Iranian State Goes Offline To Avoid Cyber-Attacks 165
DavidGilbert99 writes "The Iranian minister for telecommunication has said that the government will be taking key ministries and state agencies offline in the next month to protect sensitive information from cyber-attacks. However this move is just the initial step in an 18 month plan to take the country off the world wide web, and replace it with a state-controlled intranet. From the article: 'The US began offensive cyber-attacks against Iran during the presidency of George W. Bush when the Olympics Games project was founded. Out of this was [born] the Stuxnet cyber-weapon, which was designed to specifically target the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in Iran.'"
Re:Talk about... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you think they would still have a crap theocratic government if the US and GB had not overthrown their democratically elected government in 1953 and replaced it with their own dictator?
Re:Talk about... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Saving Cash! (Score:2, Informative)
FYI, those computers weren't connected to the internet. Stuxnet jumped via flash-drive. So this really doesn't solve that problem at all.
Re:Talk about... (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe, but the UK and SU overthrew the government previous to that in WW2 because it was on the verge of allying with Nazi germany, and that was 41, and the Shahs dynasty was only installed in 1925 (which is essentially the same period as the ottoman states that were formed after WW1 including Jordan, Egypt, Iraq etc.).
Political forces have play for a lot of reasons. One of the things you're seeing in the arab spring is that the people of those countries aren't really pleased with their governments for, for example, making peace with israel, making deals with the americans etc. The Shia revolution that ended up in charge did so in large part as a reaction to westernization (secular institutions, relatively liberal economic policies, in particular an alliance with the US etc.). All of those things could have come into being under the government structure from 53, and could have ended up with a similar outcome. The relatively messy revolution might not have materialized the same way had their been more democracy, but you can elect bad leaders rather than have them seize power in a revolution or coup. Just look at india and pakistan, california, israel the US federal government, the Eurozone leadership etc. They've all elected leaders with some really bad, including demonstrably wrong, policies. But that's the risk you take with any form of government. Iran is particularly extreme because they're particularly disliked, but that comes with the territory.
Re:Talk about... (Score:4, Informative)
Because Iran would have ended up as a Soviet client state, although more independent than Afghanistan. Once the Soviet Union folded, Iran would join a number of Mideast and Central Asian states to become either an idiosyncratic dictatorship or it would fall back into an Islamic state.
Well, the closest post-Soviet Central Asian state to Iran is Azerbaijan (also majority Shiite), and they seem to be doing pretty good. Not so much on the democracy front - though not really any worse than Iran - but much more secular and westernized, and not relying on populist anti-west rhetoric to garner popular support for the authoritarian government.
Much like Afghanistan turned into an Islamist hell hole after the Soviets left the nominally secular government to swing in the wind
That was actually another western mistake - betting on Islamists against the Soviets, forcing Soviets to leave. Things might have been different there, too, if the USSR didn't pull out when it did.