Iranian net censorship powered by US technology

"Internet censorship in Iran is amongst the most restrictive and sophisticated in the world, a technical study has revealed. And much of the filtering technology in use was developed by western companies.

The Iranian government employs extensive internet filtering to block out content deemed inappropriate, according to a new report issued by the OpenNet Initiative - a partnership between the University of Toronto in Canada, Harvard Law School in the US and the University of Cambridge, UK.

Researchers remotely accessed computers within Iran's internet borders to test the restrictions imposed by the government. The team used a variety of methods to test the filters - dialling into Iranian ISPs from outside the country, connecting to desktop machines using remote-control software, and routing traffic through dedicated servers within the country.

They found that 34% of the 1465 URLs they tested were blocked, including 100% of the pornographic websites tested. Many gay and lesbian web pages were blocked, as were those hosting politically sensitive content - 15% of blogs and 30% of news sites were inaccessible. Sites providing tools and information for circumventing filtering technology were also blocked in 95% of cases."
New Scientist

No wonder they all hate us!