Rapid Internet Growth In Iran 315
securitas writes "The BBC's Abbas Azimi reports on the rapid growth of the Internet and Internet cafes in Iran, apparently with the tacit approval of the government. Seven million Iranians have Internet access, or 10% of the population - double the rate two years ago. Access costs 60 cents/hour. The article describes how the Internet is used for everything from VoIP phone calls to chat and Web logs. Even Iran's vice-president has a daily blog on a popular site with 'musings about politics and life.' All of this despite the ban on many sites, which is easily circumvented by Iran's webmasters and geeks. An interesting point is that most of the PCs used in Iran are assembled from smuggled parts and run pirated versions of all the latest software (due to foreign embargo?). It sounds like a great opportunity for open source software."
open source software (Score:0, Interesting)
Perfect excuse to let people call open source terr (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:sneaky sneaky (Score:3, Interesting)
Compare to the increasingly repressive Europe laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Time to move to free countries...
Computer Language in Iran (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, a thought [OT] (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone could probably do pretty well for themselves if they made a customized version of Knoppix with software tailored to what an internet cafe needs, the interface made windows-user-friendly and with some big "WEB" "EMAIL" buttons on the desktop, Evolution set up with a quick "connect to your specific email" wizard, and some sort of hooks to some sort of central use tracking/billing system. They could print up a bunch of cds of this and sell it as a no-setup-required "internet cafe in a box" system...
I dunno, it's an idea.
Actually it should be lower (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC kde runs just fine in farsi and localizing other OS applications should be very straightforward.
I find it very interesting that even in countries where piracy is unchecked, people still choose to run OS.
Re:You know, a thought [OT] (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone have any idea how this actually works? They claim that it "does not use an image" and I've heard talk that it somehow sits between the BIOS and OS, but I've been unable to find any solid info. It is vulnerable to an attack using, say, a Knoppix disc, but from within Windows, you can change anything you want, down to reformatting the drive and it'll be fixed when the computer's restarted. I'm curious as to how they pull this off.
Re:MS even supports kazakh( ever even heard of it (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty inconcievable to think of microsoft not covering estonian - even though there are only ~4 million speakers (maybe less, i cant really remember). It's also very close to finnish and uses a western character set, so relatively easy to work with.
US companies aren't permitted to do business with iran and so it'd be a fairly gray area if they chose to develop an iran-localized windows.
That said, iran does seem to be the most internet developed "axis-of-evil", they even have an ipv6 prescence.
opportunity for open source? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Taking a note from China? (Score:3, Interesting)
How long... (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it.
Re:After The Recent Elections... (Score:2, Interesting)
I disagree. From where I'm sitting, politics in Iran today look similar to the Soviet Union just before it collapsed. The people got a little taste of freedom, now they want MORE. The recent crackdowns by the conservatives are acts of desperation. They are rapidly losing control of the situation. If I was a betting man, I'd give them another year or two, maximum.
Re:Computer Language in Iran (Score:2, Interesting)
Can we build them a free Internet? (Score:2, Interesting)
Allthough the article talks about cafes, I know for sure that there are also a whole lot of home PCs in Iran, most progressive middle-class people have them.
I was thinking, in urban areas, for example Tehran, if it existed a few Wi-Fi hotspots, and others started buying base stations, and kept them open, you would soon have a complete urban network where authorities would not be in control of any of the nodes. They could perhaps crack down on base stations, but at the time it hits them that there exists a complete, independent network, the airwaves would be so full of them, tracking them down could be well beyond their ability.
But, that's just an urban network, to make it really useful, you would need to connect it to the Internet. So, you would need to ensure that some nodes have a connection to the Internet that the authorities can't control. You probably want to have several different connections to the Internet, and I guess several different types, so even if one kind of connection is identified and shut down, traffic can still route through other connections.
This is going to be expensive, but I figured, at least in Europe, there are many companies doing business in Iran, and they probably want to continue after the revolution comes. It'll be a small investment for them to secretly distribute a few satellite phones to willing Iranians to establish an uncontrolled connection to the Internet.
So, what do the /. think, is this viable?
Why is a free Internet important? I think that it is extremely important to keep the communications flowing, so that western policy-makers can decide how to help the Iranian people based upon information flowing from a wide spectrum of Iranians. Not only that, if we on the outside can maintain an open debate, the revolution is more likely to be a peaceful one.
Re:Doesn't Really sound like a great place for OSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Iran is not arabic!! This is the kind of ignorance that pisses Iranians off (and probably arabs too).
Rubbish! Have you travelled in the Arab world? I have. There are few places were you meet more heartfelt friendliness, openness and generosity than in the Arab world. If there is hate, it is only among a small number of people, and when you meet people face-to-face, and you return their respect, it's gone. It is about mutual respect.
This has some merit, but it is not a real source of hatred. But if you are prepared to sit down and hear what an Arab has to say about their heritage and what the Arab world has given to the west, you'd be respected. You'll also notice that many Arabs and Iranians too are prepared and very interested in taking the best of what the West has to offer. They have no hatred against the west, to the contrary, they would like to incorporate in their culture what they feel is good, and democracy is certainly one of the things they'll be working with.
But Arabs and Iranians have a lot to be proud of, and what they don't want is westerners coming in and tell them what to do. They appreciate help when they ask for it, but they mostly want to do things their own way, based on what they think are the best from their own culture and western culture.
Re:WHY NOT? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cherah Amrika-eeh na darboreyeh akseryati jehan ne-meedonanand? In keshvar be-gairat dareh!
(Bebakhsheed, farsi-eh man koob nist - tanbal hastam, va zaboone-farsi moshgel o khoshgel-eh!)
Beeyah! In negah kon [freshmeat.net]! Koja in gereft?
Re:open source software (Score:1, Interesting)
as for the cost benefit -> i'm not so sure
the regulations will be lifted one day; and then they either buy milions of licenses for windoze, or tell to microsoft 'no thank you, we run linux'
actually, their government should start making annoucements like 'we are considering using open source, bla bla bla'
it would be interesting to see how companies who can't sell the software there, becouse of their goverment's politics, would react
IF the regulations are eased and the software; then they have to make a decision (if it wasn't already done of course)
if it will be open source decision, the people will follow
imho
Software piracy in the third world (Score:3, Interesting)
Even with no embargo, software piracy is rampant in the third world. I live in Mexico and it's rare to see anyone with a legal version of software. Though, that is changing.
The equivalent of the IRS down here is Hacienda and my understanding is Microsoft has given them a lot of training and now Hacienda has started checking businesses for pirated software (financial audits are frequent down here). Apparently MS gives Hacienda a chunk of change when they score one for MS.
So things are changing here a bit, but the truth is, a lot of business are simply looking for new ways around it. One business I know of is talking of setting up an Windows Terminal Services machine which will reside off of the property, and everyone will connect to it to get to all the pirated software (and of course, the WTS is unlicensed).
So, really, I doubt an embargo has anything to do with the piracy. Frankly, most third world businesses simply can't afford the price of software.
How it works in Iran (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, the overall population seems to be very easily adaptable to computers. I was first introduced to the PC when I went back there as a teenager.
Over there, we would purchase software by the megabyte at the time. This would all be for cracked software of course. Now it's usually by the "app" and different applications have different values accordingly. You just go to your local computer shop and look through their list of available software. Service is very professional there!
At first there was no control of any form, then the strangest thing happened. Companies started making their own dongles for cracked software.
Imagine getting your latest H2O music program and realising that you need the H20 Warez Enabler
Then it got even stranger when people started getting cracks for the dongle of the cracked version (I am not a good writer I hope this makes sense still!).
I havent been there for a few years now, so I would love to know if the crack/dongle nesting is still going on!
Good government (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be more precise to say that the Muslim world hates the secular/Judeo-Christian democracies. The Muslim world reached its zenith in the 13th century and has been in a long decline since. Islamic law has proven to be just as weak a basis for good government in modern times as Christianity was in the middle ages. Most of the muslim world has not fully come to grips with this.