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Apple may now sell the iPhone in Iran
The US Treasury Department has opened a door that could allow Apple to sell iPhones in Iran. The Treasury Department has made an agreement to allow exportation to Iran "of certain services, software and hardware incident to personal communications," which would include Apple's mobile devices. This is good in a few different ways: Apple employees in the past have been rumored to not sell iPhones to people of Iranian descent, and in addition to the company from Cupertino being able to sell iPhones directly inside Iran itself, this should also prevent any other issues along those lines, thankfully. This isn't a completely open policy, however -- the Treasury Department still won't allow sales directly to the Iranian government, or to people or organizations in Iran on a "Specially Designated Nationals" list. So Apple doesn't have carte blanche to sell iPhones over there. But at least those sanctions issues can be laid to rest, and Apple can go forward with exporting consumer-focused devices over there.
Iran claims to have been hit by 'heavy' cyber attack, pins slowdowns on coordinated hacking campaign
Whatever you think of Iran's politics, it's hard to deny that the country has frequently been the target of internet-based attacks that sometimes go beyond the originator's plans. If you believe High Council of Cyberspace secretary Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, the pressure is only getting worse. He tells Iranian media that the nation is under "constant" digital bombardment and was just hit with a major assault on Tuesday that bogged down local internet access. Behabadi unsurprisingly contends that the attacks are deliberate efforts to undermine Iran's data, nuclear and oil infrastructures, with a finger implicitly pointed westward. While it's no secret that the country's enemies want to slow down what they see as a rush towards nuclear weapons, it's difficult to know how much of the accusation is serious versus bluster: we've seen individual smartphone users who consume more than the "several gigabytes" of traffic that reportedly caused national chaos in the most recent incident. No matter the exact nature, it's likely that residents stand to lose as Iran fences off the internet to keep outside influences, hostile and otherwise, from getting in. [Image credit: Amir1140, Wikipedia]
Obama cracks down on Iran and Syria's surveillance of dissidents
President Obama may be quite cozy with tech -- what with his predilection for the iPad and those town hall meetings on Facebook -- but he's well aware of its dark side, too. Today he announced that the US will freeze assets and cancel the American visas of Iranian and Syrian agencies tracking dissidents and pro-democracy groups via satellite, computer and phone networks. Among the entities getting the blacklist treatment are the Syrian cellphone company Syriatel, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian internet provider Datak Telecom. Amid election-year pressure to confront Iran, Obama addressed the ongoing threat of the country acquiring nukes, but also paid lip service to social media's role in democracy. "These technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to repress them," he told an audience of 250 people, according to Reuters. Still, given the limited impact of previous sanctions against Iran, it remains to be seen just how much of an effect Washington's actions have on the human rights situation in either country.
