Pokemon Go banned by Iranian authorities over 'security' | Hacker News Reader

Pokemon Go banned by Iranian authorities over 'security'

bbc.com

31 pointsLukaAl36 comments

ok, my next business card is going to say "Minister, High Council of Virtual Places" (with a foot note "and virtual responsibilities.")

Pretty clear though that if you are playing Pokemon Go, and your actual identity is attached to your account, then there is a way for Niantic to tell someone where your are right now, and where you have been.

Given enough adoption in the population, that data set could be used to illuminate organizations and memberships which might otherwise be considered classified. Both for players, and for non-players.[1]

[1] Examples are available in the literature where people using good OpSec were identified by employees who did not.

But your Facebook, Twitter, Tinder and Google Maps apps already have access to that location data. To be honest of all the aforementioned I think Pokemon Go is the less likely to use that information for evil.

True, but they don't rely on location to use the app. P-GO does require location, or app does not work.

Also, isn't tinder already banned?

I don't disagree, perhaps Pokemon, by virtue of its active engagement while you are using it, provides higher density data. The social networking and mapping services really only note your location when you generate content or seek an address. Waze however would be a good example of something collecting location data all the time and potentially creating records of it upstream.

As a Iranian I can always clearly see how foreign analyzers, do analyze Iran issues from wrong perceptive.

The regime is afraid of peoples life style change. They do know if people life style changes toward western culture then they have no place to rule.

Any banning, suppression / etc you can see from Iran regime is because of this. They block access to YouTube, satellite, porn, Facebook, etc, not because they think these things are wrong. They do it just because people must not become familiar with western life style.

"If they become familiar, they will understand Islam,tradition,etc is bullshit and if status quo changes ,then we don't have any place to rule"

P.S. I live in Iran right now and I always track political analysis about Iran regime.

>If they become familiar, they will understand Islam,tradition,etc is bullshit

Don't they (government) themselves believe in Islam so much?

Nope. Don't be naive, they are professional politicians, they don't believe in anything, at least when they are acting as leader.

I was in Iran a while back and got the impression that the people were quite westernised. Especially traveling from Pakistan it felt like being back in France or somewhere like that. I'd suspect they are more worried by colour revolutions and the like.

What is the perceived security issue? People wandering places they don't belong?

More like the possibility that American spy agencies can use the app to gather intel (about where military installations are located, what's there, etc.).

Given everything we hear about the NSA/FBI, this seems like a fair concern.

So they're worried about us accidentally crowdsourcing our spying? Don't we have drones and satellites and stuff?

Some things may be obscured from above but clearly visible from ground level.

Yes, also Niantic's founder John Hanke has an actual documented history of CIA funding. It's not unreasonable paranoia for nations to suspect this may be an absolutely brilliant trojan horse especially given the data it collects and the access permissions it requires on some devices.

Yep. I'd be willing to bet money that it's being used to e.g., map the inside of buildings and the day-to-day habits of the person playing.

Because using spy satellites, humint, and hacking Iranian telecoms to gather intel is so out of fashion that Pokemon Go has to be used. Iran also went on to confiscate and destroy 100000 dishes that people used to watch regional and western news and TV at their home. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/iran-destroys-100000-c...

The ban on Pokemon Go has nothing to do with security, it's about controlling the society.

Place pokestop or whatever it is called near target. Pull images from peoples phones as they AR around the target picking up Pokemons.

> or whatever it is called

To make it more specific: place a rare Pokémon near the target to have a constant horde of zombies going there and trying to catch it. Or alternatively, place a bunch (3+) Pokéstops close to each other near the target and you get a place where regular players will hang around (there's a powerup called "Lure" that can be dropped on a Pokéstop, which causes increased chance of random encounters with Pokémons in the proximity for the next 30 minutes; if you have 3+ Pokéstops close to each other and each has a Lure on it, you can basically grind all the in-game valuables without moving from where you're sitting).

I'd say the first strategy is most viable, because Pokéstops are placed on the same spots Ingress portals are, so it would be immediately obvious if someone added a new stop/portal next to a classified target.

People doing western activities is a security issue for the Mullahs.

Any form of people self-organization is a security threat to the oppressive regime.

Israel also shares this concern, apparently: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/08/01/world/middleeast/...

There's a pretty big difference between a military banning active-duty soldiers from using it and a country banning its use across the board.

I know there is this concern in India as well.

My Machiavellian instinct was to say - demand the servers be located in India, and the data not leave India. Also - demand data be shared with agencies.

Agencies need data collection - and this seems to be a fairly cost effective way of collecting geo spatial data.

I mean if security is a concern not sure why the government refuses to work out some deal w/ the Pokemon folks rather than go all ape and ban it.

Israel banned it on military bases (it wouldn't surprise me if most countries do the same), you have an active application which records GPS coordinates, near by players, and uses the camera this conflicts with even basic opsec.

For a long time they didn't know why or if they should ban it. They simply didn't know what to expect of it is open to public so they banned it.

How China is dealing with this? Are they allowing people to play Pokemon Go?

I imagine there'd be a riot if China banned Pokemon Go. China's one of the top countries for free-to-play mobile game usage, it might even be the top now.

How does China comes to an Iran thread?

I think this issue is more about that for the type of islam practiced in iran any form of representation of images of living beings is a sin.

Any citation or that? It looks to me you're just raising bullshit accusation.

Pokémon Go can be rightfully suspected to be a surveillance device given how it works (geotracking, camera overlays and stuff) and how popular it is among general population. Not every nation is, or wants to be, in bed with the US, so such concerns are no surprise.

Accusation of what? I just telling you that I think that as pokemons are representations of (fictional) beigns, its a sin in the view of some islam branches/currents (I dont know how they are divided) I'm not an expert in any religion and my source is a youtube video which named the fact as a side note.

But is just a point... Im not intending to provoke a flamewar...

About the "surveillance", I don't buy it, all that the game is doing, is already being done by google itself.

Actually, the Shia variant practiced the current regime is probably the most lenient of all of the islamic regimes [0]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam

Does Pokemon Go even work in China? Geographic data in China is ... weird:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

I was surprised to find that Google Maps didn't have any streetviews of China. This might help explain it, though Google's relationship with China itself didn't seem to have fared well. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China)

The answer probably depends on whether Ingress ever worked in China. It seems that southern parts had some level of Ingress activity[0], so it's reasonable to assume there are some Pokémon players there too, likely using VPNs like the Ingressers.

[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/3s4abq/ingress_in_...

Niantic is self censored, so Pokemon Go didn't work in China

I can see the problem if the CIA have Niantic put a Charizard in a suspected nuclear enrichment plant and send back photos.

the Islamic Republic generally views phenomenons beyond its 1979 revolution that amass popularity as a threat.

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