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Iran's Sophisticated Ability to Cyber Snoop
June 23, 2009 12:08 PM
ABC's Miguel Marquez reports:
Interesting analysis by the internet data researcher Renesys. The Manchester, NH based company has been following the information flow out of Iran and sees the small spigot of information increasingly being closed off by the Iranian authorities.
To get around government imposed firewalls, Iranians are using proxy software that allows their computers to act as a host for anonymous users who then get to access the internet outside of Iran. A proxy is a small bit of software, easily downloadable, that online Iranians could easily get access to. For instance, embattled candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has been posting links to free proxy software all week on Twitter and Facebook. And Freegate is proxy software that has been made readily available to Iranians.
Renesys conducted a test to see if it could determine how these proxy servers were working. Earlier this week, the company identified 2000 open proxy servers that had been posted online to see “if we could discern patterns in the places that are hosting them. Most of these are no longer reachable from inside Iran, of course, precisely because they were made public.” By the end of last week, Renesys found that only 12 open (or public) proxies in Iran and 11 of those originated from the government itself.
The biggest problem is that the proxies are open and public but making them private and restricted would be tough. Renesys’ Jim Cowie points out “[i]f you are diligent, it is possible to restrict the anonymous users of your new proxy to just the Iranians, or even just the Iranian non-government networks. If you have a good enough list of the IP address blocks (network prefixes) in question. But I expect that the complexity of configuring anything tighter than an 'open access' proxy is going to prove too high a barrier to entry for most people who might volunteer to run one.”
Perhaps the biggest concern, says Cowie, is that the overall number of proxies being created is shrinking. In a posting on Renesys’ blog Cowie wrote, “The rate with which new proxies are being created has slumped over the last few days. It's getting harder and harder to propagate new proxies to the people who need them, as the government consolidates its hold on the filtering mechanisms. Any new proxy addresses that are posted to Twitter, or emailed, will be blocked very quickly.”
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on Iran’s sophisticated ability to cyber snoop. The sophistication has surprised many and it comes ironically enough because Iran has improved its communication infrastructure largely with Western made and purchased technology. Iran has the ability to conduct “deep packet inspection” which allows officials to sift through all pictures, videos, and even messages going through Iran’s central internet “chokepoint” at incredibly fast speeds. The upshot, big brother is watching, reading, listening and acting just as fast, if not fasters, than cyber-protesters.
June 23, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (2)
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I've heard whisperings that anonymous is on the task. No confirmation, but some of the same folks that are out to destroy the church of Scientology are working privately to secure the home-media, and thus the historical documents of this uprising.
We are Anonymous. We do not forgive, we do not forget. United as One, Divided by Zero.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 23, 2009 4:40:56 PM
What does the press and other Americans think the President can do about how other leaders around the world conduct themselves? It would seem that the mindset that came up with the cartoon depiction of the President as a super hero is the thoughts that plauge the media.
The only thing that any human can do is ask for the other person to think correctly. And many of the leaders around the world will say that they are correct even as we insist that we are the moral example for the world!!!
Posted by: go20009 | Jun 23, 2009 5:29:04 PM
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