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.'"
Iran helping? (Score:2)
Gee, this won't hurt the US, will it?
Re:Iran helping? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Learn the definition of fascism. See if you can figure out how, even though they share some traits, radical Islam and fascism are pretty much incompatible.
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Exactly, it's the ists you need to be concerned about.
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Gott ist mit uns!
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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.
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of course it will.... This is brilliant for Iran. Having spent a semester in college watching Kazakhstan, like Kazakhstan, Iran sits neatly between all the new development in the Eastern EU and the huge markets in China. I don't believe Iran has any interest in starting wars... most of the leaders spent 15-20 years fighting the Shaw and Iraq. Being connected will keep the US off their backs even more than trying to develop nukes. When they become a hub for telcom and transportation in the region, it gets
World Map (Score:1, Informative)
Seriously? You studied Kazakhstan for a semester and you don't know that the EU is far, far away?
There is no "Eastern EU" anywhere near Kazakhstan, the Ukraine is as far from joining the EU as ever (never). Are you regionally challenged? The EU is not synonymous with the continent of Europe.
As for your claim that Iran will become a hub for the "region" I doubt your map reading skills. Iran is insignificant to Russia, and China is even further away. Russia is a great deal more capable than Iran, guess who's
Shaw? (Score:2)
... most of the leaders spent 15-20 years fighting the Shaw and Iraq.
While I agree with most of your comment, out of curiosity, where did you learn "Shaw"? I mean Shah is the correct word, meaning King in Farsi. It's a short form for "Mohmmad Reza Shah" (while his father, the previous king is known primarily as "Reza Shah"). I see a lot of English speakers referring to him as Shaw which to my knowledge is a last name as in George B. Shaw.
Re:Shaw? (Score:4, Funny)
Someone had written "Mort Au Shah" and someone else had added
"et vive les souris"
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"Mort au Shah, et vive les souris"
Death to Shah, and long live the mice
Shah sounds a lot like "chats" which means cats. So theres the joke for non-French speakers.
uncensored (Score:1, Troll)
Infrastructure investments (Score:1)
I seriously doubt that the Iranian government and it's nationalized telecom company will be the only company with infrastructure investments in Iraq or Afghanistan. If there's money to be made, the global conglomerates will make it.
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True but the services of said infrastructure will become a resource in the future.
Maybe I should RTFA and stay on topic but it could be a good plan to put that oil revenue to use on something tangible before it runs out.
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With the violence, and destruction that is rampant over there (specifically to western companies) there may not be much money to be made. And Iran is not in it for profit.
They want to be known as Iranian Service Providers.
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If there's money to be made, the global conglomerates will make it.
So Halliburton will become Agfhanistans ISP . . .
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Eventually they will offer censorship services or a level of 'Islam-friendly' censorship and they will be the dominate player. I don't mean political censorship, 'omg dont let people read the Constitution' - but block porn, etc.
"Look, you get your internet from us already, get your clean internets from us too!"
I only am thinking this because I'm learning of these religious-friendly search engines. A niche market, but I get it because people want to protect their delicate minds (or just avoid that 'hate' spe
Re:Don't worry... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I've learned from television,
Hold it ... I found your problem.
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Hold it ... I found your problem.
Are you saying there's not a team of expert thieves being modern-day Robin Hoods? That there's not a CTU protecting the president from outrageously complicated assassination plots? That angels don't get sent down to earth to correct their mistakes? That aliens aren't disguised among us? That a man can't be reborn as a car?
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Hold it ... I found your problem.
Are you saying there's not a team of expert thieves being modern-day Robin Hoods? That there's not a CTU protecting the president from outrageously complicated assassination plots? That angels don't get sent down to earth to correct their mistakes? That aliens aren't disguised among us? That a man can't be reborn as a car?
I'm not saying that all, you can't trust what you see on television. I read it all in the National Enquirer.
so what? Big F-ing deal (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree it's not good for any nation to be 100% reliant on any other nation. I would far prefer all nations to have as many Internet feeds as they can sensibly afford - greater reliability through greater redundancy, shorter paths to destinations makes for better performance, and the avoidance of any particular political master prevents "unfortunate accidents" disconnecting sources that may conflict with one ideology or another. (Both the US and Iran have extensively used disinformation and psychological wa
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The Shiite muslims overthrew an externally-imposed government after the Iranian President was assassinated - possibly at the request of the US, but that information won't get released for 10 more years at the very best. I regard the state of affairs in Iran as basically part of a standard pattern that repeats throughout history - when a government is created through violence, it will maintain itself through violence and it will usually collapse through violence. This cycle will be repeated endlessly until e
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That's an interesting point of view on the 2nd amendment. Personally, even though I am am my self a gun owner and concealed carry permit holder, I find that most people would be too lazy to even attempt an armed revolution, and the ones that talk the most about it are in the least position, physically, to be able to withstand the demands of guerrilla warfare. Its mostly the Vietnam vet generation, like my dad, who have had too much beer and too many years behind them to make a decent revolution. They're
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I'm open to different viewpoints - it's a great way to learn - and I have to say that your posting is an excellent one to learn from. Thank you.
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This cycle will be repeated endlessly until enough people take the risk of being peaceful.
How many of your neighbors have the Westerners invaded? I bet you wouldn't be so peaceful if you saw a Russian tank rolling down your street one morning.
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Neighbors? Let's see. I'm from England. That makes my neighbors Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall (it has it's own parliament, so yes it counts), Norway, Denmark and France. Now, children, can anyone tell me which of these has NEVER invaded one or more of the others?
Would I be peaceful if I saw a Russian tank rolling down my street? For starters, I probably wouldn't care. NO country has ever successfully invaded England except when requested to do so by the majority in England. (Strange but true.) Thus, if
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.
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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
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I agree with much of what you said, but the point is that decrying the moral state of Iran is nonsense when our top allies are just as, if not far more, immoral. Since Saudi Arabia is a client state, we arm them and turn a blind eye to their anti-democratic totalitarianism and theocratic injustices. Since Iran isn't a client state that has submitted to US authority, they are critiqued for the very same transgressions. That's my point.
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No question our relationship with Saudi Arabia is an alliance of convenience. The big difference though is that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and Saudi Arabia isn't. If that ever changes...
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While I agree that the west has fucked with Iran a lot, the analysis the article makes isn't the crazy, anti-Iranian spin you're making it out to be. Iran absolutely wants to become the regional hegemon of the middle east, and this is a way to increase their ability to do so. Whether or not that's innocuous is up for debate. I lean on the side that feels Iran being a hegemon is ok as long as that means they give way to control by their democratized populace instead of being run by secret police and a theolo
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It may or may not be innocuous, but is it in any way surprising? As of now, they seem to be the only reasonably stable polity in that belt, apart from Saudi Arabia. It's a no-brainer that they would try to exert their influence over their neighbours. In pretty much the same way, and with about the same amount of justification, as you rightly mention, as the Monroe doctrine.
And is it in any way wrong for Afghanistan (and possibly Iraq) to seek better relations with their neighbours, no matter how extremist t
Non issue (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the article itself, you have got to be kidding me - "aggressively pursuing"? Why not just post a photo of the cheque from the US State Department?
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.
Truth Be Told Regardless (Score:2)
Well, the regime in Iran does have its way with the Internet offered there, so I wouldn't exactly call it a great day for Afghanistan either. It is news for nerds everywhere that a country is locking down their Internet, it could encourage others to do the same.
On the other hand that might be exactly what the Afghan government wants; a censored Internet. It would suit them as well after all.
I have no hostility towards the nation of Persia, or the Persian people, I greatly admire their country and believe th
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It's only propaganda when teh evil terrorists do it.
so what (Score:1, Interesting)
We in Iraq already have several links into the country coming from FLAG Cable, Iran , Turkey , Kuwait , Saudi , Jordan......besides the VSAT terminals which is still widely used here.
Turkey was the first to sell internet to iraq via fiber links since sometime ago....iran's link is rarely used here.
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How's the broadband? And I swear to god if it's better than what I have, I'm moving.
Or maybe they are just doing business? (Score:4, Informative)
Look at the map. When you are a landlocked country you get your connectivity from your neighbors. I suppose they could run cable all the way over to western Afghanistan from Pakistan. Would you want to sole-source all your connectivity from Pakistan? The other choices aren't worth mentioning.
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mod parent up.
They are all landlocked neighbouring countries; the practicalities of telecommunications business - laying long, expensive stretches of cable - are overriding here. There are fiber optics cables running even between Isrel and Arab countries despite their wars...
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If we are going to be scared, as a people, by who they pick as their uplinks, it should be Pakistan more than anyone. Pakistan hates the US and likely the west a lot more than Iran (of the two, which has the terrorists we are looking for?).
But it's just packets, I don't know if I am that worried. Redundancy is best, for political and technical reasons - maybe I'd like to see a new Wifi distance record set and have Afghanistan beam their bits to a router on top of Mt. Everest? I would hope that the landmass
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Yeah, after the US economy collapses and the union disintegrates.
Break the UN charter, break the UNSC resolutions, break the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, export terrorism, send elite troops dressed in civilian clothes into Iraq to kill civilians, and yeah, you'll find yourself getting your ass kicked, exactly like you should.
fixed
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?
Fools (Score:2, Funny)
IPTables (Score:2)
What I could do without... (Score:1)
I tell ya what I could do without from the /. RSS feed: ads for Liz Cheney's "Keep America Safe" BS.
why didnt we think to do this (Score:1)
The Horrors!!!!
When did they start this ploy? (Score:1)
is it an oxymoron or an anachronism (Score:2)