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Free Speech

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Oct 8th 2012 9:49am




Filed Under:
audio, avi, blocks, censorship, iran, mp3, mp4, swf, video


Iran's Latest Aggressive Censorship Plan: Block All Audio & Video Files

from the seems-a-bit-excessive dept

It's no secret that the Iranian government has a bit of an uncomfortable relationship with the internet. First of all, it's trying to build its own internet, at which point it supposedly would like to block out that "other" internet completely. It's also pretty aggressive in censoring various sites it doesn't like. Over the past few days, it's apparently gone a step further. While there were plenty of reports about it blocking YouTube, someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent over this story, saying that Iran's Filtering Committee (IFC) has started blocking all kinds of audio-visual files, based on filetype:
Then, on October 4, 2012, the IFC began preventing files hosted on servers outside Iran from entering the country by blocking specific file extensions. At the time of writing, this policy applies to all MP3, MP4, AVI and SWF files. This kind of filtering was used after the controversial presidential elections of 2009, amidst harsh crackdowns on freedom of information, and coincides with Iran's current economic crisis and the ensuing protests.
Apparently, those blocks do not apply to those files hosted within the country -- just those from foreign sites. Still, that's a pretty extreme move: blocking all of those files takes away a significant part of the audio-visual part of the web. The article highlights a number of Iranians complaining on Twitter about how these blocks are having a severe negative impact on what they do. Still, it's yet another warning for what happens when a government can aggressively filter the internet in extreme ways.

30 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:11am

    Look, this is all a big misunderstanding. They are just trying to adopt more up-to-date web standards:

    1- Flash is being deprecated in favour of HTML5;
    2- Instead of relying on proprietary mp3 and mp4, Iran is encouraging people to switch to ogg vorbis;
    3- And finally, instead of relying on deprecated avi, they are trying to move people towards webm.

    They are just a bit more aggressive at implementing the standards, that's all.

    /sarcasm

     

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  •  
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:12am

    No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

    So why worry about it? This is standard rabble-rousing, more of hate directed from its proper target to a largely fabricated external enemy, the "other", those backward repressive foreigners -- WHILE your own gov'ts are doing worse!

     

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    •  
      icon
      Ninja (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:14am

      Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

      I'm astonished. I'm actually agreeing with an usual critic? really?

      But still there's a problem with your comment. Regardless of if it will impact you or not, they are doing that to human beings, to their people. That should be a problem. We should be supporting Iranians fighting and denouncing this pile of crap.

       

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      •  
        identicon
        u know me, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:27am

        Re: Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

        You are replying to a heartless, soulless, POS, that has no concern for other human beings.
        So why worry about it? Because WE care what happens to others no matter where they live.

         

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        •  
          identicon
          Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:36am

          Re: Re: Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

          "You are replying to a heartless, soulless, POS, that has no concern for other human beings."

          oob is a media executive?

           

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      •  
        identicon
        The dude, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 11:50am

        Re: Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

        Yup Ninja.
        End the iranian suffering through your facebook account (refering to denouncing, as for the supporting part if there is no political will it simply won't happen)

         

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    •  
      icon
      Nathan F (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 11:34am

      Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

      First, they came for the Iranians but I didn't care because I didn't live in Iran.. and then my government had the bright idea "Well they are doing it.. so we can to!"

       

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      •  
        identicon
        monkyyy, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 1:38pm

        Re: Re: No matter what Iran does, won't affect me as US gov't doing same.

        NOOOO

        first hey came for napster, but i didnt care as i listen to music that was given away for free legally

         

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:14am

    I'm surprised that Iran doesn't rip every song and movie that ever came out of "America" to the highest possible quality and then post them on a massive array of servers and offer them for free to the world - maybe they think that such a move would benefit rather than hurt the US economy.

     

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  •  
    identicon
    fb39ca4, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:17am

    Can't people change the extension to .txt or something and then change it back once it is on their computer? Or are they actually inspecting the file contents?

     

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    •  
      icon
      Yakko Warner (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 12:32pm

      Re:

      You mean the same thing we've been doing to attach "potentially unsafe" spreadsheet and document files in Outlook for years?

       

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    •  
      icon
      Lin (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 5:58pm

      Re:

      Yes, changing the file extension will work for sharing/email.
      The person receiving it just changes the file back to the correct extension.
      For example - suppose I have an avi video to send to an Iranian friend. I change the file extension from ".avi" to ".abc" and send the file. Then after they receive and download it, they change the extension back to ".avi".
      Now they can watch it.

      However, that same video MUST have the correct file extension in order for it to be viewed in a website.

      SO, changing the extension will work for sending email
      but websites won't be able to show it without the correct file extension.

       

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:17am

    Finally, an opportunity for .mkv files to spread.

     

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  •  
    icon
    velox (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:23am

    Work arounds will be found

    Hmm. How long will it take to dust off the old method of transferring media files as text the way MIME was sent in the early days of the Internet.
    I seems governments never tire of Whack-a-Mole.

     

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:36am

    why complain when Iran does exactly what every other country, including those supposed democratic ones are heading towards anyway? all Iran is doing is getting in first. the USA and EU wont be far behind thanks to the way politicians keep doing what they are to preserve old industry models. the irony is, politicians dont yet realise that they are playing straight into the hands of industries. as soon as they get what they want, industries will be running things, not governments, then those politicians will be as obsolete as the people are already

     

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 10:45am

    Politicians and their quaint ideas of technology

    Good lord. It's like they don't know anything. Ever hear of a ZIP file? How about an extensionless file that the server gives the proper MIME type to? So many trivial ways around this "block" it's pathetic.

     

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  •  
    icon
    Austin (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 11:35am

    Somewhere in Iran...

    Suspect: "Video files? What video files?! I swear all that SSH traffic really is just a lot of commands."

    Interrogator: "So you typed 9GB of commands in 2 hours?"

    Suspect: "Of course!"

    Interrogator "Um...well..."

    Because sometimes, the alibi is as ridiculous as the charge.

     

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 12:27pm

    What the Iranians are doing is very much like the "UnityNet" of one alternate history story, where a new "Unitist" government of China and its allies create their own walled off version of the Internet called "UnityNet".

     

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    •  
      identicon
      Digitari, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 12:58pm

      Re:

      Nothing is new under the sun, it's all been written before, for those that CAN read

       

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      •  
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, Oct 8th, 2012 @ 3:22pm

        Re: Re:

        "The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again."
        -Sherlock Holmes, The Valley Of Fear

         

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  •  
    icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 1:45pm

    Morons!

    So, you change the extension, encrypt the file (or re-arrange it so it can be easily reconstituted at the receiving end, though software can probably tell that it is some sort of audio/video data), and what do they know? Are they totally blocking encrypted data, even if sent over un-encrypted http connections? Probably not. So, encrypt file, change the extension, and send it over an un-encrypted link... That should work for awhile.

     

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  •  
    icon
    Bergman (profile), Oct 8th, 2012 @ 7:02pm

    Would it be blasphemy if....?

    Say someone sent an audio file of a man reciting verses from the Quran. And Iran blocked it, thus preventing the words of Mohammed from being heard. Wouldn't that be a crime in Iran?

     

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