Iran put Firewall to Censor and Monitor the Internet Media

Source: Mashable 
When it comes to online censorship and monitoring online activities, the first country that usually comes to mind is China and its Great Firewall. This, however, may soon change, as it seems that Iran has built one of the most advanced systems for monitoring all online traffic, with the help of technology built by Nokia and Siemens.

The Great Firewall of Iran, as it will undoubtedly be dubbed, involves deep packet inspection, a technique that examines both the header and the data part of internet data packets and can be used for eavesdropping, censorship and data mining.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s online monitoring and censorship system digs through data at one big choke point, which is made easy by the fact that the government owns a telecom which holds a monopoly over the country’s online communication. This is different from China’s Great Firewall, which is far more decentralized, but it makes it even more advanced than the Chinese version, since it’s easier to monitor traffic at one point than having to synchronize such efforts at many locations. This is enhanced by the fact that China has 300 million Internet users, compared to Iran’s 23 million Internet users......

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Internet Online Games - Iran Protesters' new route to protest

Iranian protesters  have found out a new way to protest after the Iranian Government keeps firewall to block and stop the protest on internet, email, social networking and other medias. The protesters' new way is online games which are still not blocked by the Iranian government's firewall. The sources says that World of Warcraft is getting considered as one of the ways to protest.

Network-security firm Arbor Networks mentions it has a rough sketch of how the Iranian government’s firewall works and that it appears to be selectively blocking Internet applications, particularly online video and emails as of now.

Craig Labovitz shows in a graph a big uptick in Web video traffic prior to the election — “presumably reflecting high levels of Iranian interest in outside news sources,” — which stops at around 6 p.m. Saturday in Tehran “and unlike the Web, never returns to pre-election levels,”.

Mr. Labovitz pointed, however, that few online gaming platforms like Microsoft’s Xbox shows some filteration. “Perhaps games provide a possible source of covert channels (e.g. ‘Bring your elves to the castle on the island of Azeroth and we’ll plan the next Ahmadinejad protest rally?’),” he states.

One thing is clear, whatever may be the Iranian government's measures to stop the Protesters to protest and raise their voices, the Iranian Protesters will sure find different ways. It seems, it won't matter whether they block twitter, facebook, search engines or emails or even games..