Iran's Telecom & Technology Capabilities
In Iran, all telecommunications and Internet access and control moves through one central hub called TCI, Telecommunications Company of Iran. This is controlled by the ruthless Revolutionary Guards that practices horrid big brother activities on its own people. They use to control how people access the outside world and they do well, and its getting better.
Its getting better because of greed and profit from mostly American companies we all know: Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Cisco, Dell, Juniper Networks and Symantec, to name a few. The Germans helped also, via Nokia and Siemens who sold Iran the capability for them to track users via a monitoring system. Despite the sanctions, Western IT products continue to arrive in Iran via third parties who buy in another country and resell to Iran.
In 2011, Iran used a fake security certificate that actually collected email account information from 400,000 Iranians. Today, Iran's TCI, has blocked over five million websites accessing Skype, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo and others. Meanwhile, they are phasing out access to Google and implementing a national intranet to stop Iranians accessing the outside world. Iran is also creating its own Google-like search engine.
Iranian capability is quite effective. It only takes 3.5 minutes for TCI to detect, track a message sent to a mobile phone ANYWHERE in Iran, send authorities to its location and arrest. Those using Internet cafes must be signed on and users must provide personal information to access. All Web visits are monitored, thanks to technology from China. But, TCI relies on mostly on American hardware and software to create an electronic curtain.
