Iranian firms told not to use foreign email providers Iran has reportedly banned some domestic companies from using foreign email services and hosting providers, as its attempts to create an autonomous, nationwide intranet gather pace. Local weekly Asr Ertebatat claimed on Saturday that Iran’s telecommunications ministry is preventing banks, insurance firms and telephone …
I feel your missing the point.
If as much of the internet is internalised within a country as possible, this means:
1: Cutting themselves off from the rest of the world has much less of an impact on the general population going about their lawful business. leaving, for instance, those pesky opposition people to either organise using sites under government access (which seems a bit silly), or old fashion methods (Which the "security services" have much more experience in disrupting)
2: The internet is easier to Control and monitor obviously.
3: What communication still goes in and out of the country can be scrutinised much more because there is a lot less of it to scruitinise.
And before people trot out the old "The internet routes around censorship" stuff, chances are, there are one or two major links into Iran, which leaves the phone system, which is much easier to monitor and have you ever tried to upload a video to youtube using a 56k modem?
It is reasonable for Iranians to use domain names under .ir for domestic traffic.
It is unreasonable for the Iranian government to crap all over their own people.
Really, these are two separate issues. If you try to conflate them you will end up suggesting that a choice of top-level domain for your email address is a major human rights issue and *that* would be stupid.
It 'is' reasonable, but it should also be a choice. Forcing organisations, companies, etc.. to use a domestic domain, over which you have full control, is a simple first stage to suppress any opposition - you can refuse to issue a domain name or yank an organisation offline with very little effort.
Now you have control of the domestic DNS, so you start informing subscribers that you'll be changing their DNS and routing any mail through government servers.
"It 'is' reasonable, but it should also be a choice. Forcing organisations, companies, etc.. to use a domestic domain, over which you have full control, is a simple first stage to suppress any opposition - you can refuse to issue a domain name or yank an organisation offline with very little effort.
Now you have control of the domestic DNS, so you start informing subscribers that you'll be changing their DNS and routing any mail through government servers"
I agree with Iran here. The article states "Iran’s telecommunications ministry is preventing banks, insurance firms and telephone operators from using the services of foreign email providers" - not all businesses, but businesses critical to the countries infrastructure - businesses that would cause serious disruption to the running of the country should the government controlling the DNS of said foreign email providers decide they had a problem with something Iran was doing.
Great now all the ISP (and the ICAN) can BAN .ir address world wide. All DNS should be requiered to block any .ir address. In fact why not whipe out .ir from the internet. it serve no usefull purpose and is the main terrorist communication line. All islamic country should be have they DNS extention Ban from the planet. a ffective way to cutting enemy communication. Jamming satellite that JAM every form for communication over Iran (and other enemy Islamic nation will be a great way to to start a pre-emptive strike again the enemy)
I am involved with a major British university that lately decided to outsource its email services. The students now use a customised version of Googlemail. Staff mail went to a local company, with the (unofficial) argument that Google could not guarantee that data wouldn't be stored on US computers. Imagine, let's say, an IP dispute with a US natl. lab / university / company of strategic interest, and have a look at the DCMA. Maybe Iranian email providers might be a safer option...
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