Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, September 28, 2012

Protecting the state or the regime?

The lengths to which governments go to protect their countries cannot be underestimated. How do the efforts in Iran compare with those in China?

Iran to launch giant domestic intranet: Officials say service will bypass internet and improve security, but critics see it as curb on the flow of information.

Iran plans to introduce a domestic internet network in what officials say is a bid to improve cyber security but which many Iranians fear is the latest way to control their access to the web…

The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) said the Google ban was connected to the anti-Islamic film posted on the company's YouTube site which has caused outrage throughout the Muslim world, however there has been no official confirmation.

Iran already has one of the biggest Internet filters of any country in the world, preventing normal Iranians from accessing countless sites on the official grounds they are offensive or criminal.

Sites expressing views considered anti-government are also routinely blocked.

Iranians commonly overcome the government filter by using virtual private network (VPN) software that makes the computer appear as if it is based in another country.

But officials have long spoken of creating an Iranian Internet system which would be largely isolated from the World Wide Web…

According to Iranian media, the domestic system would be fully implemented by March 2013…