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from the when-you-really-wanna-spy-on-your-people dept.
The New York Times reports that Iran's walled garden is being launched:
Iran's official news agency is reporting the country has inaugurated [the] first phase of its "National Network of Data." Iran has long sought to create its own national Intranet. The Sunday report by IRNA says the network aims to promote online Islamic content, and encourage less dependency on the Internet while providing safer data transfer and protection against cyber-attacks.
The Associated Press copy talks of restrictions on users and social media crackdowns. Meanwhile, Tehran Times reports:
The network is guaranteed to give the best service to all the users nationwide with the capability of making a safe connection to all the organizations and important bodies within the country. The network also facilitates encryption and digital signature for the users and provides high speed broadband for them. As announced by the secretary for the Supreme Council of Cyberspace the next two phases of this project are scheduled to finish by February 2017 and World Communication Day, May 8, 2017 respectively.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 29 2016, @11:30AM
While I am not inclined to believe the official story that "The network is guaranteed to give the best service to all the users nationwide", does someone more knowledgeable about the subject know whether this is likely to be a net win or net loss for the citizens served by the network?
Seems like it could go either way: A nice fast intranet bringing local and national sites to you nice and quickly, or a sandbox that you have trouble getting out of.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Monday August 29 2016, @01:07PM
I fully expect it to look like Geosites of 1995(?) with "Fun things to do in Tehran with your Koran! Better ways to pray! Keeping your wives in order."
What else can we expect from these theocracies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:08PM
It was called Geocities.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 29 2016, @10:28PM
I can imagine what a godawful mess my own government would produce if they got it into their tiny minds to create some sort of "national intranet" and they're not even weirdo religious nutters.
Iran's will be stupid, and the average Iranian will find ways of avoiding it.