
Iran to Replace "The Internet" with "Halal Intranet" - pooriaazimi
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203513604577142713916386248.html
======
cup
There has been an ongoing and pervasive systematic increase in stories
portraying a negative light on Iran and Iranian society. This, along with
obvious current affair issues, leads me to believe that a 'propaganda war'
much akin to the one we saw before Iraq and Afghanistan is slowly coming to
life.

The fact of the matter is that amongst all the countries in the Middle East,
Iran is the one that most Americans and Europeans would probably find most
similarities with. It's incredibly youthful, energetic, entreprenuriel and
when it comes to the younger generation, liberal. While I don't doubt that the
political establishment might be attempting to curtail free access to the
internet I question why It's of concern to us when America is trying to ram
SOPA and other bills down our throats and when our "allies" in the mid-east
region already have complex and functioning systems in place to regulate and
censore access to foreign websites.

I've spent many years living in the mid east and I just can't shake off the
unmistaken feeling of an attempt to sway the public into thinking Iran is a
monolithic demonic institute.

~~~
bruce511
From the article:

>> A conservative cleric blogger based in the holy Shiite city of Qum, Ahmad
Najimi, said in his blog last week that the government was paying hackers
hired in the network known as the "Cyber Army" the equivalent of $7 per hour
to swarm the Web with positive comments about the Islamic Republic and post
negative comments against dissidents.

So we ask ourselves, are comments here that are mitigating Iran's actions here
- or ones that divert the conversation to say SOPA - getting paid by the hour?

but wait - if we assume _all_ positive comments are paid for, then we're
denying those that are unpaid to voice valid counter arguments.

Oh my head, my poor head....

~~~
nextparadigms
That happens in China, too. When there's a new policy or law, they pay
thousands of people to write positive comments about it.

~~~
astrodust
I love China. I think they have the best human rights record in the world!

~~~
pyre
They pay for positive comments, not sarcastic ones. Don't expect a check in
the mail... ;-)

------
mahmud
Has nothing to do with "Halal". NOTHING about Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh)
makes a mention of anything but edibles when it comes to Halal. If you hear
some autocratic douchebag call something Halal or Haram when speaking of non-
food items, you know you're being bullshat.

This is nothing but good ole consolidation of power. Iranians call it Halal,
Americans call it counter-terrorism and intellectual property, others call it
enforcement of rightous morals, upright character, national concensus,
surprise non-consensual posterior-sex or whatever label one assigns to power-
grab. This is it.

Fuck the ruling Mulahs and fuck the business, political and military-
industrial engines that are conspiring against the People everywhere on earth.

~~~
nazar
Muslim's here, Halal as in حلال and Haram as in حَرَام do not limit themselves
to stuff related to food. Really it's not. I am not implying that Internet can
be haram or halal, but there are things besides food that are considered
either halal or haram. For example, sexual intercourse without nikah is
considered haram, and the opposite is considered halal. ‎ ‎

~~~
Jun8
Thanks for correcting the mistake in the parent comment. For the uninitiated:
as a simplification things you can do fall into three categories: halal (you
can do it and it's a good thing), makruh
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makruh>, مكروه) (smt that's not a clear sin but
should best be avoided), and haram (you shouldn't do it, it's sin), these all
have subclasses and it's complicated, so this is a rough guide. The non-Muslim
population generally encounters only the food aspect of this distinction, due
to notices on restaurants and food items.

Now, many (orthodox) Muslims would consider lusting after women who are not
your wife (or wives where that applies) as haram, and see the Internet as a
thing that facilitates this. This is not a new thing, e.g. the Internet is
heavily filtered in Saudi Arabia. You can't subscribe to, say, _Playboy_ from
that country or have it sent to you, because they check the mail items.

Now, whether all this makes sense in year 2012 is another question.

~~~
rmc
Non-Muslim, Christian countries have banned Playboy, under 'obscenity' rules
aswell.

------
OoTheNigerian
Unfortunately, there is no government with the moral credibility to speak up.

Iran's censorship is direct, autocratic and politically motivated

US' censorship is indirect, 'democratic' and commercially motivated.

Dear US goverment, please rethink your decision. Your might and support in the
world comes not from your military strength but your perceived moral
credibility and being seen as the standard. The right standard.

Do not change it.

PS: Has WSJ written anything against SOPA?

~~~
nextparadigms
I'm starting to think the indirect, commercial approach is actually worse,
because it's so misleading ("we'll save millions of jobs!"). The US Government
couldn't have convinced so many countries to start restricting their Internet.
It's "thanks" to MPAA and RIAA that they are doing it.

------
sleepyhead
"start collecting detailed personal information on customers" This has been
the norm in Iran for a while. I visited there for three months in 2008 and was
always asked for my name and passport number when going to internet cafes. But
usually they were relaxed about it so did not have to show my passport so I
usually wrote "George Bush", "Johnny Cash" or other fake names. The staff
would also usually help me with finding a proxy as Facebook and some email
services were blocked. There were not a central filter but filtering was done
individually by the ISPs. For example Facebook was blocked in Tehran but not
in the rest of the country.

Edit: By the way, you should all visit Iran. It is a safe country with
interesting architecture, culture, history and very friendly people.

~~~
josefresco
Sounds good, you want to go hiking when we get there? On second thought, maybe
we should stay home.

~~~
sleepyhead
I went hiking there. And I went snowboarding in the mountains. Was fantastic.
But if you plan to cross the border from a country occupied by the same state
that enforces sanctions on Iran then I would advise against that, in the same
way as I would advise against crossing the border from Mexico to the US while
hiking without any proper entering visa.

------
DrCatbox
"The video surveillance brings Iran further into the vanguard of nations that
have sought to keep tabs on Internet use. Libya under Moammar Gadhafi ran
extensive web-monitoring operations. China has sophisticated website filtering
and an army of censors patrolling chat rooms. China and Cuba require Internet-
cafe users to present identification."

Sweden is filtering and web-monitoring, it is very easy for the state to know
exactly who does what. NSA is not behind in this technology. USA has sock
puppet software, they dont need armies of censors.

The internet is dead.

~~~
pooriaazimi
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship>

I'm a little shocked about Sweden's "web monitoring". From wikipedia it looks
like they're just blocking some porn sites... Could you elaborate more?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country#.C2.A0Sweden)

~~~
DrCatbox
A few years ago a law was passed that permitted the FRA (Försvarets Radio
Anstalt) (Defense Radio Establishment) to spy on all the traffic that passes
through swedish borders, the FRA had been doing so illegaly for the past ten
years and that was a scandal too. What constitutes border, in the internet the
FRA is monitoring, is not defined.

Swedens #1 ISP, TeliaSonera is on the list of CIA/USA as strategic foreign
resource to protect in case of major war due to them being able to spy on much
of communications going to russia/east, the list was leaked by wikileaks if I
remember correctly.

More: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law>

------
hippich
It is like deja vu:

\- Belarus March 2011 - national currency drops by more than 50% to USD due
government failure.

\- Since you can not get together more than 3 persons in public places (it
will be illegal meeting/petitioning), people used social networks (twitter,
vkontakte.ru) to get together every Wednesday's evening at some announced
location and just stay there (no talking, no doing anything illegal, not
causing any trouble for anybody). Occasionally - clap in hands. So it is like
flashmob, just scheduled :)

\- After second such event - access to twitter.com, facebook.com,
vkontakte.ru, etc sites was blocked nationally each Wednesday. Organizer's
account in vkontakte.ru was hacked somehow by Belarus police/KGB (probably,
not hacked, but "enforced" - it is easier for them just to call to
organization and request information instead)

\- After 3 months our government tried to pass updates to a law about public
meetings trying to make "public not-doing" illegal (this is what these people
were "doing" each Wednesday). Thanks god, this did not pass through 'cos it is
insane.

\- Next - the law discussed there -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3415897> \- was introduced and quickly
after that was approved :)

Belarus currency to USD exchange rate, January 2011 - 3200 brb for 1 USD
Belarus currency to USD exchange rate, December 2011 - 8500 brb for 1 USD

------
arkitaip
I would like to do something so that Iranians can continue accessing the
Internet. I'm thinking contributing money or time to hardware related projects
via which Iranians can totally circumvent the Iranian Internet infrastructure
completely.

Any ideas, HN?

~~~
jacobr
You might want to get involved with Telecomix, they've done just that. See
<http://telecomix.org> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecomix>

~~~
JonnieCache
Yep. Telecomix is the perfect place to start if you want to help.

------
eliben
There are many intelligent people in Iran, and they have the privelege to see
this unrolling in front of their eyes. Wake up, before you become North Korea.

~~~
nextparadigms
I could say the same thing about US. The unfortunate truth is that most people
don't care enough until it's really too late to change anything. And if they
do want to change it, then they will need overwhelming numbers to change the
policy, and possibly even violence to remove the Government.

But I do think things are starting to change a bit. As the society moves away
from the "read-only" type of media, where they only get to think about the
"choices" they are presented with, which has led to a lot of people,
especially young people, to not even care about voting anymore, because they
realized their vote won't change anything when the vast majority of the
population could still get mass-manipulated, to a society that is more
"read/write" thanks to the Internet, and where they are much more engaged in
political issues, and don't want to sit idle on the side. This should
ultimately lead to healthier democracies.

Democracies turn rotten when the people don't care about what happens at the
top, which tends to encourage politicians to do whatever they want when they
are there and seek more power ever faster.

~~~
bmuon
> Democracies turn rotten when the people don't care about what happens at the
> top

Exactly. Plus it seems there is a global movement of some sort in this
direction even in countries with a history that would make you expect the
opposite (stable democracy after a long history of military coups). Spain has
approved SOPA-like laws. Argentina just passed a "counter-terrorism" law that
has nothing to do with our country's reality. And so far we've managed to stop
the few attempts by the music industry to lobby for restrictive laws, but they
will try again.

~~~
epscylonb
In the UK it is commonly said "you don't vote people in, you vote them out".

It would be nice if we could be more pro active and avoid some of this
nonsense.

------
AndrewDucker
Looking at the context in the article, it seems that the government is running
scared of dissent, and is now cracking down further and further.

The citizens they talked to seem to be dismissive of the attempts, and one
wonders if the government is going to squeeze too hard and cause a backlash.

------
Monotoko
I have five tor exit nodes running at the moment... after reading this I'm
doubling it to ten!

~~~
gioele
Where are those nodes? I know that in the US running a Tor exit node may be a
safe thing [1], but I wonder about the legality of them in the rest of the
word, the EU especially.

The problem is not whether you end up guilty or innocent after a trial; the
problem is the trial itself. Who can afford the time (years) and money (~10k
€) needed for a penal process? And I can imaging you being pictured by the
press covering the trial as a dangerous hacker helping terrorists and similar
things.

[1] <https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html>

------
feralchimp
Run Tor exit nodes (or donate to someone who will).

[https://blog.torproject.org/blog/support-tor-network-
donate-...](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/support-tor-network-donate-exit-
node-providers)

------
nextparadigms
Maybe the MPAA boss will propose the same thing next to stop piracy,
especially if SOPA passes and still fails to stop piracy.

------
xster
USA to replace the internet with SOPA intranet

------
tlogan
I know a little about Iran (I have friends living there and my father was
working there), and it seems like the _only_ reason why mulas are in power is
America (there is joke that FoxNews is Iranian TV network).

Also, Iran's government is very corrupted (even ridiculously obvious) and in
many many cases decisions are based on economical interests told with verses
from Kuran.

Of course, there are some people who genuinely believe in ideas of Iran's
revolutions but they are already old senile and mainly used as tokens.

In short, the second Iranian revolution will come soon.

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j45
So, Iran is doing the same as SOPA wants to, and China is doing with filtering
the internet.

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dazbradbury
Halal, is it .me you're looking for...

------
riffic
This isn't an Onion story?

