WSJ: Nokia and Siemans Help Iran Spy On Its Internet Users

Usually when you think of censorship and especially online censorship, you think of china, with its great firewall of china. This perception could soon change with iran now possessing one of the most sophisticated censorship systems, built by Nokia and Siemens.

Here is what Wired Magazine has to say about the article in the Wall Street Journal:
“Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Germany’s Siemens and Finland’s Nokia, installed the monitoring equipment late last year in Iran’s government-controlled telecom network, Telecommunication Infrastructure Co., but authorities only recently engaged its full capabilities in response to recent protests that have broken out in the country over its presidential election.

The equipment allows the state to conduct deep-packet inspection, which sifts through data as it flows through a network searching for keywords in the content of e-mail and voice transmissions. According to the Journal, Iran seems to be doing this for the entire country from a single choke point. “Seems,” because although the Journal states that Nokia Siemens installed the equipment and that signs indicate the country is conducting deep-packet inspection, the paper also says “it couldn’t be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection.”

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