Wall Street Journal' reports Islamic Republic intensifying "soft war" against western culture and influence spread through web.
A project to set up a "national" internet is underway in Iran, a move that would serve to disconnect the Islamic Republic from the rest of the world, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
The internal network, which experts see as a way for Iran to end the regime's fight for control of the internet, is expected to extend to the entire country within two years time.
The ambitious internet plan is not without its difficulties. Such a closed off system could stunt investment opportunities with other censor-minded nations such as Russia and China. It will also immediately create a technology information dearth, boosting a need to reinvent the wheel for now seemingly mundane activities, such as pulling up Google to perform a search.
Estimates place around 11 of every 100 Iranians as internet users, making their famously interactive blogging culture one of the most vibrant in the Middle East. In the early days of Iranian internet use in the 1990s, leaders encouraged citizens to log on and spread their own brand of Islamic ideology. Recent counter movements in the country, stoked by Twitter, have the country’s social engineers now on the defensive.
Such products are designed primarily to combat malware and viruses, but can be used to block other things, such as websites. Iranian officials several years ago designed their own filtering system—based on what they learned from the illegally obtained U.S. products—so they could service and upgrade it on their own, according to the Iranian engineers.
A Fortinet spokesman said he was unaware of any company products in Iran, adding that the company doesn't sell to embargoed countries, nor do its resellers. McAfee Inc., which owns Secure Computing, said no contract or support was provided to Iran. Intel Corp. recently bought McAfee, which added that it can now disable its technology obtained by embargoed countries. A Juniper spokesman said the company has a "strict policy of compliance with U.S. export law," and hasn't sold products to Iran.
The notion of an Iran-only Internet emerged in 2005 when Mr. Ahmadinejad became president. Officials experimented with pilot programs using a closed network serving more than 3,000 Iranian public schools as well as 400 local offices of the education ministry.
The government in 2008 allocated $1 billion to continue building the needed infrastructure. "The national Internet will not limit access for users," Abdolmajid Riazi, then-deputy director of communication technology in the ministry of telecommunications, said of the project that year. "It will instead empower Iran and protect its society from cultural invasion and threats."
Iran's government has also argued that an Iranian Internet would be cheaper for users. Replacing international data traffic with domestic traffic could cut down on hefty international telecom costs.
The widespread violence following Iran's deeply divisive presidential election in June 2009 exposed the limits of Iran's Internet control—strengthening the case for replacing the normal Internet with a closed, domestic version. In one of the most dramatic moments of the crisis, video showing the apparent shooting death of a female student, Neda Agha-Soltan, circulated globally and nearly in real time.
The new network will be compliant with Islamic Law, "a genuinely halal network," according to Ali Aghamohammadi, Iran's head of economic affairs.
Aghamohammadi added that the new network would initially work alongside the normal internet but could eventually replace the world wide web, not only in Iran, but in other Muslim countries as well.
The Stuxnet computer worm, which reportedly set back Iran's nuclear program pushed the regime to accelerate the internal internet initiative.
