I was misunderstood. What made me laugh was the thought that the internet is a sort of wild west of ideologies and Iran, from what little I know, is a very tightly controlled ideological context. I did not even read the article. It's just the title that struck me as paradoxical. "Internet" == uncontrollable, Iran == tight control, "Internet" + Iran == WTF? Hope that makes sense. I realise internet here probabl…

I know a fair bit about this.

It's only there to restrict people's access to uncensored information. Cyberattack etc is just an excuse to make people think it's something for their own good.

Since they can tightly control it and it is a national network, they will offer very fast speeds with attractive prices, the actual internet is terribly expensive and incredibly slow, then they'll slowly expand from there, similar to china, they will make their own versions of Twitter and Facebook and Gmail and offer those at very cheap prices with great speed.

Banks and all government organisations are soon going to require people to use a 'national email'. If your emails is @gmail.com they'll simply refuse it and will ask you to open an account on this new email site.

Once it gains some momentum it'll snowball from there. Those who only want to send an email and send a couple of messages to their friends will prefer the national network because it is much cheaper and a lot faster.

Having said that, the whole thing is destined to fail. People will find ways to fight it. At this point there's not enough information about the network architecture but most probably there will be a large pool of computers with high speed and unrestricted access to the internet as part of this network.

They will be the gateways to the internet. For example an Iranian bank will transfer its 'netbank' to the national network. But the server that is hosting this netbank still needs the internet to operate so that server will be connected to the internet with a high quality link.

There's a possibility that people will manage to gain access to these nodes and use it as a proxy to get high speed internet. Obviously if someone manages to do that they'll probably try to stick to it as long as they can so it wont bring the internet to everybody.

The network is being laid out from next week all across the country. We'll see.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#33

Post by gaius » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 9:37 AM UTC

They could use DECnet for it, now there was a proper protocol. And LAT for the "last mile".

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#34

Post by gaius » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 9:38 AM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #16

Is it just me, or wouldn't it be fairly trivial for a troublesome country to just point a satellite at Iran and give citizens access that way?

It's pretty trivial to block a satellite.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#35

Post by esolyt » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 9:42 AM UTC

zingahgud wrote: post #26

rdl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate Iran. They aren't quite the US or Japan, but ahead of any middle eastern non Israel nation, probably ahead of India in many ways, and on par with Brazil or Spain or maybe Italy in terms of domestic engineering talent and ability.

I fear I was misunderstood. What made me laugh was the thought that the internet is a sort of wild west of ideologies and Iran, from what little I know, is a very tightly controlled ideological context. I did not even read the article. It's just the title that struck me as paradoxical. "Internet" == uncontrollable, Iran == tight control, "Internet" + Iran == WTF? Hope that makes sense. I realise internet here probabl…

Exactly. Using science and technology to restrict access to more science and technology is not only pathetic, but also funny.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#36

Post by sturadnidge » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 10:38 AM UTC

> “When countries section off parts of the Web, not only do their citizens suffer, everyone does.”

No-one* in western democracies would ever consider doing such a thing.

*http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/27/twitter-facebook...

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#37

Post by moo » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 10:42 AM UTC

__alexs wrote: post #30

moo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West also censors. My understanding is Britain censored Press TV for spurious reasons using front organization Ofcom. French embassy refused visas for Iranian reporters. Germany also blocks Iranian news. Noam Chomsky, an old man who preaches the Golden Rule, was refused entry into Israel. Lily Sussman had Arab characters taped on her laptop keys and the Israeli border security shot holes through it. Fretting abou…

I'm not saying that we don't have a fascist government willing to censor anything they don't like the look of but the Press TV thing might not be the best example. They had their license revoked after broadcasting a "confession" by Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari that was conducted after torturing him and under threat of execution. Then they apparently admitted to being editorially controlled by their Iranian branc…

I've read nothing about there having been torture. Bahari claims the interview with Press TV was under duress. The journalist was held a total of 4 months. Bahari claims he had to condemn the west to gain release. The 10 second clip Ofcom uses to incriminate is: “On Monday, 15 June [2009], I sent a report about the attack against the base, a military base of Basij to Channel 4 News as well as to Newsweek Magazine.”

Nothing there is a condemnation of the West. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/181727.html According to Wikileaks the West has been trying to remove Press TV's broadcast.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#38

Post by moo » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 10:54 AM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #31

moo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West also censors. My understanding is Britain censored Press TV for spurious reasons using front organization Ofcom. French embassy refused visas for Iranian reporters. Germany also blocks Iranian news. Noam Chomsky, an old man who preaches the Golden Rule, was refused entry into Israel. Lily Sussman had Arab characters taped on her laptop keys and the Israeli border security shot holes through it. Fretting abou…

Under "potatoes", do you mean something like the promise by Ahmadinejad to spend money earned by Iran to feed Iranian citisens? If the answer is yes, don't you see a fatal flaw in such political programme?

It's called redistribution of wealth.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#39

Post by umrashrf » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 11:40 AM UTC

I support Iranian internet regime. Currently it's very clear that internet is run by Americans and because we need more open and controlled internet for the world, I would ask every Muslim country to support it too for it to become the next Internet for the world.

Re: Iran designing its own version of the Internet

#40

Post by __alexs » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 12:18 PM UTC

moo wrote: post #37

__alexs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that we don't have a fascist government willing to censor anything they don't like the look of but the Press TV thing might not be the best example. They had their license revoked after broadcasting a "confession" by Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari that was conducted after torturing him and under threat of execution. Then they apparently admitted to being editorially controlled by their Iranian branc…

I've read nothing about there having been torture. Bahari claims the interview with Press TV was under duress. The journalist was held a total of 4 months. Bahari claims he had to condemn the west to gain release. The 10 second clip Ofcom uses to incriminate is: “On Monday, 15 June [2009], I sent a report about the attack against the base, a military base of Basij to Channel 4 News as well as to Newsweek Magazine.” N…

He claims to have been beaten by his guards in numerous ways while in prison. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/maziar%2Bbahari%2Ba...

"Of course there was some physical torture. He beat me, hit me with a belt, punched and kicked me but to me the scarier parts were these conversations because I could see he had a very wrong view of the world.