According to the WSJ.com,

“The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale.

Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.

Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.

The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.”

This is signifigant beyond the Iran. As all our communications become digital, it becomes possible for everything we do to be tracked and monitored by any government. And that is possible because all communications on the Internet goes through centralized hubs at major ISPs.

We need to have communications as distributed as possible. We need a new Internet.

In the meantime, check out: Iran’s Web Spying Aided By Western Technology – WSJ.com

I am an instant fan of this song from the Noisettes.

The video and the band has such great style, too. As I was listening to it (and looking at the Karmann Ghia car), I thought: this reminds me of girl groups of the 50s and 60s. If you are not familiar with them, check out the Ronettes, the Shangri-las and others — including my favourites, Martha and the Vandellas — in this medley here: