I wish this article went into more details on what the "National Information Network" is. I would guess it's at least a set of nationally managed DNS servers that will always resolve national IPs even if upstream global DNS is cut off.
Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are.
It's simply not going to be possible to meaningfully use the Internet unauthenticated and unapproved in a few years. Costs to reach mass audiences online will increase until only the big players can do it, and it'll be their platforms or nothing. There's going to be no room for anything that those with millions and billions of dollars don't want or can't make money off of in some way.
Overall, this makes me want to reduce the role of the Internet and tech in my life. I don't need the fastest data plan, latest PC, newest phone, or whatever AI trend is hot to use the apps I need for daily life or to line up events and meetings with others that I actually know.
joecool1029 · 41m ago
> Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are.
This is defeatist. You're probably right 'for the masses' but there will always be those networking and collaborating and bypassing whatever restrictions get put in place. I have online contacts in 'firewalled' regimes that use v2ray/shadowsocks or whatever the thing of the now is to get around the restrictions.
There's a ton of cheap tools now that can be used for running local or citywide networks, hams have their own packet radio stuff. There's now all those new LoRa networks that only really popped up in the past few years.
What I'm trying to say is the stuff is there and it's accessible, but it's only going to be a minority of people that use it just as it's a small minority that comments on posts like this (people like us) and even smaller yet again that write content on how to do it and create those tools to begin with. But it has always been this way....
ZoomZoomZoom · 12m ago
> What I'm trying to say is the stuff is there and it's accessible, but it's only going to be a minority of people that use it
Exactly. This is why the tech has to be made resistant to surveillance and censorship by default. Until usage of alternative connectivity and circumvention methods sticks out as a sore thumb (turns out, for most tools it does), it applies a constant pressure on anyone under oppression to stop, increasing the risks for those who continue to use them.
mschuster91 · 2m ago
> hams have their own packet radio stuff
We got basically three different things. First we got APRS, mostly used for position reports (go on aprs.fi for a map). That is pretty nice but unusable for anything more than a SMS worth of things, and you need repeaters and not just internet gateway collectors to actually have something that's resilient.
Next thing is AX25, the technical foundation behind APRS. Yes you can use it to create actual data links, but it's about modem speeds so virtually useless outside of toying around.
And finally there is HamNet but it's line of sight based and not cross routed to the internet, and identically to all things ham radio, encryption is banned by law.
And on top of that, you can expect regulatory agencies to crack down on ham radio fast and hard, should it be used for political dissency motives at scale. It's already against ham practice to talk politics, especially with people in repressive countries - we don't want more countries other than Yemen and North Korea to just blanket ban ham radio.
Is Google's AI Mode working? That might solve the problem you mentioned.
hexomancer · 33m ago
Well, the internet is not national anymore (for now!), but isn't Google AI Mode US only?
Anyway, the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.).
alephnerd · 29m ago
Ah - I didn't realize Google AI Mode is US Only!
> the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.)
Yea, sounds like they resorted to a hard whitelist. How were other Internet services impacted in Iran? My understanding is payment is increasingly tap-to-pay or via digital wallets within Iran? How was that impacted during the shutdown?
hexomancer · 24m ago
Well, Iran is sanctioned as fuck, so no global payment system works in Iran anyway. All the payment systems used by Iranians are local so they work even in national internet.
alephnerd · 19m ago
Yep! What I meant was during the recent conflict, was the domestic payment system working? How brittle or robust was it during that, especially given that my understanding is that Iran has transitioned to a cashless society?
hexomancer · 10m ago
Yes, it was working at least in my experience.
alephnerd · 43m ago
> more details on what the "National Information Network" is
Some sources [0][1]
> I would guess it's at least a set of nationally managed DNS servers that will always resolve national IPs even if upstream global DNS is cut off.
Yep. Along with an entire ecosystem of domestically created and regulated search engines, DPI, centrally managed certs, AV, networking backbone, etc.
It's similar in intention to the Great Firewall in China, except much more restrictive.
Imagine corporate IT restrictions and posture being deployed nationwide on all endpoints, that's how these kind of initiatives tend to architected.
SSE/Zero Trust, DPI, Cert Mgmt, etc are all dual-use, and it's essentially a logistics and organization problem.
I appreciate the final paragraphs which suggest a solid method for those inside the country and under this oppressive regime to remain connected without surveillance. I wonder how many are up to this, and what active resistance or movements inside the country look like these days.
joecool1029 · 55m ago
Synapse sucks to run and it doesn't minimize metadata collection. It's not a great choice unless you're running it outside the country where they can't seize the server (but then you have all the problems of not being able to access it when the country is cut off from the rest of the world). It's a pig on resources which means it has to be run on hardware that can handle it, barely runs on SBC's.
Other stuff is weird in their post and suggests they are speaking for Iranians without actually knowing any online. I know a few from the Cellmapper community and SMS is very much not expensive. 1000 SMS costs around 0.03USD worst case: https://irancell.ir/en/p/3771/tariffs-and-voice-packages-en
Finally it's not really that Starlink uses proprietary encryption that's special. They can use any sort of common encryption standard and there's not much Iran can do but locate and seize the terminal since they don't have the keys to it. I imagine at some point they were start looking for signal emissions in known Starlink bands and use that to locate terminals. Allegedly Russia has a detection system 'Kalinka' already built: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/russia-and-chin...
justusthane · 1h ago
Does it, though? It doesn’t mention whether or not hosting your own encrypted messaging platform is illegal, what the repercussions are, or how to hide that you are doing so.
I found the whole article to be unfortunately light on both technical details and practical details, and certainly wouldn’t suggest that anyone use it as a guide.
Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are.
It's simply not going to be possible to meaningfully use the Internet unauthenticated and unapproved in a few years. Costs to reach mass audiences online will increase until only the big players can do it, and it'll be their platforms or nothing. There's going to be no room for anything that those with millions and billions of dollars don't want or can't make money off of in some way.
Overall, this makes me want to reduce the role of the Internet and tech in my life. I don't need the fastest data plan, latest PC, newest phone, or whatever AI trend is hot to use the apps I need for daily life or to line up events and meetings with others that I actually know.
This is defeatist. You're probably right 'for the masses' but there will always be those networking and collaborating and bypassing whatever restrictions get put in place. I have online contacts in 'firewalled' regimes that use v2ray/shadowsocks or whatever the thing of the now is to get around the restrictions.
There's a ton of cheap tools now that can be used for running local or citywide networks, hams have their own packet radio stuff. There's now all those new LoRa networks that only really popped up in the past few years.
What I'm trying to say is the stuff is there and it's accessible, but it's only going to be a minority of people that use it just as it's a small minority that comments on posts like this (people like us) and even smaller yet again that write content on how to do it and create those tools to begin with. But it has always been this way....
Exactly. This is why the tech has to be made resistant to surveillance and censorship by default. Until usage of alternative connectivity and circumvention methods sticks out as a sore thumb (turns out, for most tools it does), it applies a constant pressure on anyone under oppression to stop, increasing the risks for those who continue to use them.
We got basically three different things. First we got APRS, mostly used for position reports (go on aprs.fi for a map). That is pretty nice but unusable for anything more than a SMS worth of things, and you need repeaters and not just internet gateway collectors to actually have something that's resilient.
Next thing is AX25, the technical foundation behind APRS. Yes you can use it to create actual data links, but it's about modem speeds so virtually useless outside of toying around.
And finally there is HamNet but it's line of sight based and not cross routed to the internet, and identically to all things ham radio, encryption is banned by law.
And on top of that, you can expect regulatory agencies to crack down on ham radio fast and hard, should it be used for political dissency motives at scale. It's already against ham practice to talk politics, especially with people in repressive countries - we don't want more countries other than Yemen and North Korea to just blanket ban ham radio.
It is way more than just DNS.
> the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.)
Yea, sounds like they resorted to a hard whitelist. How were other Internet services impacted in Iran? My understanding is payment is increasingly tap-to-pay or via digital wallets within Iran? How was that impacted during the shutdown?
Some sources [0][1]
> I would guess it's at least a set of nationally managed DNS servers that will always resolve national IPs even if upstream global DNS is cut off.
Yep. Along with an entire ecosystem of domestically created and regulated search engines, DPI, centrally managed certs, AV, networking backbone, etc.
It's similar in intention to the Great Firewall in China, except much more restrictive.
Imagine corporate IT restrictions and posture being deployed nationwide on all endpoints, that's how these kind of initiatives tend to architected.
SSE/Zero Trust, DPI, Cert Mgmt, etc are all dual-use, and it's essentially a logistics and organization problem.
[0] - https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1107324.pdf
[1] - https://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/38316/The-...
Other stuff is weird in their post and suggests they are speaking for Iranians without actually knowing any online. I know a few from the Cellmapper community and SMS is very much not expensive. 1000 SMS costs around 0.03USD worst case: https://irancell.ir/en/p/3771/tariffs-and-voice-packages-en
Finally it's not really that Starlink uses proprietary encryption that's special. They can use any sort of common encryption standard and there's not much Iran can do but locate and seize the terminal since they don't have the keys to it. I imagine at some point they were start looking for signal emissions in known Starlink bands and use that to locate terminals. Allegedly Russia has a detection system 'Kalinka' already built: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/russia-and-chin...
I found the whole article to be unfortunately light on both technical details and practical details, and certainly wouldn’t suggest that anyone use it as a guide.