According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, (sub req.) the country of Iran is planning on creating its own state run Internet service within the next 2 years.
Iran’s telecommunications chief claims that, in two years time, all Iranians will be forced to use a internal, state-controlled (censored) Internet, which would effectively cut off its citizens from the Internet.
He said about 60% of homes and business will be on the new Internet even sooner.
Approximately 11% of Iranians, or approximately 8.5 million people have internet access.
Once the plan is fully implemented all Iranians will be forced to use an non-Microsoft computer operating system developed by Iranian government and a national search engine called “Ya Hagh” (Oh, Justice).
The motive for the move seems to be the government wants to censor the material its citizens can access and view.
However once one country makes the move how long with it be until the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on?
So is the the beginning of the end of the World Wide Web (www.) and the start of a segmented web where many countries operate their own Internet?
but they must also cut all mobile and home phones to avoid that Iranians connect their computer to other countries’ modems
Probably too expensive for people to use land lines to connect to remote servers in other countries
Iran does not want to avoid the access to commercial sites, but the leaks of info about internal political crisis, and that can be done also with slow and expensive connections
I am in favor of them creating their own planet and taking a hike. 🙂
It will make Iranian country backward…if they choose to cut off from the global world market.
It’s only a matter of time before the young people of Iran get sick of the older controlling mob and overthrow them.
“It will make Iranian country backward…if they choose to cut off from the global world market.”
Isn’t that the whole purpose of it? 🙂
It is scary to see it finally happening.
People have been wondering since the 90’s when some shitty crapistan nation-state would finally set the ball of state run, ‘walled garden internet’ in motion.
Like any other new and potentially dangerous/oppressive/counter productive technology, the first country to do it is simply a beta. From them, other countries will acquire their technology or learn best practices in terms of how to managed a closed-circuit system.
There will always be some pretext to advance the cause of a state managed internet. Perhaps it’s child pornography. Maybe it’s “national security” ala Bradley Manning and Wikileaks…
Net neutrality has never been a ‘bigger deal’ than it is today.
Please support EFF. Any domainer or person in the tech biz should be a supporter. Its your skin in the game.
The internet is a totalitarian government’s worst nightmare.
The harder the Iranian government pushes, the harder the people may push back.
In the battle between the real free internet and the censored internet.. the Iranian people have had a taste of the real thing. Do you think they will want the censored crap the Iranian government is pushing? Do you think it will breed anger?
The good news: this hardline crackdown may be the impetus for real reform.
The Iranian rulers are fearing the Egypt like situation and therefore ….
As I said in my site ,just click ‘BullS”, the internet will kill civilization-
I saw this coming while I was on the beach in sunny Thailand watching the sunset.
I can see the future.!!!
Now I am right and I told you so.
who cares?
“It’s only a matter of time before the young people of Iran get sick of the older controlling mob and overthrow them.”
Totally agree, time for another “green revolution”.
The citizens of Iran will take their country back and not a minute too soon. Our own governments are moving more and more to fascist models that restrict citizens movement, communications and opinions all the while letting large corporations play politicians like puppets while us pee-ons just suck it up.
Martial law was imposed in Toronto at the G20 meetings last year beating and locking up hundreds of innocent citizens with no cause. Patriot Act, etc, etc. etc…..North American Security Perimeter, Gun Control…etc.etc.etc.
Iran killing their net doesn’t mean squat. Google is killing the global net and handing it over to a small handful of corporate content providers as we speak. What’s the difference? Perhaps Iranians will actually be able to find real information instead Google approved “quality” info like About.com, eHow.com, and other content ad driven crap.
@Joe
“…Iranians will actually be able to find real information instead Google approved “quality” info like About.com, eHow.com, and other content ad driven crap.”
So true…
Iranian can do better and true internal business rather than those crappy SEO… and stay away from those Google dominated monopoly craps…
This is more than likely the “beginning of the end” of the Iranian government, if the Iranian people finally have their way about it. Working in Silicon Valley, I’ve known a lot of people from Iran, and I know it’s their government that is the problem, not the people. But that’s true of many countries, so there’s really no big surprise there.
So much for freedom of speech then. *sigh*
Islam & common sense are incompatible.This “effort” is just one more nail in the coffin of theocracies.
Lets hope this just a “plan” and it won’t materialize to something.
@ Hal…
Well said, Iran is made up of mostly young people…under the age of 35.
They already know all about the outside world, and most actually like countries like the US and Canada, Australia etc…and know we support them.
This is just an attempt to re- indoctrinate and brainwash younger Iranians.
But,
They miss the boat on this one by about 5 + years…
“The cat is already out of the bag”…and has been for a long while.
Besides, before two years comes up…they (the Iranian Gov) will be two busy crying about 10 – 15 of their “nuke” sites suddenly disappearing… to ever finish this project.
‘D’
Why would they want to create their own internet?.The beauty of the internet
is to be able to connect with anybody in the world at break-neck speed.It is certainly a move with ulterior motive.