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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.
Sergey Brin clarifies Apple and Facebook critique, says statement was 'distorted'
Sergey Brin wasn't too happy with how his critique of Apple and Facebook was represented in the media following an interview he gave to the Guardian. In a post on Google+ (hey, if he won't use it, who will?) Brin lamented that, "my thoughts got particularly distorted... in a way that distracts from my central tenets." The founder believes that undue attention was given to his complaints about Facebook and Apple's "restrictive" walled gardens, when he sees oppressive governments and state-sanctioned censorship as much larger issues. Of course, while Brin does say he admires his competitors, he never truly backpedals from his criticism or says that it was taken out of context. To let Sergey explain himself, hit up the source link.
Sergey Brin says the internet is under attack by governments, Apple and Facebook
One of the qualifications for scoring a CE-Oh no 'round here is actually being a CEO -- so Sergey Brin does not receive that honor. We will, however, draw attention to what some might call his hyperbolic ramblings. In an interview with the Guardian, Google's cool uncle said he was worried about the state of the internet and that his company could not have flourished in an online ecosystem like today's. According to Brin, the threats are coming from all sides -- most notably governments. While oppressive regimes like those in China and Iran get top billing, the US doesn't escape without criticism thanks to SOPA and PIPA which seemed perilously close to passing with support from the media industry. The co-founder also took shots at Apple and Facebook, which he said have built "really restrictive" walled gardens. For more smack talk from one of the most influential men in the tech industry, hit up the source link. [Image via Thomas Hawk]
Iran swapping internet for intranet in August (update)
There's dealing with internet comments, and then there's this. According to a statement from Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, Iran will be shutting off access to the world wide in around five months, as it flips the switch on a nationwide "intranet" that'll act like one of the more strict corporate firewalls you may have come in contact with. The reason? It's looking to provide its citizens access to "a clean internet," which is loosely translated into "an internet sans freedom." Instead of providing access to Google, Gmail and Hotmail, users will have to register for an Iran Mail ID -- which "mandates authentic information pertaining to a person's identity, including national ID, address and full name." Evidently, it's all to prevent access to the internet that exists today -- one that "promotes crime, disunity, unhealthy moral content, and atheism" in Taghipour's mind. Crazily enough, he's right about all of that, but it's a small price to pay for access to things like this, no?Update: Turns out, the original report here was a bit -- shall we say -- sensationalized. According to a breaking update from AFP, Iran has "denied online reports that it plans to cut access to the internet in August and replace it with a national intranet." In truth, Iran does have a plan to implement a "national information network," which is being billed as a "totally closed system that would function like a sort of intranet for the Islamic republic." To date, there's no clarity on whether the aforesaid network will exist alongside the internet or in place of it.
ZTE announces 2011 financials: turnover up, profits down, political scandals tricky
ZTE's annual earnings report is out and it's a mixed bag for the Chinese company with aspirations to go west. Revenues grew 23 percent to 86.25 billion RMB ($13.7 billion) but net profit fell a hefty 36.6 percent to 2.06 billion RMB ($327 million). More than half of ZTE's operating revenue came from overseas as the company moves into the global space and, while some of that cash came from its smartphone business, much more poured in from the infrastructure arm that supplies LTE equipment to networks. At the same time, ZTE is having to deal with accusations that it sold $131 million worth of snooping gear to Iran to monitor its own citizens, forcing the company to limit its operations there -- although it insists this won't have any impact on its future income.
Iran blocking access to Google's encrypted search, YouTube, and webmail
Iran has restricted access to the internet for years now, but it seems the land of Persia is clamping down even further on its citizens' ability to surf the web as they wish. Bloomberg has confirmed with Google that Iranians haven't had access to Google's encrypted search, YouTube and Gmail since February 10th. Iran's Mehr news agency has reported restrictions on other email services, including Hotmail, plus increased difficulties getting to domestic and news websites as well. 30 million folks, give or take, are currently locked out of their email, and there's no indication when, or if, access will be granted again.
Battlefield 3 effectively banned in Iran
A new report picked up by the Associated Press suggests Battlefield 3, which partially takes place in Tehran, has been prohibited from stores, even though EA has no official resellers in the region and many stores didn't bother hunting for stock in the first place. However, local police have apparently already raided a few shops for selling pirated copies of the game. "We understand that the story of a videogame is hypothetical," an online petition filed by an Iranian youth group read. "We believe the game is purposely released at a time when the US is pushing the international community into fearing Iran." If there's a silver lining in this, it's that a lot of Iranians won't be subjected to Battlefield 3's lackluster single-player campaign.
Iran's got a walking humanoid robot, too (update: video!)
Two years ago, Iranian students built Sorena, a white humanoid machine that reportedly wheeled about via remote control. For 2010, robots experts at Tehran University decided to update the creature -- and apparently, channel a little bit of Asimo. Surena 2 was unveiled by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week, its purpose unknown. Named after a famous Persian warrior, the robot stands 4.7 feet tall, and can walk about slowly carrying its own weight of 99 pounds. Gulf News reports the robot will get vision and speech modules later on down the road. If it ends up conducting orchestras or performing show tunes, we'll be sure to keep you informed.
Iranian government blocking all online activity except gaming
The internet has played a big part in the drama of Iran's recent presidential elections, disseminating information about the re-election of controversial leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faster than most major news outlets. Fearful of this powerful resource fueling further unrest, the Iranian government has cut off all online activity -- all but gaming.Apparently, Ahmadinejad's government is not afraid of protesters communicating via World of Warcraft to plan the next protest rally, as noted by Security to the Core and GamePolitics. Also, Ahmadinejad has not yet downloaded Prince of Persia's Epilogue and is just dying to know how it all ends.
Verizon's CEO sidesteps questions on iPhone, Android handset
The last time we heard from Ivan Seidenberg, he was letting Sprint know precisely what he thought of it. This go 'round, in a new 'Charlie Rose' interview, the Verizon chief is being entirely more coy. In speaking to recent political happenings, he mentions that the communication coming from the citizens of Iran is "a great thing," and he also notes that attempts to block internet use "can't work long term" as the "power of the people will override that without any question." Sort of comical given VZW's prior persistence to cripple phones in spite of consumer backlash, but we digress. He also dodged (with great skill, might we add) questions on whether Verizon Wireless would carry the iPhone, noting that it was "Apple's decision" on whether it would build one to support the company's forthcoming LTE network. As for Android? He did confess that recent reports of a Motorola handset coming its way "might be true," which is CEO speak for "oh, that's absolutely happening." Hop on past the break for a video of the whole shakedown.
WoW as a channel for news from Iran?
Normally, this wouldn't rate too high for us -- lots of people have ideas about how to use World of Warcraft, and many of them never actually come about. But then again, this is in the Wall Street Journal of all places, so we'll give it a look. If you're on Twitter, you've probably heard about what's going on in Iran right now -- there was an election, the "official" results given were judged as rigged by many involved, and the government seems to be cracking down on both news media and citizen journalism, as well as protesting citizens, to very sad results. How does World of Warcraft fit in to all of this? Andrew Lavallee of the WSJ's Digits blog points to this report by Craig Labovitz, which talks about how Internet traffic has been filtered out of the country around the election. At the very end of his analysis, Labovitz points out that channels for videogames, including both Xbox Live and World of Warcraft, have shown very little government manipulation. That suggests that if the government in Iran does continue to shut down certain channels, citizens there might be forced to spread the news through any virtual route they can, including possibly Azeroth.This is obviously all just analysis and speculation so far -- while there clearly (from those charts) has been interference in the media, no one (as far as we know) has yet had to resort to chatting in World of Warcraft to get their message out, and though what's happening in Iran is made up of some very serious (and seriously unfortunate) situations, the fervor online about using brand new channels like Twitter to share real-time news is often overstated. Personally, I believe that even if Twitter didn't exist, this information would find another way to get out. Still, the interesting thing to take away here is that even our "silly" video games today are actually media on a global level.Thanks, Cedars!
ESRB: Iran not 'joining' ratings group
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has made an indirect statement regarding a story last week by the Tehran Times claiming that Iran was "joining" the ratings organization. Committing holiday cheerus interruptus, ESRB spokesman Eliot Mizrachi briefly put down his eggnog to let GamePolitics know that no membership is required to submit games to the ESRB. He also clarified the group's ratings only apply to the US and Canada.The Tehran Times piece seems to imply that the Iranian government will be using ESRB ratings, but as GP pointed out previously, "ESRB" could be used as a generic term to mean a ratings board. It would be a good laugh if the Iranian ratings board banned fewer games than the Australians.
Cut four undersea cables, shame on you, cut a fifth, also shame on you
If you're reading Engadget today because your favorite Iranian gadget blog is offline, here's why: a fifth undersea cable has now been reported as cut (or at least damaged), responsible for knocking Iran and a few other million people mostly off the interwebs. Things were already looking awfully suspicious when a fourth undersea cable in the Mediterranean was cut yesterday, and while nothing about a fifth cable being cut necessarily means some sort of sabotage is to blame, it's not exactly reassuring. Emergency measures are already underway to repair the cables, but we're not sure our inter-continental Quake III Arena deathmatch can handle any more snips. [Via Slashdot; image courtesy of I Love Bonnie]Update: Just to be clear, early reports of the entirety of Iran being offline turned out to be exaggerated or perhaps entirely false.
GPS-equipped spy squirrels 'arrested' by Iranians
Talk about getting into some hot water. Reportedly, some 14 implike squirrels were recently "arrested by Iranian authorities for espionage," as the critters were apparently found to have various amounts of "spy gear from foreign agencies" on (er, in) their bodies. Some reports even mention that the animals were sporting embedded GPS sensors, but due to the high level of secrecy surrounding the capture, things are still a bit foggy. Nevertheless, Iran has apparently claimed that the "rodents were being used by Western powers in an attempt to undermine the Islamic Republic," and while it doesn't seem that anyone is really aware of the squirrels' fates, it looks like sending in the animals to do a human's dirty work isn't as effective as it once was.[Via DailyWireless, image courtesy of UMT]
Iranian government making strategy games ... finally!
Not to be outdone by the US military's use of video games as recruiting tool, Iran's government has begun creating "propagandatainment" as well. Tehran's "Taliya News" reports that Saving the Port, released today by Tebyan, an official "information dissemination institute," is an attempt to "replace the excessive amount of aggression seen in strategic Western game [sic] with rational thinking." Who knew Iranian news organizations were so catty? On the Snark-O-Meter, that line is somewhere between Kathy Griffin and a New York Post gossip column. Looks like we'd better raise the threat level from "Elevated" to "Sassy."Info on Saving The Port is scant, but it seems to be a wargame for the PC set in World War II-era Iran. Players will relive all the legendary WWII battles that took place in the Middle East.
Iran prepping first homegrown mobiles
When your government raises tariffs on imported phones from 4 percent to a staggering sixty percent, you kinda hope there are plans in place to start producing handsets on home turf. That's exactly the bind Iranians find themselves in at the moment, but relief's in sight -- the head of Iran Telecommunication Manufacturing Company says his folks are ready to start selling ITMC-branded phones as soon as June of this year, with a full 300,000 units being thrown together by year's end. Though the manufacturing is homegrown, it appears the technology is not; Iran has contracted with as-yet-unnamed South Korean companies to get the necessary equipment and tech brought over to Iranian borders. If this means Iran gets a DMB-equipped Shine before we do, that's going to be so not cool.[Via textually.org]
Blow up U.S. tanker in Iranian game
Reuters covers the release of Counter Strike, a game that charges players with the goal of sinking a U.S. oil tanker in a critical channel, blocking the path that two-fifths of all the world's oil travels. Iran's government sponsored the game for distribution within that country.The topical nature of the game isn't new; Kuma Reality Games mirrored real-life U.S. strikes against Iraq. The anti-American sentiment isn't even new, as seen in Night of Bush Capturing.This trend of all sides using games as propaganda interests us. Are games more persuasive than radio broadcasts and dropping leaflets? When will bombers start dropping games over enemy states?
Big Brother is SMS savvy in some countries
It's no secret that China is rockin' some serious server power dedicated to filtering its SMS airwaves of unthinkable topics like Taiwan, democracy, and pornography, but other countries are getting in on the action, too. Belarus and Iran have both been called out in recent months for listening to its citizens' texts, and in Belarus' case, sending them as well. Although the technology for real-time filtering by keyword is largely homegrown (or so we hope), predictive text manufacturers like Tegic (disclaimer: Tegic is owned by Engadget's parent company's parent company, AOL) are receiving pressure from handset manufacturers to double- and triple-check their dictionaries for words that could be considered distasteful in countries with more oppressive governments than our own. Personally, discovering a word missing from T9 has never prevented us from typing it manually, but nonetheless -- between this and M-Track, we're about ready to head down into the Engadget bunker with a year's supply of Spam and just ride this whole thing out.[Via textually.org]
