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WSJ: Nokia And Siemens Help Iran Spy On Its Internet Users

June 24, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Usually when you think of censorship and especially online censorship, you think of china, with its great firewall of china. This perception could soon change with iran now possessing one of the most sophisticated censorship systems, built by Nokia and Siemens.

Here is what Wired Magazine has to say about the article in the Wall Street Journal:

“Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Germany’s Siemens and Finland’s Nokia, installed the monitoring equipment late last year in Iran’s government-controlled telecom network, Telecommunication Infrastructure Co., but authorities only recently engaged its full capabilities in response to recent protests that have broken out in the country over its presidential election.

The equipment allows the state to conduct deep-packet inspection, which sifts through data as it flows through a network searching for keywords in the content of e-mail and voice transmissions. According to the Journal, Iran seems to be doing this for the entire country from a single choke point. “Seems,” because although the Journal states that Nokia Siemens installed the equipment and that signs indicate the country is conducting deep-packet inspection, the paper also says “it couldn’t be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection.”

While the WSJ has made some rather questionable claims in the past when it comes to Spying stories, we can all agree that there is definitely credence to this story.

Following the release of the information, there are now movements which are calling for boycotts of nokia and siemens products due to their involvement in giving a country like iran the technology with which it could engage in this sort of censorship. They argue that at least chinese built their own system, which took them years instead of western firm just selling it to them.

The Nokia Spokesman has this to say:

“Mobile networks in Iran, and the subsequent widespread adoption of mobile phones, have allowed Iranians to communicate what they are seeing and hearing with the outside world. The proof of this is in the widespread awareness of the current situation.

The fact that telecom networks in Iran - as they are all over the world - are required by law to have the ability to monitor specific voice calls, needs to be weighed against the huge empowerment that connectivity brings to ordinary Iranians.

When asked, we have been transparent about the communications capability, and the limited monitoring functionality, provided to Iran. . . .

We did have a choice as to whether we bring the Iranian people this connectivity, in the knowledge that telecoms networks have the ability to monitor voice calls as they do all over the world, and believe there is a net benefit to the people of Iran.”

Despite the defence, observers are still calling for boycott as equipment of that nature should never be sold to country like iran without some form of remote killswitch which this is unlikely to contain.