Any news about Diginotar -Gate in Iran?

The Iranian official and semi/ official media and news agencies have given full coverage to the story, blaming Google for “ineffectiveness”, “lack of care” and “endangering the private life of its Iranian users”.

Diginotar certificate is used to hack major domains, including Gmail accounts of Iranian users. To find out about its backlash(es) in Iran Shahzrad News conducted a series of interviews with 70 Iranian citizens from Thursday 1st to Sunday 5th of September about this issue. Also 10 rights activists based in Iran were interviewed

The main results of this survey are as follows:

- Both professional and random users of the Internet have heard the news of hacking of Gmail service.

- The professional users have managed to change their pass words as a primary means of protecting the security of their email addresses and in turn have spread the news of the hacking among other users and alerted them.

The random and occasional users of the Internet have not taken any active specific measures and for the time being have decided to use their other available email addresses instead of their Gmail account. This category consists of Millions of Iranians who use internet for their communications and entertainment and are usually unaware of the dangers and implications if their email accounts are hacked . They mainly blame Google for not providing “enough security” for its subscribers.

- The Iranian official and semi/ official media and news agencies have given full coverage to the story, blaming Google for “ineffectiveness”, “lack of care” and “endangering the private life of its Iranian users”.

The rights activists in Iran are not shocked nor surprised. `We have learned that we might be hacked even while breathing` says one of the women activists based in Tehran who prefers not to be named in this article.

To empower their technical skills the activists reach out and ask for technical help from their own contacts and networks inside and outside of Iran. Ignoring contacts with international media is one of other tactics . `just out of caution` adds one of the student activists who is based in northern city of Rasht.

It seems that in short run the rights activists have not been (yet) affected by Diginator-gate simply because of their up-to-date skills and knowledge.

However, a large section of the Iranian citizens who use the Net for their daily communications can be attracted to the regime’s propaganda. And as such they will lose their trust in Google, Yahoo, YouTube and other online m and services and products and instead go for the “Iran´s National Internet” (INI).

Iran launched INI five years ago but has not succeed to attract users. Authorities have planned to promote INI by cheap connection prices and high speed connections. Since second half of August 2011 Iran has connected all state owned companies and organs to INI. Practically it means that Islamic version of on line platform are meant to be replacing Youtube, Flickr, etc.

A large group of Internet users who are not sensitive about their online communications are the main target of this scheme. Iran can control, collect and analyse the personal communications of many people for its own intelligence use.

The Iranian authorities had a “pilot’ project in 2007 against the women rights activists. The online communications of women activists were monitored. Their emails and weblogs were hacked, their comments were collected and used in courts. Women who had been tried in courts later spoke about how the contents of their personal emails and blogs had been read in the courts against their defence.

These women and other activists are now able deal with digital suppression and know ways to up-date their skills. INI is now a large trap for millions of Iranians who wish to have a cheap or rather free internet. A group that might even have a share in endangering the rights activists even without noticing it.

Source: Shahrzad News