
Iran plans to unplug the Internet, launch its own "clean" alternative - 3lit3H4ck3r
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/iran-plans-to-unplug-the-internet-launch-its-own-clean-alternative.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29
======
JumpCrisscross
There is a bitter irony in how the technology that was supposed to bring us to
a Friedmanite border-less world is also propelling us towards an Orwellian one
where the power brokers can achieve omnipotence and force projection without,
eventually, requiring the buy-in of a single human being.

The problem is that techno-authoritarian systems, e.g. what N Korea is
approaching, are very stable once properly assembled. The "human" regimes,
i.e. liberal democracies, have to constantly fight against slipping into that
horror. We need to find a way to change this equation because it
asymptotically solves for a very dark future. From a systems theory
perspective, the solution is ironically a random and sufficiently destructive
agent - a joker.

~~~
olalonde
> There is a bitter irony in how the technology that was supposed to bring us
> to a Friedmanite border-less world is also propelling us towards an
> Orwellian one where the power brokers can achieve omnipotence and force
> projection without, eventually, requiring the buy-in of a single human
> being.

I disagree with this. You are still free not to use technology even in an
"Orwellian regime". The Internet hasn't made things worse. Would you rather
live in a country with no Internet at all or a country with their own
Internet?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The same network technology that makes the internet and applications on it
possible enable mass surveillance, the intelligent processing of that data,
and efficient execution on it as well. It isn't an either or question but an
and one.

Thus, it isn't that one can choose not to use technology and thus avoid its
Orwellian repercussions as much as the existence of the choice in the first
place implies both use cases (promoting freedom/connectivity and facilitating
surveillance/oppression) exist. Your decision to participate or abstain has
little bearing on an ambitious dictator's.

------
ericabiz
Wow. This is kind of like "The Truman Show" in a way. Imagine, being born
there now, and your whole life you "access the Internet", without even
realizing it's not actually the Internet.

Truly warped.

~~~
cpeterso
How do I know if _I'm_ using the Real Internet even now??

~~~
Shank
What government would let a social news website through?

~~~
philwelch
Oh that's easy. Every social news site has a groupthink--if it doesn't have
one naturally, crowdsourced moderation, i.e. upvotes and downvotes, will end
up creating it. You just set things up so the groupthink either agrees with
The Agenda or gets angry at issues that don't impact the ruling party's
agenda. Then you have the illusion of free speech and democracy without any
actual risk to the power structure.

For instance, people on HN seem to get really worked up about the TSA, sexism
in the tech industry, the war on drugs, and the privacy implications of
Facebook and Google. If you were trying to protect a totalitarian state, do
you really think any of those would be part of the agenda? Things like the TSA
and war on drugs could be deliberately bad policy designed to distract the
easily outraged. As for Facebook and Google, the worst thing they're going to
do with your personal information is target advertisements at you. A
totalitarian state would probably just build a system like Echelon.

~~~
CodeMage
_As for Facebook and Google, the worst thing they're going to do with your
personal information is target advertisements at you._

Sure, I bet _that_ is what everyone is complaining about. It certainly can't
be about the possibility of your private information ending up in hands that
could do you harm with it, right? I mean, who in their right mind would be
afraid of how a bank or an employer or a court or a government agency might
use some innocuous bit of information they thought was private? After all, if
you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of...

~~~
pooriaazimi
Facebook and google are opt-in. You can stop using them anytime you want (use
ddg instead of google). You can't decide which country you born in.

------
jakeonthemove
Oh God, and what're they gonna do next, build their own microprocessors? Let's
be real, they're going to become the next North Korea if this and their other
isolationism plans succeed...

~~~
dmk23
No, next they'll build nukes and ballistic missiles. Not just for isolationism
but for attacking their neighbors and manipulating world's oil supply.

It is hard to see how a war with Iran can be avoided.

EDIT: Anyone who is downvoting, please post an actual _reasoned_ response on
what exactly you disagree with.

~~~
ef4
For one thing, the regime has been a fairly rational actor that does what's
necessary to stay in power. You need to look at what they _do_ , rather than
what they _say_ , which often has more to do with domestic politics.

There's no doubt that actually launching a nuclear first strike would be the
end of the regime, and they know it. But they still quite rationally want a
nuclear deterrent so they can achieve a balance of power with Israel and
insurance against an American invasion.

So war is not a foregone conclusion, even _if_ they really manage to build a
nuclear weapon, and _if_ they could credibly threaten to deliver it, which is
much harder and not at all certain.

Consider that a nation like China values stability and plays for the long
term, and yet they've been willing to continue backing Iran. Clearly China has
evaluated the Iranian regime and decided it's stable enough to rely on. My
money is on China knowing what they're doing.

The push for war has everything to do with the US and Israel wanting to
maintain overwhelming military dominance. Iran is not a realistic threat to
the existence of Israel or US security. But it's a threat to American regional
hegemony.

~~~
philwelch
> But they still quite rationally want a nuclear deterrent so they can achieve
> a balance of power with Israel and insurance against an American invasion.

Israel is no threat to Iran. The worst they could do is make limited air
raids, and the only interest they'd have in _that_ would be to destroy their
nuclear program. So the Iranian nuclear program only increases the risk of
Israeli action.

As for the US, there's no rational risk of US action if they don't develop
nuclear weapons. Iraq is no precedent, if only because Iraq was already in an
untenable situation with the economic and military sanctions, and the last
thing you do if you want to become Iraq is give the rest of the world a reason
to impose sanctions. Developing nuclear weapons and violating human rights are
both fantastic ways to get sanctions imposed.

Of course, these arguments are a bit wounding to the national pride, but
you're saying Iran is acting _rationally_ , not pridefully.

> Consider that a nation like China values stability and plays for the long
> term, and yet they've been willing to continue backing Iran. Clearly China
> has evaluated the Iranian regime and decided it's stable enough to rely on.
> My money is on China knowing what they're doing.

By that logic, North Korea is a stable and reliable regime. There's something
more going on here. Charitably speaking, maybe China thinks they can keep some
control over Iran, the same way they have some control over North Korea, by
fostering dependence.

~~~
patrickk
It's a power play between east and west. China uses Iran and N.Korea as a
leverage against the west. Russia does something similar with Syria.

It's got nothing to do with Iran, N.Korea or even Israel ultimately. It's
certainly got nothing to do with human rights (if so, why hasn't NATO invaded
Darfur?) I'm going to stop now because this is becoming too political.

~~~
philwelch
I didn't say human rights were a sincere motivation, just that they're a
useful pretext, one of the cards on the table that one could play. Largely I
think you're right.

------
harryf
The title here slants the discussion somewhat. Reporters without borders
presented it this way in their 2012 report;

"Several times in 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, true to his
nationalist policies, announced the creation of a national Web, a "clean"
version of the Internet with its own search engine and messaging service. This
may mean two different types of access, one for the authorities and another
for the rest of the population"

To me that implies stricter use of firewalls and launching national services
for search and email. That's somewhat different to re-inventing the Internet,
which I feel the title here implies.

~~~
pooriaazimi
(I live in Iran an know quite a lot about this "national" Internet thing. Also
check out this other submission:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3432816>)

I haven't read this article yet, but believe me, they _want_ to shut down
Internet badly. They've been planning (and building the infrastructure and
testing it) for the past three years.

But you're quite right, they can't shut down the Internet completely, it will
be there. But, the "national" Internet will be faster, and all official
websites (news agencies, banks, etc.) will be forced to support it. I'm sure
you won't believe it, but right now there's a cap for Internet access speed in
Iran (128 Kbps: 128 Kilobits per second, or 16 KiloBytes per second). If
you're a student or you can make a _reasonable_ argument, you can go as high
as 1 MBps (and an unmetered 1Mbps access costs about 130 dollars per month, so
for most people it doesn't worth it). Now, imagine a cheap, 7 Mbps "national"
Internet for everyone. _The Internet_ can't compete with this new intranet...

[Edit] fix typo

~~~
mike-cardwell
"128 KiloBytes" per second is a 1Mbit connection... That's more than enough
for most people unless you're a heavy video user. I think mine is about 8Mbit,
but I doubt I'd notice if it dropped to 1Mbit.

I'm not arguing for the cap. I'm just confused that you think a 1Mbit
connection is somehow comically slow?

~~~
pooriaazimi
Sorry. I don't know how I made that mistake... I meant 128 Kilobits per second
(16 KiloBytes per second). The best you can get is 1 Megabits per second (128
KiloBytes per second).

I have a 256 Kbps connection. It's really, really slow. It took me 2 days to
download OS X Lion from Mac App Store (about 3.5 GB).

------
ChristianMarks
Very unlikely they would cut themselves off entirely. No email to or from Iran
seems self defeating. I suppose they won't outsource censoring to the West. ;)

------
flixic
'The organization says that the system "consists of an Intranet designed
ultimately to replace the international Internet and to discriminate between
ordinary citizens and the 'elite' (banks, ministries and big companies), which
will continue to have access to the international Internet."'

As long as those with power are not willing to give up their own access to the
internet, hackers will find a way to break the system.

~~~
4ad
If only hackers can break the system, they won. See my other comment here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821517>

This is not about how easy is for hackers to circumvent the system, this is
about how effective is the system in stopping information flow for the masses.

------
mrleinad
Watch out for western governments/corporations that may want to "borrow" those
kind of ideas.

------
JVIDEL
Good luck with that: the great firewall of China doesn't works, you don't need
to be a hacker to punch a hole through that POS system and the Iranians don't
even have the manpower to make a firewall like that so whatever they do will
be even lamer and full of holes.

Besides there's the social factor: the Chinese are cool with their government
for now because despite all the crap you hear they are still much better off
than 20 or 30 years ago. Iran on the other hand is doing like shit, the
embargo has destroyed their economy and the people has already revolted
before, and the ayatollahs are scared shitless about the Arab Spring.

This might be the last straw...

~~~
4ad
But the great firewall of China works so well. Yes, it's trivially
circumvented by anyone who knows how things works, but the vast majority of
Chinese people don't fall in that category.

The purpose of these systems is to keep the general population in the dark,
it's not targeted at knowledgeable intellectuals. You can't keep them in the
dark anyway and they already know. It's only point is to stop knowledge
dissipating to the masses.

~~~
Monotoko
I have a Chinese friend who is an average computer user, and knows about
proxies that can bypass the firewall. I'd argue that the majority, especially
young people, know how to bypass it whether they are hackers or your average
computer user.

~~~
maxwin
If a chinese has a foreign friend and is able to communicate with you in
English, then he/she is no where near average. He/she is probably an average
among the middle or upper middle class, but definitely not an average among
all chinese. However the bigger problem in China is not that they don't know
how to bypass the firewall but that most people simply don't have the
motivation to do so even if they know. The chinese version (copycat) like
Baidu(google), Weibo(twitter) or youku (youtube) etc is simply good enough or
better for them.

------
narf2012
such a wonderful country and great people, but government of crackpot thieving
crooked perverts

~~~
ollerac
clearly the U.S. centric propaganda has gotten to you. which 1st world
government isn't filled with crackpot thieving crooked perverts?

~~~
yaix
Most of them.

Power may be corrupting some of those who manage to get to the top, and some
of those who get a majority of votes may not be the brightest, but most 1st
world gov'ts are pretty honest. Not only because we have free media that is
watching every step these people do and will make them resign at the smallest
mistake.

But, if you think that "they" are that bad, then you can just become one of
"them" and do it better. I would recommend your local Pirate Party to start.

~~~
mindslight
> _most 1st world gov'ts are pretty honest_

This is true, in the same way that I'd be honest if you were to ask me a
simple yes/no question, and I responded with a page-long expression that took
a day to evaluate to the actual answer. Which is why ...

> _you can just become one of "them" and do it better_

... is doomed to fail. The problem isn't morals, it's unbounded complexity.
People are just the substrate that the bureaucracy runs on. Feeding it ever-
more people and resources (exponential technological growth) only compounds
the fundamental problem - when something is not understandable, it's
completely unaccountable.

~~~
yaix
Read this and you'll stop being pessimistic :)

[http://falkvinge.net/2012/04/09/we-are-winning-how-pirate-
pa...](http://falkvinge.net/2012/04/09/we-are-winning-how-pirate-parties-are-
changing-the-world/)

It's only 5 years since the Pirate Parties started (first in Sweden), and it
looks pretty good (in Germany they have now double diggits in the polls).
Another 5 years and Pirates will be part of the gov't of several EU countries,
I would guess.

------
est
For the love of IETF please just call it Intranet.

~~~
Apocryphon
Iranet, or the Intehranet.

------
siculars
Good. Let them blackhole themselves.

This will obviously just motivate brilliant hackers to find brilliant ways
around brilliantly moronic "policy."

~~~
buu700
If they're physically removing access to the Internet, the only way around it
would be to physically restore access, which isn't exactly a matter of
breaking through some firewalls or firing up Tor.

The only realistic way I could see this working on a large scale is a very
wealthy, motivated, and low-profile hacker somehow managing to string in fiber
across the border from neighbouring countries, set up multiple wireless access
points, and get a mesh network going across the country.

On a small scale (say, for a hacker and his buddies or an underground
resistance force), I suppose you'd only need to get a decent wireless-N access
point near the border (in Turkey, perhaps?) broadcasting a WPA-encrypted
hidden network, then have specific people in strategic locations running cheap
wireless-N routers configured with Tomato or DD-WRT to act as repeaters.
Obviously this isn't foolproof (hidden networks are easy to find if you're
looking for them), it would be easy to cut off if it were discovered, and it
would be slow as balls, but if you could manage to get a large enough chain
going everywhere it needed to be, and its use were coordinated well enough to
ensure that it would only be used in urgent situations (and only through Tor),
then it could prove to be an invaluable resource.

But yeah, Iran's people need another revolution, fast.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
» _The only realistic way I could see this working is....stringing fibre
across the border_

Or satellite Internet.

~~~
justincormack
Dialup, unless voice lines are dead.

------
mahmud
If it succeeds, governments everywhere will be lining up to license the
technology.

------
Shank
If they were to go through with this, it would mean the end of economic
growth, trade, and commerce with the rest of the world. It would be very hard
if not impossible to transfer any large sum of money for trade purposes,
unless they intend on giving merchants the ability to use the internet
exclusively for payments.

In reality though, a modern business is dead on arrival if they can't outside
of the country for customers.

------
peykar
It's April's fool (Doroogh-e Sizdah in Iran).

------
woodall
The Internet, as it currently is, needs to die. Just put a bullet in it's head
an move on. It was a great starting point, but it's all monkey patches and
quick 'fixes'; ala https, dns, et al.

I auctually wanted SOPA to pass. Maybe it will get people thinking.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Same thing North Korea's done. They have a nationwide intranet where some
organisations such as universities can request content from the Internet to be
downloaded onto it.

------
mcantelon
It seems weird to me that the Iran-linked Hezbollah organization is renowned
for its technological savvy, yet their allged paymasters are Iran.

~~~
sliverstorm
Just because they cut off the general public, doesn't mean their governments
and/or covert ops units won't have access.

------
jkahn
A terrible blow for freedom in an already oppressive regime.

Does this mean their public IPs go back into circulation?

------
nmridul
What if we had lots of such parallel "internets" that are all accessible from
around the world. That lets the user choose which "internet" to connect to.

Something that can reduce the ICANN and the US control over the current
network. After all, competition is always good.

We now have such underground networks that is piggybacking on the existing
internet.

~~~
jakeonthemove
But you're pretty much describing the Internet as it is now :-)... Each
country having their own Internet separate from the rest of the world is
counter-productive - I remember Russia wanted to introduce their own domain
names in cyrillic and create some sort of Russian-only net a decade ago - the
idea wasn't very popular with the people...

------
yaix
Will not happen. It would just make more people in Iran to become active in
the oposition.

~~~
pooriaazimi
You have a rational mind, but my country isn't run by rational people...

~~~
yaix
What they say publicly may not sound rational, but its pretty rare that
somebody just ends up in the driving seat by chance.

~~~
pooriaazimi
Hundreds of billions of Oil dollars helps too!

------
iamtoby2003
another North Korea?

------
iRobot
"launch its own "clean" alternative"

If I lived in Iran I don't think I would be renewing my ISP plan any time
soon.

------
stupidsheep
errr did anyone forget that our perfect western world is doing the exact same
thing? sigh

why do all the dumb nerds on here think they can comment on things they have
absolutely no idea about either. regardless of how little wisdom most of you
have, you don't even know the facts.

also leave iran alone you monsters

~~~
Monotoko
Very constructive argument that told both sides and explained points very
well, really got me thinking, thank you. :)

------
ivarious
Now how could Iranian play Diablo III?

~~~
pestaa
I'm quite sure this won't be their greatest concern.

