In 2008, Nokia Siemens’ Networks sold Iran a program called Monitoring Centre, which allows the government not only to monitor all mobile communications, but also to alter their contents, possibly for disinformation purposes. Implementation of the deep-packet inspection technology that the program uses may be to blame for the halt in mobile service that occurred after the June 12th election. According the BBC, Nokia Siemens markets the Monitoring Center product to 150 countries around the world.
posted by HylandErickson on Jun 22, 2009 - 34 comments

Wilson et al v. McConnell et al. This site has all the legal documents surrounding Valerie Plame's legal case against the CIA over her new book. CIA censors blacked out 10 percent of the copy, as can seen in this excerpt from the book, and Plame is not allowed to speak freely in her interviews. [Via No Quarter.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 22, 2007 - 87 comments

The Iranian Flickr group celebrates the 1 year anniversary of their first meetup. This is kind of impressive because Flickr is banned in Iran. I love how resourceful people can be.
posted by chunking express on Jun 18, 2007 - 6 comments

Blogs contribute to political reform in Iran (New York Times): Former vice-president of Iran, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said that he learned through the Internet about the huge gap between government officials and the younger generation. "We do not understand each other and cannot have a dialogue," he said. "As government officials, we receive a lot of confidential reports about what goes on in society. But I have felt that I learned a lot more about people and the younger generation by reading their Web logs and receiving about 40 to 50 e-mails every day. This is so different than reading about society in those bulletins from behind our desks."
posted by hoder on Jan 16, 2005 - 7 comments

Iran systematically filters political websites: In contrast with what the Iranaian President had said in the UN summit on Information Technology last year, the OpenNet Initiative, in its latest bulletin, concludes that "Iran is indeed engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging websites.
"Most of these censored websites are Iran-specific; very little non-pornographic, "global" content is filtered from Iranian users. "
posted by hoder on Aug 19, 2004 - 8 comments

How they censor Tintin comic books in Iran
posted by hoder on Jul 8, 2004 - 12 comments

Iran has censored Movable Type's website The blacklist contains over 800 Persian websites, including many political websites and weblogs, as well as many entertainment websites.
posted by hoder on Jun 22, 2004 - 7 comments

While there are a million blogs about cheese sandwiches and how lame fifth period trig class is, it's always great to hear when blogs actually help give a voice to those that never had one. Iranian women don't have much say in society, but thanks to blogs, they are now finding they have a voice as they're read by thousands around the world. Of course they've still got some net censorship in Iran, but this is a great start.
posted by mathowie on Feb 26, 2004 - 3 comments

Iranian bloggers challenge the President in the Summit: It all started from a post on the Geneva Summit's blog, DailySummit, asking Iranians to report on the Net censorship. Then, they asked them to post their questions for the Iranian President, who was going to have a press conference. Then reporters asked the questions from the president: Is the there a blacklist for Iranian websites? Do you read Persian weblogs? How hard is it to connect to the Net in Iran? Later they asked tougher questions from the Minister of Telecommunications: Why don't they public the blacklist? Why Sina Motallebi, the blogger, was arrested? Isn't the summit about how technology benefits democracy and human rights? Blogs can definitely be a big part of the answer.
posted by hoder on Dec 11, 2003 - 6 comments

Net censorship in Iran: myth or reality? Over hundred Iranians have the answer on the DailySummit.net, official blog of the World Summit on the Information Society. Would this be enough to embarass the big Iranian delegate in Geneva in front of the world--and the press?
posted by hoder on Dec 9, 2003 - 22 comments

"Sick Nick" is a cartoon blog by Nikahang Kowsar, the Iranian cartoonist. He drew a cartoon that could be interpreted as an insult to a top cleric, therefore he was arrested and the paper was closed down. He now lives in Toronto, fearing of going back to Iran.
posted by hoder on Sep 27, 2003 - 5 comments

Further Iranian Oppression. The "government" of Iran has evidently teamed up with Cuba in efforts to further suppress the growing democratic movement in Iran by jamming pro-democracy satellite broadcasts. Two un-elected governments combining forces to make sure that their will is enforced, not that of their citizens.
posted by jsonic on Jul 12, 2003 - 62 comments

Bloggers unite to fight : Writers of web journals are joining forces to help free a blogger detained in Iran. At the same time, weblog are going to have much more political functions, especially in closed societies such as Iran. Their governments are begining to take notice.
posted by hoder on May 3, 2003 - 8 comments

Persian, Amercian blogospheres come together after an Iranian blogger, Sina Motallebi, was detained by Iranian regime. OJR's Mark Glaser has the story. BTW, sign the "Release Sina" petition if you haven't.
posted by hoder on May 1, 2003 - 5 comments

Iran Online. Can the opening of a countires 'cyber-borders' contribute to the liberalisation (small 'l') of the society? Iran has a rapidly increasing population, as well as a rapidly increasing online percentage, they have sports sites (they seem to like soccer), portals and the 'IranMania' search engine. Can un-censored access to the internet help build tolerance?
posted by asok on Feb 22, 2002 - 5 comments