We’d feel bad for Iran if it wasn’t a repressive hellhole. After getting attacked by Stuxnet, Flame, and apparently some random kid who just wanted to see if he could expose them to the wonders of AC/DC (no, the band), they’ve thrown a sulk. They quit the Internet. They’re done. They’re taking their ball and going home.
“The establishment of the national intelligence network will create a situation where the precious intelligence of the country won’t be accessible to these powers,” [Rezi] Taghipour [Iran’s telecommunications minister] told a conference on Sunday at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University.
By “these powers”, he means the United States and Iran. Really, cutting off political dissidents from the outside world is just a bonus.
So Iran will be pulling this off when, exactly? According to everybody without the Ayatollah’s signature on their paycheck, roughly the first of never.
The problem is this: Iran is terrible at Internet security. This was demonstrated by the fact that Westerners breach their networks pretty much constantly to help political activists establish lines of communication. And the US and Israelis are working on all sorts of tech to, frankly, mess with Iran. It’s not like they have the technology to shoot satellites out of space. Hell, the US is working on “white space” broadband that would essentially turn a TV broadcasting tower into a free Internet.
In short, Iran has just basically pinned a huge Kick Me sign to its back. We’re sure a few sharp kicks to its technology rear will be coming shortly.
image courtesy eyair on Flickr