In the early months of 2020 the Iranian government announced that the cabinet had approved the draft text of an agreement for a 25 year partnership with China. From the get-go the announcement received a significant amount of attention from the Iranian public and from high-profile political figures, despite few details being made publicly available. Continue reading “The Iran-China Partnership: A Bad Deal for Citizens and Tech Companies”
Yearly Archives: 2020
Policy Monitor – September 2020
This September, the Supreme Council for Cyberspace returned to work after a two-month absence, holding two meetings. This month also marked further infrastructural developments relating to the National Information Network (NIN), as ICT Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi claimed that all of the country’s schools ‘have been connected to the National Information Network’. At the sameContinue reading “Policy Monitor – September 2020”
Network Monitor – September 2020
A significant disruption incident took place in September when, on September 19, Google IP addresses were hijacked by the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC). An Iranian official claimed that this disruption was the result of a misconfiguration, and that it was not intentional. In July 2018 the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) caused a similar disruptionContinue reading “Network Monitor – September 2020”
What Does Iran’s 11th Parliament Mean for the Internet?
Against a backdrop of a historically low voter turnout at 42.6%, the conservative and principalists secured a massive majority in the Majles (Iran’s Parliament) during this February’s parliamentary elections. It has now been a few months since the 11th Parliament began its term. With political alliances consolidating, and the parliament deciding its agenda and setting prioritiesContinue reading “What Does Iran’s 11th Parliament Mean for the Internet?”
Policy Monitor – August 2020
Yet another month passed without a meeting of Iran’s primary internet policy making body, the Supreme Council for Cyberspace. This continued inactivity led parliament to voice their dissatisfaction by proposing a new bill to drive forward the completion of the National Information Network. Meanwhile, an updated text for the alarming “Managing Social Messaging Apps” BillContinue reading “Policy Monitor – August 2020”
Network Monitor – August 2020
In August Iran’s internet faced two main issues. Firstly, the aggressive disruption of circumvention tools including 1.1.1.1, and the second relating to failures in Tehran’s Milad Tower, where an unpaid electric bill plunged a number of its data centers into darkness, knocking a number of websites hosted on them offline. Our day-by-day analysis of keyContinue reading “Network Monitor – August 2020”
Network Monitor — July 2020
In July, the internet in Iran experienced a number of intermittent disruptions and unexplained traffic shifts, as well as one localised near-total shutdown when anti-government protests broke out in a number of cities nationwide. This shutdown incident was limited to the city of Behbahan in Khuzestan Province, where authorities later claimed that a number ofContinue reading “Network Monitor — July 2020”
Iran’s “Legal VPNs” and the Threat to Digital Rights
On 13 April this year, the Secretary to the Supreme Council for Cyberspace (SCC) Abolhassan Firouzabadi announced that a regulatory guidance for “Legal VPNs” has been finalised by the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content (CDICC). He also added that the ICT Ministry will be in charge of deciding who will have access toContinue reading “Iran’s “Legal VPNs” and the Threat to Digital Rights”
Policy Monitor – July 2020
This month, online activism by Iranians with the #DontExecute (In Persian #اعدام_نکنید) made global trends, which called for the revocation of execution orders issued against three young men arrested during the November 2019 protests. The popular hashtag was followed by a string of internet disruptions, which are documented in full in July’s Network Monitor. Meanwhile,Continue reading “Policy Monitor – July 2020”
Network Monitor – June 2020
Internet users in Iran were confronted with a further series of network disruptions in June. As before, the disruptions were largely met with silence from internet service providers and government authorities. Despite this silence, the impacts of the disruptions were still very much felt by users. Unexplained disruptions such as these can also only fuelContinue reading “Network Monitor – June 2020”