Afghan Government Turns To Iran For Internet 80
Barlaam writes "Renesys describes new evidence that the Iranian national telecommunications provider, DCI, is selling (uncensored?) Internet connectivity to customers in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan. 'The Internet connectivity outreach that we now see in the global routing tables seems like continuing evidence of Iran's long-term strategy: aggressively pursuing bilateral infrastructure and investment projects with its neighbors, in ways that will increase Iran's regional influence after the Americans have moved on.'"
Re:Don't worry... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I've learned from television,
Hold it ... I found your problem.
so what? Big F-ing deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Iran helping? (Score:4, Insightful)
Countries (Score:2, Insightful)
Investing in network connectivity with its neighbour is just crazy. They should be busy invading countries thousands of miles away.
Is this Slashdot or the AIPAC newsletter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because the United States has an embargo in Iran, doesn't mean everyone else in the world has to have one as well. Besides, the mullahs in Iran don't particularly like Afghanistan either, they almost went to war with the Taliban in 1998. I thought this site was for "news for nerds", not biased political pieces bordering on propaganda.
Re:so what? Big F-ing deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, there is a country with a religious police, which outlaws practicing any religion but Islam, regularly executes citizens for moral crimes, and is a monarchal theocracy that does not hold elections and is accused of widespread human rights violations. They are about to close an arms deal worth 60 billion dollars to buy a fleet of the world's most advanced jet fighters and helicopters and related equipment. Their mosques preach violence against the west, and indeed, they send foreign fighters to Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Yemen to train for militant jihad.
That country is Saudi Arabia. And their supplier is the United States.
Iran, on the other hand, has a broken democracy, does in fact protect the right of religions to practice (but not to proselytize), and even has 30,000 practicing Jews and 300,000 practicing Christians with hundreds of churches and synagogues openly operating. Though they are subject persecution by the government, they are guaranteed a small number of seats in their representative government. The Ba'hai faith are widely seen as more persecuted than Jews or Christians, since they are officially outlawed.
Saudi Arabia for some reason has better public relations than Iran, but something tells me there's a reason for that [wikipedia.org].
Judging from history, our bizarre ethos of "the enemy of the enemy is my friend" has come back to bite us many times. Maybe there will come a day when, after some terrorist act committed by Saudi citizens, our foreign policy will change to a more reasoned stance when dealing with the complexities of Middle Eastern politics.
Oh wait, I forgot. Never forget... to forget.
Language Bias? (Score:3, Insightful)
A quick look at the map shows a language bias of Farsi in the population. Iranians are some of the most prolific producers of web content in that region of the world. And virtually all of that is in Farsi. I don't know the details of how routing algorithms work, but if a majority of users in these regions browse Iranian web sites wouldn't that skew the routing tables towards routers in Iran?
Re:so what? Big F-ing deal (Score:1, Insightful)
When people start saying stuff like this about any country, just stating so called facts they saw on TV and read in the mainstream media, I ask them, have you ever been to that country?
I have lived in Saudi Arabia for 26 years, I have seen great change, the people are nice and most are moderates, they don't hate everyone, I can do a lot of stuff that people think I would get stoned or beheaded for.
The problem is with all countries and all cultures, is that moderates are not as loud as extremists, you won't see a group of people going to protest because they are happy. you only see and hear extremist protesting weather from the left or right and the 24 media will turn 10 people protesting into something like a million people marching.
The $60 billion deal is to buy some F15s.... which are what? over 30 years old now? it will save 75000 US jobs too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11288683
read up on history and look at every side, maybe then you'd know why there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi, who created the fear? who created the hate? who funded those afghan mujahidin? and why? this all started in early 80s.
The only reason Saudi Arabia has better PR is not because of Al-Waleed, it's because their rulers accepted the deal that was cut to them buy the west.
This all is done for profit of a small group of people. My life and yours is worthless to them, and the more we hate each other the more profit they make out of us.
Re:Iran helping? (Score:1, Insightful)
er, "Islamo-facists" (that is such and idiotic term...),
Your right about that. If you look up the term "Fascist" you will see that the definition doesn't even come close to their doctrine. Actually they are very non-fascist. If you want to see a fascist in the world today look at the US. Today the US is the leading fascist state. Really go look up the term fascism and see if it doesn't fit.
Yes I am a US Citizen and yes I am ashamed of my government.