April 14 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government approved the export to Iran of software designed to help citizens avoid government censorship of their Internet use, according to the program’s developer, the Censorship Research Center.

The “Haystack” software lets Internet users hide their identities and use Web sites — such as Google Inc.’s YouTube, Facebook Inc., and Twitter Inc. — that are blocked by the government, the San Francisco-based non-profit group said in a statement on its Web site. Go to Bloomberg.

…this time in the red dot award: product design

Free Iran: Although this is not Iran related, when Iranians make contributions to world progress, it is a good moment.

The Berlin-based designer Arman Emami achieved great success in this year’s red dot design award. In 2009 he had won a ‘red dot: best of the best’ in the red dot award: design concept for his creative design concept “USB Clip”; only one year later the product has already gone into production. Now it again impressed an international expert jury: the memory stick received the highest award, the ‘red dot: best of the best’ for outstanding design quality, also in the red dot award: product design 2010. Go to original article.

Free Iran:  Although the EU’s deliberations about promoting open access to information in Iran is a positive step, without pressuring the regime such calls for open access would simply fall on deaf ears.  The EU should kick out their satellite channels from Western satellites that carry them and make it far more difficult for them to buy communication gears from Western companies.  There is a lot that the EU could do unilaterally.

BRUSSELS—Iran must stop jamming satellite broadcasting and censoring the Internet, the European Union said Monday, but the bloc stopped short of threatening any action if Tehran doesn’t agree to it.

EU foreign ministers said in a statement that Iran must “put an end to this electronic interference immediately.”

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that banning broadcasts such as the British Broadcasting Corp. and Germany’s Deutsche Welle highlights the authorities’ fear “of their people hearing the truth about what’s happening in their own country.

“It says a lot about the trust the Iranian government has in its own people,” he said. “They’re not willing to hear them hear independent news. I think it’s very important that they open up the airwaves as soon as possible.”

The EU said it wants to take up the issue before the International Telecommunications Union.

“The interesting thing is that Iran wants to expand its satellite channels network around the world — that’s why the ITU is the best place to talk about that,” German Deputy Foreign Minister Werner Hoyer said. “It is important that we show European solidarity and I think we can get that.”

Also see:

BBC:  EU pressures Iran to end jamming

RFE:  EU Foreign Ministers Call On Iran To End Broadcast Jamming

Go to WSJ.

The game, created by a 20-member team, is expected to be released abroad to coincide with the Iranian new year, which starts Saturday. There have been other Iranian-produced computer games, but “Garshasp, the Monster Slayer” is the first that can compete internationally.

The action-adventure game is set in ancient Persia (as Iran was formerly known) in a world taken over by mythological monsters called “deevs.” All characters are drawn from Iranian myths and legends. Players must fight their way through three “worlds,” or levels, by killing opponents and solving puzzles.

The creative impetus behind “Garshasp,” which won praise during recent gaming conferences in the United Arab Emirates, Germany and France, was set in motion years ago in Tehran. During jam sessions with a semiprofessional rock band and breaks from university basketball games, a group of youths started daydreaming about making a computer game.

“Me and Soheil Eshraghi played in a band,” said Jafari, a former electronics engineer with long, dark hair. “We liked games, but I didn’t know Soheil could make animations,” he said. One of Eshraghi’s cartoons received a U.N. award in 2000.

While at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology, Jafari met Fassihi, an old friend, who was studying civil engineering. Both had passed a grueling national exam taken by 200,000 students a year. The top 800 are accepted at Sharif University; Jafari placed 97th and Fassihi 180th. Go to Washington Post.

Free Iran:  A great example of individual initiative.

Austin Heap, the programmer from California, explains how he created Haystack, the software that broke the grip of Iran’s censors after the disputed 2009 election.

If you imagined a computer hacker with the know-how to topple governments, you might well picture someone who looks a lot like Austin Heap. He’s a 26-year-old programmer from San Francisco with long wavy hair, wearing jeans, T-shirt and aviator sunglasses the morning we meet. He is also the creator of a piece of software called Haystack, which was a key technology used by Iranians to disseminate information outside the country in the protests that followed the disputed election result in June 2009, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unconvincingly triumphed against three challengers.

The Iranian government already filtered its citizens’ email and Skype conversations, but in the aftermath of the election, such censorship was increased in an attempt to identify dissidents who were using the web to organise and communicate with each other and with the outside world.

A tech wunderkind originally from Ohio, Heap developed Haystack to open up social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, giving voices on the streets a platform, and people in the west a window into a closed-down state. He’s now the executive director of the Censorship Research Centre in San Francisco, a non-profit organisation founded with his colleague Daniel Colascione to provide anti-censorship education, outreach, and technology for free to those who need it most.

What is Haystack and how does it work?

Haystack is a piece of software that someone in Iran runs on his or her computer. It does two things: first, it encrypts all of the data; second it hides that data inside normal traffic so it looks like you’re visiting innocuous sites. Daniel and I developed Haystack by looking at how the regime was using technology to filter the internet, and figured out the best strategy to get around it. Go to Guardian.

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Stop the regime from jamming international satellites

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Free Iran:  Providing access to satellite TV (and the internet) in Iran is one of the most critical steps the West could take to help Iran’s democratic movement.  If the West can’t stop the regime from jamming these satellite channels, then how could it stop its nuclear drive?  Sanctions should be tied to issues that help the Iranian people – not just to the regime’s nuclear drive.   If  implemented, sanctioning the regime for jamming satellite channels would be a huge step forward.

LA Times:  Europeans call for action against Islamic Republic for jamming of international satellites

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French and German counterparts think it’s high time for Europe to step up measures against Iran for its alleged jamming of foreign channels such as BBC Persian and Deutsche Welle, which are broadcast by satellite into the Islamic Republic.

“Iran has been regularly jamming the broadcasting by satellite of a number of foreign televisions and radio stations . . . since December 2009, a repetition of its practice in the run-up to the disputed elections earlier that year,” Miliband, along with counterparts Bernard Kouchner of France and Guido Westerwelle of Germany wrote in a recent letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton.

“The objective was clearly to prevent the people of Iran from freely exercising their right to information,” read the letter. “We cannot remain silent. It seems to us to be essential that the European Union should make known in the strongest possible terms its condemnation of such unacceptable actions.”

The three powers suggest that a declaration condemning Iran for its alleged electronic interference be adopted at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers, scheduled to be held in Brussels on Monday.

Aside from condemnation and demanding that Iranian authorities stop tampering with international satellites, the ministers call for a number of other actions, including figuring out how to un-jam the blocked satellites and pulling the plug on exports of technologies the Iranian authorities are believed to use for censorship purposes.

The French daily Le Figaro reported that potential sanctions could include stopping companies such as Germany’s Siemens or Finland’s Nokia from delivering technologies to Tehran that allow the interception of cellphone and e-mail conversations.

On Tuesday, Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi blasted Nokia Siemens Networks, a subsidiary of Siemens and Nokia, saying the company supplied Iran with software used to suppress dissent in the Islamic Republic.

“Unfortunately, a certain number of firms support the Iranian regime in its repression and censorship,” Agence France-Presse quoted her as saying on France Culture radio. “It’s clearly the case with Siemens and Nokia when they send the Iranian state software and technology that it can use to monitor mobile telephone calls and text messages,” she said.

Another suggestion is to boot Iranian programs from Eutelsat, the leading French satellite operator which is said to have been specifically affected by the Iranian jamming. Eutelsat carries more than 70 foreign radio and TV programs, including some from the Iranian government.

“Another measure of retaliation would be to request that Eutelsat blocks in response to the interference of Iran in international channels, IRIB’s programs (Iranian state television), which it oversees the distribution of in Europe” a diplomat familiar with the matter told Le Figaro.

Iran’s Arabic-language channel, Al-Alam, and the English-language Press TV, would be affected, Le Figaro’s report said.

The jamming violates the principles of the International Union of Telecommunications, to which Iran is a party.

Also see:

NYT:  Iran’s Opposition Seeks More Help in Cyberwar With Government

In recent months the government slowed the Internet to a crawl, so that users were unable to perform the simplest operations, like opening Gmail or Yahoo accounts. It has become impossible to post a video, and opposition Web sites have been blocked. The government has also jammed opposition and news satellite channels, including Persian-language Voice of America television and BBC Persian, which were watched by millions.

The government has jailed many cyberexperts in recent months, charging some with “waging war against God,” potentially a capital crime, for sending political e-mail messages. This month Parliament announced a $500 million budget for cyberwarfare, the Fars news agency recently reported.

The opposition tried to fight back with software designed to circumvent the restrictions, but that became a losing battle after Internet service was slowed.

Opposition leaders say they would like to have access to Internet hardware — any products made by Cisco Systems, for example, are subject to sanctions — and high-speed satellite Internet service, which experts say is generally harder to jam than broadcasts. That service is available from the American company Hughes Global Services, in Europe and the Middle East, and could be used by Iranians. But Payam Herischi, senior director at Hughes, said that the company was reluctant to allow its satellites to provide service to Iran until sanctions are lifted.

“This is not about the opposition Green Movement in Iran now,” said Mr. Khoini, a visiting scholar at Stanford. “This is about democracy and the fact that when people have access to information, they can make wise choices. No one, even the current leaders of the opposition, can hijack the movement like the way the Islamists did in the 1979 revolution if people can have access to free information.”

BW:  U.S. Licenses Firm to Boost Iran Internet Access, Clinton Says

The U.S. issued a license to a company to boost Internet access for Iranians, though the government in Tehran will likely attempt to block U.S. efforts, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

“We’re doing a lot, let me just put it at that, because we think it is in the interests of American values and American strategic concerns to make sure that people have a chance to know what is going on outside of Iran,” Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Moscow today.

Clinton didn’t name the company or elaborate on what it would do to expand Iranians’ access to the Internet.

The Internet became the most important tool for opposition candidates in Iran’s June 12 presidential election as the government restricted their access to the airwaves and closed their newspapers.

Before the election, opposition campaigns circumvented government disruption of the Internet by relying on proxy servers that disguise a user’s location. They also turned to mobile-phone text messages and social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

MSNBC:  For cyberwarriors, murky terrain

Bildunterschrift: Internet censorship is a global problem

DW:  End of US export ban on Web tools leaves Iran, Cuba and Sudan speechless

The US decision to allow the export of Internet tools to Iran, Cuba and Sudan won’t bring about instant change. But it does make life harder for the censors – and the regimes in question can’t even complain about it.

BBC:  Meet US Cybercom: Why the US is fielding a cyber army

The US is in the process of creating a unified cyber command, to fight the wars of the future. The Pentagon has no doubt that the next conventional war will include a cyber element.

WAN-Press:  WAN-IFRA Condemns Detention of Iranian Journalists

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has condemned the continued imprisonment of Iranian journalist Emad Baghi and the repressive measures employed by the state to silence critical publications.

AFP:  Iran renews demand for France to free businessman

Iran renewed its demand on Tuesday for France to release an Iranian businessman who is accused by the United States of having purchased sensitive electronic components and exported them to Tehran.

MSNBC:  Bin Laden’s son calls on Iran to free his siblings

One of Osama bin Laden’s sons has called on Iran’s supreme leader to release members of his family believed to be under house arrest there since they fled Afghanistan in 2001, according to a letter posted Monday on the Internet.

Telegraph:  Iran ‘tried to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan’

Iran attempted to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan in 1990 but a putative deal was rejected at the last moment by the former head of the Pakistani military, according to an official transcript leaked in Washington.

AEI:  Iran News Roundup March 12-15, 2010

Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, brother of the former president: “They say Islam is the religion of the barefoot and Ayatollah Hashemi gave them shoes by creating jobs, and therefore, reduced the number of the army of Islam. What kind of logic is this? Should we let the people starve to remain Muslim?…Whoever finds property belonging to the Rafsanjani family can seize it.”

RFE:  Iran Praises Iraq Election As Shi’ite Ally Leads

Iran has congratulated Iraqis over an election that is likely to keep a bloc led by its Shi’ite ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in power after a campaign in which Tehran’s influence was a divisive issue.  Maliki’s main challenger, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who headed a secular list mixing Shi’ite and Sunni Arabs, made a high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia during the campaign to improve ties with Iran’s biggest Sunni rival in the Persian Gulf region.

TB:  ‘Temporary Marriage’ and the Economy of Pleasure

Seeking to exploit the Internet’s potential for prying open closed societies, the Obama administration will permit technology companies to export online services like instant messaging, chat and photo sharing to Iran, Cuba and Sudan, a senior administration official said Sunday.

On Monday, he said, the Treasury Department will issue a general license for the export of free personal Internet services and software geared toward the populations in all three countries, allowing Microsoft, Yahoo and other providers to get around strict export restrictions.

The companies had resisted offering such services for fear of violating existing sanctions. But there have been growing calls in Congress and elsewhere to lift the restrictions, particularly after the postelection protests in Iran illustrated the power of Internet-based services like Facebook and Twitter.

“The more people have access to a range of Internet technology and services, the harder it’s going to be for the Iranian government to clamp down on their speech and free expression,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made yet.

The decision, which had been expected, underscores the complexity of dealing with politically repressive governments in the digital age: even as the Obama administration is opening up trade in Internet services to Iran, it is shaping harsh new sanctions that would crack down on Iranian access to financing and technology that could help Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Critics have said these sanctions are leaky and ineffective, and some say it makes more sense to spread digital technology, which makes it harder for governments to restrict the flow of information within societies, and to prevent their people from contact with the outside world.

The Treasury Department’s action follows a recommendation by the State Department in mid-December that the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is run by the Treasury, authorize the downloading of “free mass-market software” in Iran by Microsoft, Google and other companies. Go to NY Times.

Finnish-German telecom equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) on Friday countered allegations technology it sold to Iran in 2008 could be used to monitor Internet traffic.

NSN sold GSM networks to Iran and “supplied one client with a certain additional feature, which is no longer in our portfolio”, spokeswoman Riitta Maard told AFP.

That feature, she said, could “be used to archive and arrange data in a certain way, and relates only to voice data”.

“Allegations that it can be used to monitor Internet traffic are not true,” Maard said.

The company came under fire in June when a petition calling for a boycott against one of its parent companies, mobile phone maker Nokia, began circulating over the Internet, claiming NSN’s technology had helped Iran to monitor mobile phones and read emails during post-election protests.

Allegations against the company flared up again, when the online version of Finnish magazine Voima http://fifi.voima.fi said last month NSN had supplied Iran with ‘Nokia Lawful Interception Gateway’ (LIG) technology, which allowed the surveillance of mobile Internet use. Go to AFP.

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During the past few months, the activities of Iran’s Cyber Army have attracted growing notice in the Iranian and international media. The suspicion that the Cyber Army’s constituent hacker groups are connected to the Iranian government was strengthened when, after several sites were hacked, they issued warnings to the Green Movement. The scope of the measures taken by the Cyber Army discredits the theory that a group of Ahmandinejad’s admirers spontaneously carried out such acts. The nature of their communications and of the sites targeted for attack indicate that there are hidden hands that support the Cyber Army.

A review of the political messages published by the Cyber Army in recent months and official statements in its defense made by a government administrator of Iran’s aviation industry prompt a closer examination of the group, which previous reports have claimed is composed of Russian hackers based outside of Iran. What, in fact, is the Iranian Cyber Army and where is it actually based? Before answering these questions, a summary look at recent incidents involving the group is in order. Go to Tehran Bureau.

Here’s what happens when a business linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) is targeted with sanctions. A representative of the Revolutionary Guards finds a lawyer in Dubai and says: “Look, I’m on this stupid U.S. Treasury list. I’ll give you 10 percent. Help me set up a shell company in Dubai or Malaysia.”

The Treasury Department enemy list (“Specially Designated Nationals”) is easy to find. It’s at www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Revolutionary Guard tycoons in Tehran know that. Once they have a new shell company, say in a cousin’s name, they circumvent the list. They go on reaping the heady profits open to the in crowd when sanctions distort an economy.

Iran has lived with sanctions for a long time; its immune systems are highly developed. As much as 20 percent of the gross national product of Dubai is linked to Iran trade. I don’t see new “targeted” sanctions disrupting this traffic. Iran’s economy, even in a slump, is too big, too diverse and too sophisticated: North Korea it is not.

I expect China, averse to conspicuous isolation, will eventually abstain on a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. They will be imposed. Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence (and a household name in Iran), will burrow away in search of actionable U.S. sanctions against the Iranian regime.

The sanctions will feel cathartic, satisfy the have-to-do-something itch in the Congress, and change nothing. I’m just about resigned to that. But there is a smarter approach to Iran: Instead of constraining trade, throw it open.

Verma wrote: “The Department of State is recommending that the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (O.F.A.C.) issue a general license that would authorize downloads of free mass-market software by companies such as Microsoft and Google to Iran necessary for the exchange of personal communications and/or sharing of information over the Internet such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail, and social networking.”

Now that’s smart! There’s a way to bolster the remarkable, still unbowed opposition movement in Iran as well as weaken the Revolutionary Guards’ stranglehold on society and the economy. And what has O.F.A.C. done about this request in the past two months?

Nothing.

“With respect to Iran, human rights and free speech efforts have been made illegal under federal law!” said Austin Heap, a brilliant “techie” working for an organization that’s been trying to get technology designed to bypass government filters and other censorship into Iran, but has been frustrated by sanctions that make that illegal. “Sanctions are deterring people from doing things to help.”

Heap works with Babak Siavoshy, 27, at the Censorship Research Center (C.R.C.), whose engineers have developed software called “Haystack” that makes it near impossible for censors to detect what Internet users are doing.

“Double-click on Haystack and you browse the Internet anonymously and safely,” Siavoshy said. “It’s encrypted at such a level it would take thousands of years to figure out what you’re saying. It’s a potent open-society tool. It’s just a matter of getting it to Iran — and that’s still illegal.”

The C.R.C. has applied for a license from O.F.A.C. to distribute in Iran. Without pro-bono lawyers, it would have given up long ago. They’ve had to draft hundreds of pages of applications to Treasury.

Iranians are resourceful. On thumb drives, SIM cards, encrypted photo files and the like, they’d get Haystack software into the country. The United States is shooting itself in the foot by making this illegal. Hillary Clinton’s speech on the importance of an open Internet was good, but right now it’s just a speech. Don’t shut down on Iran; open up to its promise. Sanctions are a feel-good impasse.

“Tear down this wall!” was a 20th-century cry. It has given way to the 21st century’s “Tear down this firewall!” That, not sanctions, is what the I.R.G.C. fears most; and that, not sanctions, should be Obama’s priority.

Go to NY Times.

Coffee, computers and piston engines – could we imagine a world without them?  These are intricate parts of every day life for most of us and the knowledge that led to them was either invented by or passed down through the ancient Muslim world.  That’s the theme of an exhibit in London’s Science Museum and it’s a far cry from the view held by some that the Muslim and Western World represent a “clash of civilizations”.

And there were many other inventions or innovations passed on by the early Muslim world from the 7th Century onward. “One of them is the invention of the university.  This was done in the year 850 by a young lady called Fatima al-Firhi in the city of Fez in Morocco.  The first university as we know it in the world, giving degrees and so on,” he said.

And that’s the theme of this exhibit at the London Science Museum.  It’s called 1001 inventions: the Muslim Heritage – a bit like “1001 Arabian Nights” the well known fairy tale.

But, the exhibit here focuses on scientific or technological inventions and advances that changed our world — from some of the earliest universities, to innovations in medicine, hygiene, pumps, and water wheels.

“Forgotten history?  Not really. Ask just about anyone on the streets of Cairo or Damascus today and they’ll readily tell you about Islam’s glory days – not just its conquests but its cultural, scientific and technological innovations.”

And then there is mathematics and algebra. In general, our numbers are known as Arabic numerals today, but it wasn’t always so. “The numbers that we have today – 1,2,3,4 – they’re called Arabic numerals, but actually the Arabs at the time called them Indian numerals,” he said.

And, the number “0″ for example – “zephir” in Arabic – was used first by early Arab scholars as an integral part of mathematical equations.  And that’s part of the all-important formula of zeros and ones that was crucial to the development of computers and other new technology. Go to VOA.

LA Times: Iran announces launch of animals into space

Iran announced the test-firing of a powerful rocket loaded with several live animals into space and unveiled a handful of other space technologies Wednesday, ahead of a nationalist holiday and amid heightened international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear research and missile programs.

The long-awaited launch of the Kavoshgar-3 satellite carrier and the unveiling of the other astrophysical technologies coincided with Iran’s annual “Space Day,” as well as the buildup to the Feb. 11 anniversary of the Islamic Republic.

State television aired footage of the flying Kavoshgar-3. Photos posted to news websites showed a rat strapped into a space pod. Reports said two turtles and worms were also aboard.

Iran inaugurated seven projects Wednesday, including a satellite image processing center, a 3-D laboratory and plans for the four-engine, liquid-fuel Simorgh satellite carrier, which can transport a 220-pound object up to 300 miles above Earth, according to Iranian news outlets.

Three satellites unveiled were the solar-powered Tolou, which can take photographs and transmit them back to Earth; the Mesbah-II, which can provide telecommunications to remote areas; and the Navid, an imaging satellite designed by students.

BBC: Video – Iran test launches satellite rocket

BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says it will raise concern about Iran’s growing rocket technology and possible links to its nuclear programme.

Iranian television showed the rocket being fired from a desert launch pad.

Later, the capsule was seen detaching and spinning into orbit.

The Iranian Aerospace Organisation (IAO) said the capsule included a mini-laboratory and a video camera to enable “further studies on the biological capsule”, Iran’s Press TV reported.

Iran’s police chief on Friday warned opposition supporters not to use cell phones and e-mail messages to organize protest rallies against the government, saying those who do so will be prosecuted and punished.

Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said spreading the word of the opposition through Internet or cell phone SMS is a crime that deserves severe punishment and that the authorities would continue monitoring those systems.

The remarks are the latest reflecting the government’s frustration at various imaginative ways the opposition has sought to rally supporters following the disputed June presidential election.

A harsh government crackdown has left the opposition with little means to make its voice heard. Almost all pro-reform newspapers have been closed since the June 12 vote in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. Those still in circulation have been openly threatened against publishing opposition statements. Iranian state media, controlled by hard-liners, regularly ignore the opposition. Go to Washington Post.