[Foundation-l] Iran plans to turn off Internet

[Gregory Varnum]

Given the conversations about Bosnia and SOPA, I felt this was worth mentioning.

There are a number of stories online about the government limiting Internet access within Iran:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/06/iran-intranet-tests/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57354267-83/iran-squeezes-web-surfers-prepares-censored-national-intranet/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203513604577142713916386248.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


Please note that I'm not volunteering to help with any actions (sorry) and not (yet) necessarily advocating for or against action.  However, I felt it was worth mentioning topic given recent discussions and the obvious conflict this presents for Wikimedia's interest in accessing any parts of Iran.

I also have it from a reliable source that their government is indeed planning on a total Internet shut off in two weeks.  I'm not comfortable sharing more on a public listserv, but if you have a logical reason for needing to know, email me off-list and I'll share more.  :)

Based on how I learned this, I suspect bloggers and others will be reporting on this soon (if they aren't already).  Feel free to consider it wild speculation until then (and even after that if you'd like - I don't mind either way), but I'm confident in the source and that their government is preparing for these actions.  Hopefully cooler heads will prevail before it gets out of hand.

In the interest of getting discussion going, I'll refrain from sharing my own personal take on what's likely to happen.  :)

-greg aka varnent




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Gregory Varnum
Lead, Aequalitas Project
Lead Administrator, WikiQueer
Founding Principal, VarnEnt
@GregVarnum
fb.com/GregVarnum