Iran Vows to Unplug Internet | Hacker News Reader

Iran Vows to Unplug Internet

online.wsj.com

66 pointshuetsch45 comments

The free flow of information vs. censorship is the key social issue of our time. It is almost like having a front row seat to watching history repeat itself re. Printing, radio and television.

"History repeats itself -- first time as tragedy, second time as farce" -- Marx.

I suppose we are at the farce stage with the Internet.

yeah .. and may be down the line registering a domain will also require a license. And the license <raj> will hail .. this should not be happening.

One free flow of information can really drown out another free flow of information until it acts like censorship. Getting information out in the open is not cheap where we are dominated by corporate media.

An informative lesson from a wise quote: http://goo.gl/XUYv7

On Friday, new reports emerged in the local press that Iran also intends to roll out its own computer operating system in coming months to replace Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll work out well. Iran has always been known as a hot-bed of bleeding-edge secure operating system design, right? And SecureBSD folks will be happy to pitch in to help build an OS that kills free speech dead.

Well, North Korea created its own Linux, so perhaps it's natural that Iran would have its own BSD... http://rt.com/news/north-korea-cyber-weapon/

Named... ISD.

What? Unix is not bleeding edge dude. Iran can fork one of the free OSes. Anyway writing an OS is not like doing nuclear science.

"Kills free speech dead." Something like the West that kills people dead.

I wonder how soon after their halal-net goes online that someone will get some bridges going and 4chan et al become available.

My thoughts were more of the Internet version of Radio Free Europe.

Oh the irony of creating software based on ideas and technology stolen from companies of the culture which they are trying to "keep out". Reminds me of the pictures of people with signs saying "Death to America", while wearing Levi's jeans and Gucci sunglasses.

Is that a really short article? Or do you have to pay to read the whole story?

Looks like the Google-the-title trick doesn't work anymore unless you clear your cookies or use another browser. Anyway, the full text is at http://pastebin.com/hhJLD6bs

Anyone else find it amusing - or is it ironic? - that someone provided free access to an otherwise hidden article about censorship online?

A private corporation restricting access to information isn't censorship. If it were an article that the government put behind a paywall, you might be able to construe it as such, but even then it seems silly since there's still no limit on the expression itself.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the WSJ blocking access was censorship - I know they're fully within their rights, etc., etc. I just thought it was amusing.

I thought it was funny :-)

However, the Internet treats both as damage and routes around it.

The government puts information behind paywalls all the time. It's called Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret.

Other than that, FOIA request cost a token amount.

Indeed,

Now if North Korea could only arrange to become one large company with its citizens relabeled employees, its laws relabeled "conditions of employment", and their prisons as "homeless camps" then no one could object.

Those who are fired are welcome to go "anywhere in the country not owned by KimCo" - IE to any of ten detention areas.

Yes, I think I've found the path to Freedom for the 'Democratic' North Koreans...

"A private corporation restricting access to information isn't censorship."

  Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication
  which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or
  inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a
  government, media outlet, or other controlling body.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Censorship

Unfortunately, the quoted text was missing a key word. Rephrased here:

"A private corporation restricting access to ITS OWN information isn't censorship."

...none of which resembles WSJ's actions here...

(And Wikipedia is hardly approaching authoritative. I'd suggest something like the OED, but given that it's another subscription service [for the online form], I guess it would fall under one of those skewed interpretations of censorship, too.)

Cool, a pedant party. Anyone bring chips?

Google-the-title worked for me. If it hadn't, a pretty good way to avoid having to use another browser or mess with cookies is to use porn mode (Chrome's incognito for me).

http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%...

Another approach is to use Privoxy http://www.privoxy.org/ and add these lines to user.action:

  { +hide-referrer{http://news.google.com/news/} }
  .wsj.com

Before you all get uppity, don't forget that both America and Canada are:

1) Spying on their citizens. 2) Not above an Internet kill switch. You know, for the kids.

but the fascinating thing here is that evan Iran, who explicitly see it as an existential threat - which is way more serious than "won't you think of the children", seem unable to even think of disconnecting it entirely.

There is a certain amount of political capital in shouting loudly about thinking of the children, and the evils of the net. However, if Iran can't even turn it off because they rely on it for commerce and other key functions, How much worse would a lack of net hit the west?

Like the war on drugs the arising war on the net, driven in part by the death throws of big media, will be a lot more bluster, grandiose talk and rather lucrative funding of projects than effective action.

(you notice I've ignored spying. I reckon Google know more about me than the government does. My generation will flap about going "ooh ooh the privacy!". My children will grow in a world that has never been different and will find ways to adapt)

evan Iran, who explicitly see it as an existential threat

It probably is. The real question is should the outside let the government of Iran disconnect their citizens to keep their ideals? Should "wilful obstruction of facts known and shared by other humans" become a kind of humanitarian offence, with a bit of leeway for yet-to-be-agreed reasonable law enforcement purposes? Should it become a more pressing consideration the more the difference between rich scientific countries and closed-off/poor/controlled societies grows?

The UN human rights declaration includes Education, and the Cairo declaration of human rights in Islam forbids discrimination on racial, political affiliation and belief grounds, and also "emphasizes the "full right to freedom and self-determination", and its opposition to enslavement, oppression, exploitation and colonialism."

"22(c) states: "Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may [..] disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith."

22(d) states "It is not permitted to arouse nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form of racial discrimination."

(Source: Wikipedia). A right to education isn't much good if it only covers being educated in what some people want you to know. Information may not be used to disrupt or weaken the faith of an Islamic society by that convention, which the internet probably would, but censoring it for being "western" seems close to nationalistic and doctrinal hatred. (Iran may have nothing to do with the CDHRI).

That does not invalidate any criticism of what Iran is doing, of course.

I'm against that too...

But I'm also tired of every story like this having a "hey look at this other problem" post at the top.

We have threads here where the problem of US spying are hashed-out. I'm against it in those threads too...

But there's nothing wrong with focusing on this particular Iranian scheme - the Iranians certainly "deserve freedom" as much as anyone else.

My guess is a private Islamic Republic Internet will generally outline the stupidity of the clerics and that anyone's who anyone will want to get the real Internet. IE, it might fly back in their faces.

Just like I am also tired of "hey, at least you're not living in Somalia."

I just don't think that I have any moral right to comment on Iranians and/or their government if I am letting my government do the same.

I guess this is the difference between normal people and politicians.

I just don't think that I have any moral right to comment on Iranians and/or their government if I am letting my government do the same.

Huh? I don't think have a moral right to ignore the oppression of people in other countries. And yes, as an American, it is easier for me to comment on the situation in Iran. And that's why I should - to help people who have a harder time helping themselves.

This is the model of Amnesty International, for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International

People one country protest repression in another because they can. And yes, Amnesty has looked at quite a number of problematic US actions (and I imagine Canadian actions as well).

Thing is you don't know what your talking about. The attacks on Iran are mostly no smarter than "Iran stinky like my diaper.", and the group think up votes that. If enough people really start arguing against the group think then the thread has gone too political and the thread is locked or deleted.

Sure. But before everyone gets all uppity about US censorship, lets not forget that both China and North Korea are: 1.) Spying on their citizens. 2.) Not above an internet kill switch.

Do these comments do anything to further discussion?

This is shortsighted because if the leaders in Iran listen to Eli Pariser talk or read his book “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You" they would learn that the Iranians are more likely to develop tendencies towards extremist Islam rather than away from it due to the "filter bubbles" created by the personalization features of sites like Facebook and Google.

Sweet, back to the streets.

There's no quicker way to foment a revolution than cutting off access to our cutting edge Western pornography.

s/our cutting.\+/the internet./ and you would have got like 20 upvotes.

Is it ironic that while reading an article about the 'free flow of information', I get stopped by a pay wall?

This is a good time to remember John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace":

http://doc.cat-v.org/political_science/cyberspace-declaratio...

Ahmie's time to run away is coming, it seems ...

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