1 00:00:00,390 --> 00:00:09,100 *preroll music* 2 00:00:09,100 --> 00:00:13,370 Herald: Good evening, thank you for joining us tonight, 3 00:00:13,370 --> 00:00:18,019 here at the CCC in Hamburg. And also thank you for everyone 4 00:00:18,019 --> 00:00:20,769 tuning in around the world via our livestream. 5 00:00:20,769 --> 00:00:26,919 I'm very, very honored and excited to introduce our new... next guest, 6 00:00:26,919 --> 00:00:29,439 Mahsa Alimardani? *laughs* 7 00:00:29,439 --> 00:00:34,620 - it was my attempt to say the name Mahsa Alimardani - she's an Iranian-Canadian 8 00:00:34,620 --> 00:00:36,989 researcher and activist. 9 00:00:36,989 --> 00:00:42,280 Mahsa is finishing her master's degree and is a research assistant 10 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:45,730 at the Deja Active Lab, both at the university of Amsterdam, 11 00:00:45,730 --> 00:00:52,199 and her focus is on freedom of expression and access to information 12 00:00:52,199 --> 00:00:58,589 in Iran. She's also the editor of the Global Voices Iran 13 00:00:58,589 --> 00:01:02,510 and today she will be sharing some of her research findings with us 14 00:01:02,510 --> 00:01:08,799 about the censorship situation in Iran on mobile platforms. 15 00:01:08,799 --> 00:01:14,590 With that I would like to ask you to help me welcome Mahsa Alimardani! 16 00:01:14,590 --> 00:01:23,380 *applause* 17 00:01:23,380 --> 00:01:26,920 Mahsa Alimardani: Thank you Sonia, for the nice introduction, 18 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:29,759 and thank you all for coming to this session, 19 00:01:29,759 --> 00:01:33,890 I know there's a lot of awesome computing sessions happening right now. 20 00:01:33,890 --> 00:01:40,530 And, so, just to introduce you a little bit to the Iranian internet ecosystem. 21 00:01:40,530 --> 00:01:46,950 So, there are some realities, you should know about it. 22 00:01:46,950 --> 00:01:48,439 *decent laughter* 23 00:01:48,439 --> 00:01:53,280 Yes, if you're thinking of traveling to Iran I'd tell this to everyone: Do go! 24 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:56,219 It's awesome, it's amazing, it's a beautiful country. 25 00:01:56,219 --> 00:01:59,490 Although, take into consideration the type of work that you do and 26 00:01:59,490 --> 00:02:02,109 the type of public profile you have when you do go. 27 00:02:02,109 --> 00:02:05,850 If you do go do set up TOR relays 'cause that's really helpful to people 28 00:02:05,850 --> 00:02:10,410 accessing the internet in Iran. 29 00:02:10,410 --> 00:02:12,660 And one of the things you should know that the Iranian internet, 30 00:02:12,660 --> 00:02:16,550 it's often known as the Filter Net. 31 00:02:16,550 --> 00:02:20,620 And Filter Net sort of has been the name ascribed to the internet 32 00:02:20,620 --> 00:02:23,209 because of the censorship that happens in Iran. 33 00:02:23,209 --> 00:02:27,440 I think out of the whole world Iran would come 34 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:31,110 second after China in the terms of the pervasiveness of censorship 35 00:02:31,110 --> 00:02:34,569 and internet controls around the world. 36 00:02:34,569 --> 00:02:38,120 Something that you might not know is that it is also known as the "Kondnet" 37 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:41,450 and "kond" means "slow". 38 00:02:41,450 --> 00:02:44,970 The fact that the internet is often throttled in Iran, 39 00:02:44,970 --> 00:02:47,500 and the speeds are very slow, 40 00:02:47,500 --> 00:02:51,180 and the fact that it can be very frustrating sometimes to upload a page 41 00:02:51,180 --> 00:02:55,019 it also has the name of "Kondnet". 42 00:02:55,019 --> 00:03:01,250 So, this talk will sort of describe this, I'll talk on Mobile Censorship 43 00:03:01,250 --> 00:03:05,230 and how they will focus on that. I just wanna take a sort of broader view 44 00:03:05,230 --> 00:03:11,769 and to look at more general look at internet policy in Iran 45 00:03:11,769 --> 00:03:14,140 and just before I sort of delve into it... 46 00:03:14,140 --> 00:03:16,709 The reason why I really wanted to get this talk at 47 00:03:16,709 --> 00:03:21,909 a conference like the CCC is because I know this is a community 48 00:03:21,909 --> 00:03:26,030 full of lots of different expertise in terms of 49 00:03:26,030 --> 00:03:28,049 Digital Security, in terms of Circumvention. 50 00:03:28,049 --> 00:03:31,319 So, bringing awareness and sort of knowledge in focus on Iran 51 00:03:31,319 --> 00:03:34,810 I think is kind of exciting in a community like this 52 00:03:34,810 --> 00:03:39,530 'cause a lot of help and a lot of aid can go towards 53 00:03:39,530 --> 00:03:43,420 access to internet in Iran from a group of people like you. 54 00:03:43,420 --> 00:03:48,819 So: just a broad look at what the internet infrastructure's like in Iran is. 55 00:03:48,819 --> 00:03:53,340 The Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) 56 00:03:53,340 --> 00:03:55,939 runs the Telecommunications Company of Iran 57 00:03:55,939 --> 00:04:01,150 and this company is also responsible 58 00:04:01,150 --> 00:04:05,989 for the main ISP of Iran which is the Data Communication Company of Iran. 59 00:04:05,989 --> 00:04:11,390 So, in effect they control all internet traffic that goes into Iran 60 00:04:11,390 --> 00:04:16,269 and all ISP's both private and government are controlled through 61 00:04:16,269 --> 00:04:19,630 the Data Communication Company of Iran. 62 00:04:19,630 --> 00:04:24,670 So this company in effect becomes the point where filtering can occur 63 00:04:24,670 --> 00:04:29,590 and the blocking of pages or the blacklisting of keywords occurs. 64 00:04:29,590 --> 00:04:33,160 Oftentimes the Telecommunications Company uses proxy servers 65 00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:39,540 for surveillance by logging all unencrypted internet traffic that goes on 66 00:04:39,540 --> 00:04:43,600 in Iran which is why it's really important for pages that are being used 67 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:47,130 especially by Iranians if not everywhere else in the world 68 00:04:47,130 --> 00:04:51,440 to have https for all Mobile Applications to be using 69 00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:54,900 encryption technology and things like that. 70 00:04:54,900 --> 00:04:58,340 Now, all of these things are really concerning as it is 71 00:04:58,340 --> 00:05:04,530 the fact that the government has so much access to data over the internet. 72 00:05:04,530 --> 00:05:08,920 What's even more concerning is looking at this chart here. 73 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:14,570 So this is the overall view of the institutions responsible 74 00:05:14,570 --> 00:05:17,760 for internet policy in Iran. And you see at the very top 75 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:22,070 there is the Supreme Leader. Although Iran does have no active president, 76 00:05:22,070 --> 00:05:25,690 ultimately, the Supreme Leader has the Veto Power 77 00:05:25,690 --> 00:05:30,680 and is in effect really the official Head Of State. 78 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:35,700 And so while the ministry of ICT is part of the elected administration 79 00:05:35,700 --> 00:05:40,190 the Supreme Leader has ultimate power. And what is particularly 80 00:05:40,190 --> 00:05:44,770 concerning here is while we have the ministry of ICT here on the right 81 00:05:44,770 --> 00:05:48,350 and then you have the Telecommunications Company. And then you have 82 00:05:48,350 --> 00:05:53,410 the ISP provider in Iran. You then have the Revolutionary Guards 83 00:05:53,410 --> 00:05:57,270 which are a para-military organization in Iran 84 00:05:57,270 --> 00:06:00,850 who are not accountable to the elected government. 85 00:06:00,850 --> 00:06:04,400 They're ultimately only accountable to the Supreme Leader. 86 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:09,630 They own the largest share of the Telecommunications Company of Iran. 87 00:06:09,630 --> 00:06:14,000 This is particularly concerning because a group like the Revolutionary Guards 88 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:18,350 are the ones who are oftentimes responsible for 89 00:06:18,350 --> 00:06:23,520 various surveillance programs, for arrests of dissidents. 90 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:28,500 One of their offshoots, the Basij were the ones on the streets, 91 00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:31,810 arresting and beating up protesters during the 2009 Green Movement. 92 00:06:31,810 --> 00:06:35,910 So the fact that they have access to this kind of data it's very concerning 93 00:06:35,910 --> 00:06:43,730 in why things like digital security are of the upmost importance in Iran. 94 00:06:43,730 --> 00:06:47,720 Just a little brief overview of why 95 00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:51,390 this sort of history started in Iran. It's not always been like this. 96 00:06:51,390 --> 00:06:57,430 This started during the Reformer's era in Iran which were the late 90ies. 97 00:06:57,430 --> 00:07:02,680 This was a period where relative to the Iranian context 98 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:08,320 which is a Islamic theocracy there was more progressive politics 99 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:12,980 and the hardline elements which aren't often accountable to the electorate 100 00:07:12,980 --> 00:07:18,860 in Iran kind of clashed with the Reformer's Government that was in power 101 00:07:18,860 --> 00:07:22,430 and so the surge in Reformer's jounalists that were 102 00:07:22,430 --> 00:07:26,220 in traditional print media meant that they could start migrating online 103 00:07:26,220 --> 00:07:31,350 in the early 2000's, late 90ies, when blogging was becoming really popular 104 00:07:31,350 --> 00:07:36,620 and the technology to use Persian unicode was becoming more pervasive. 105 00:07:36,620 --> 00:07:39,680 During this time the government sort of realized that there's 106 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:43,370 this space that's not being controlled at all. 107 00:07:43,370 --> 00:07:47,460 And so filtering of pages started early on in 2001 108 00:07:47,460 --> 00:07:52,420 but there was no real systematic procedure for this filtering. 109 00:07:52,420 --> 00:07:57,070 So they came up with the Cybercrimes Law in 2006. 110 00:07:57,070 --> 00:08:01,530 But that sort of lay floating around until 2009 111 00:08:01,530 --> 00:08:05,360 when the internet became a really big deal because, 112 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:09,440 I'm sure some of you have heard of the Twitter Revolution 113 00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:12,919 which sort of came out after 2009 Green Movement. And it was at that point 114 00:08:12,919 --> 00:08:17,390 - when Iranians were coming out en masse onto the streets protesting 115 00:08:17,390 --> 00:08:21,300 what they claimed to be a fraudulent election - that the Iranian Government 116 00:08:21,300 --> 00:08:25,760 shut down the internet. And so after this period they codified 117 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:31,170 the Cybercrimes Law to sort of ensure a more systematic way of filtering 118 00:08:31,170 --> 00:08:35,780 various pages including Twitter and Facebook, that came out of it. 119 00:08:35,780 --> 00:08:38,960 And then following this you had the Revolutionary Guard's 120 00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:43,770 establishment of Gerdab which is a Cyber Command Center 121 00:08:43,770 --> 00:08:47,960 which is now responsible for the arrest of many different bloggers 122 00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:52,860 and activists in Iran. And then in 2011 123 00:08:52,860 --> 00:08:56,180 because there wasn't enough control over the internet 124 00:08:56,180 --> 00:09:01,320 they set up the FATA, a police force, from the police forces. 125 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:06,020 While they do sort of take care of things like cybercrime 126 00:09:06,020 --> 00:09:10,320 in terms of banking, in identity theft, they also are responsible 127 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:15,680 for the arrests of various bloggers. There was one popular case in 2012 128 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:21,690 of Sattar Beheshti, who had public dissident posts against the government. 129 00:09:21,690 --> 00:09:26,880 And then finally in 2012 the Supreme Leader who has 130 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:31,580 quite a grand name of its own decided to setup a very Sci-fi-esque body 131 00:09:31,580 --> 00:09:37,110 - at least in the English language - called the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. 132 00:09:37,110 --> 00:09:40,150 *audience amused* 133 00:09:40,150 --> 00:09:45,690 This body basically would be responsible for all of the Internet Policy 134 00:09:45,690 --> 00:09:49,920 in Iran. And this really marked a turning point in Iran where 135 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:56,710 cyberspace and internet became a key issue of National Security; 136 00:09:56,710 --> 00:09:59,770 not only were there concerns of cyber attacks from the United States 137 00:09:59,770 --> 00:10:04,470 and Israel, there was also big concerns of dissidents 138 00:10:04,470 --> 00:10:08,240 and various movements that could sort of emerge through Social Media 139 00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:13,400 and the blogs. And so all the decision making would occur through 140 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:17,380 the members that they decided to appoint to this council. And it's a mixed bag 141 00:10:17,380 --> 00:10:25,610 of different ministers as well as unelected officials and experts. 142 00:10:25,610 --> 00:10:30,080 Over the years they've had various different programs to try to control 143 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:34,610 the internet and most recently in last March they came up with 144 00:10:34,610 --> 00:10:39,680 another grand sounding program called Spider. 145 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:45,260 Spider was a project of the Revolutionary Guards where they sort of 146 00:10:45,260 --> 00:10:50,490 talked about doing blanket surveillance over all Social Media activities, 147 00:10:50,490 --> 00:10:53,380 activities of Iranians which technically 148 00:10:53,380 --> 00:10:59,540 - if any of you know anything about how Facebook or how Twitter works - 149 00:10:59,540 --> 00:11:06,100 it's quite hard. If posts are private it's hard to delve into them. 150 00:11:06,100 --> 00:11:13,070 Anyways, so what is key to understanding about the internet climate right now 151 00:11:13,070 --> 00:11:17,920 is that there is a moderate president Rohani who came into power 152 00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:21,680 on a platform of many different progressive policies 153 00:11:21,680 --> 00:11:25,140 one of which was Internet Freedom. 154 00:11:25,140 --> 00:11:29,120 And so they've had many different progressive moments. 155 00:11:29,120 --> 00:11:35,350 They shut down the hardline judiciary's attempts to block Whatsapp e.g. 156 00:11:35,350 --> 00:11:40,370 and they've promised not to really shut down any other platform 157 00:11:40,370 --> 00:11:44,790 or censor anything unless there is a legitimate replacement for them 158 00:11:44,790 --> 00:11:48,180 and this is a quote by the minister of ICT. 159 00:11:48,180 --> 00:11:51,960 But at the same time they've been trying to cater to 160 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:55,620 some of the hardline elements and try to sort of balance out 161 00:11:55,620 --> 00:11:59,720 their Internet Freedom policies with programs like intelligent filtering, 162 00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:04,490 which would mean not blocking entire platforms outright but 163 00:12:04,490 --> 00:12:08,970 blocking individual pages. 164 00:12:08,970 --> 00:12:14,800 This program... about 66 Mio. Dollars has been spent on this program 165 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:20,650 from the ICT budget. And overall it's been a bit of a failure. 166 00:12:20,650 --> 00:12:26,010 I worked on a piece of research with Frederic Jacobs that sort of 167 00:12:26,010 --> 00:12:30,650 underlined how the intelligent filtering on Instagram, which was 168 00:12:30,650 --> 00:12:35,320 the most tangible, resolved of this form of control. 169 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,060 was only occuring because Instagram had failed to release 170 00:12:39,060 --> 00:12:44,980 the https on the Mobile API. So they were able to enable 171 00:12:44,980 --> 00:12:50,060 intelligent filtering on the mobile application but not on the browser. 172 00:12:50,060 --> 00:12:53,360 Later on people found out that there was still disruptions and images 173 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:58,680 weren't loading to Instagram even after Instagram enabled https 174 00:12:58,680 --> 00:13:04,000 over the Mobile API. And it turned out that this was just collateral damage 175 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:08,020 from the fact that some of the images on Instagram were also hosted 176 00:13:08,020 --> 00:13:13,630 on Facebook which is outright blocked in Iran. 177 00:13:13,630 --> 00:13:17,540 So right now we're about to go up to a election in Iran. 178 00:13:17,540 --> 00:13:20,870 It's in February, it's the Parliamentary Elections. 179 00:13:20,870 --> 00:13:26,110 And typically during these sensitive moments in Iran 180 00:13:26,110 --> 00:13:29,840 they start playing around with the internet and 181 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:32,730 this happened in 2013. There was 182 00:13:32,730 --> 00:13:36,990 a significant throttling of the internet leading up to the elections. 183 00:13:36,990 --> 00:13:40,160 And right now there have been some things spotted although 184 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:44,910 it's speculation whether or not it's related to the elections at all. 185 00:13:44,910 --> 00:13:50,600 Some websites with foreign SSL certificates are being blocked. 186 00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:54,410 There was one example of a popular blogger based in Iran 187 00:13:54,410 --> 00:13:58,910 named Jadi who has a SSL certificate from Cloudflare 188 00:13:58,910 --> 00:14:04,720 and his website was blocked. And you'll notice that local certificates 189 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:08,120 won't be blocked because ultimately they're controlled by the government. 190 00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:13,440 This is a diagram formed by Smallmedia that sort of explains how 191 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:17,200 the certificate authorities are ultimately in the hands of the government 192 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:21,150 and data could potentially be shared. 193 00:14:21,150 --> 00:14:26,500 There is also throttling of TLS in November and the best example of this 194 00:14:26,500 --> 00:14:36,300 was over TOR direct connections which, you see, experienced a significant drop. 195 00:14:36,300 --> 00:14:41,730 The shift towards mobile applications and the fact that Iranians are 196 00:14:41,730 --> 00:14:45,490 increasingly accessing the web through their phones means that there's been 197 00:14:45,490 --> 00:14:50,040 sort of a increased focus by the government on mobile apps. 198 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:54,779 In order to sort of talk to this they've been coming up with local alternatives 199 00:14:54,779 --> 00:14:59,070 like WeChat has Dialog which sort of you can see from the interface 200 00:14:59,070 --> 00:15:07,290 that this local version is imitating that application. Instagram had Lenzor. 201 00:15:07,290 --> 00:15:11,300 But you kind of see that it's not working as effectively because 202 00:15:11,300 --> 00:15:15,250 if you look at the Cafe Bazaar Stats, which is a platform where Iranians 203 00:15:15,250 --> 00:15:20,430 download their apps, Lenzor only has about 50000 users 204 00:15:20,430 --> 00:15:24,400 while Instagram has more than 9 Mio. 205 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:28,720 Viber had another imitation out called Salam. 206 00:15:28,720 --> 00:15:34,470 Salam was speculated to be developed by the Basij. 207 00:15:34,470 --> 00:15:40,170 So popular apps right now have... there's Whatsapp and there's Viber 208 00:15:40,170 --> 00:15:44,410 and Telegram in terms of chats and communication. 209 00:15:44,410 --> 00:15:50,180 Telegram is the most popular right now and that's mainly because 210 00:15:50,180 --> 00:15:53,610 Viber has been heavily tampered with and 211 00:15:53,610 --> 00:15:58,110 a lot of people don't trust Viber anymore because the media has sort of 212 00:15:58,110 --> 00:16:02,839 disparaged it in connection with Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). 213 00:16:02,839 --> 00:16:07,970 And Whatsapp the second most popular app has been experiencing 214 00:16:07,970 --> 00:16:12,370 lots of network disruptions. And so with this increasing shift 215 00:16:12,370 --> 00:16:17,180 towards Telegram the media has been focusing on also 216 00:16:17,180 --> 00:16:21,910 highlighting that Telegram is a place of moral corruption. 217 00:16:21,910 --> 00:16:26,029 This is a picture from a semi-official news source, FARS News, 218 00:16:26,029 --> 00:16:32,330 sort of depicting how someone could be dramming in Telegram. 219 00:16:32,330 --> 00:16:37,250 So Telegram in Iran is really controversial not only because 220 00:16:37,250 --> 00:16:40,050 the government's really concerned about it but 221 00:16:40,050 --> 00:16:45,670 it had a really confusing and weird relationship with Iran. 222 00:16:45,670 --> 00:16:50,210 Starting in August, Bots and Stickers started getting censored in Iran. 223 00:16:50,210 --> 00:16:55,100 And the Bots and Stickers are one of the reasons why Telegram is really popular 224 00:16:55,100 --> 00:16:59,839 in Iran because the Bots allowed Iranians to access content on the internet 225 00:16:59,839 --> 00:17:04,270 without using a VPN and the Stickers are oftentimes fun 226 00:17:04,270 --> 00:17:09,920 and kind of rude and in Persian which not a lot of apps have. 227 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:14,079 And so it's really popular. But these got censored in August. 228 00:17:14,079 --> 00:17:16,140 And the ministry announced that the censorship was occuring 229 00:17:16,140 --> 00:17:21,920 because of cooperation with Telegram, but Telegram was very quick to deny this. 230 00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:27,929 Pavel Durov came up and said that they had not entered in to any agreements. 231 00:17:27,929 --> 00:17:32,490 On top of that there's a respected community of security experts have really 232 00:17:32,490 --> 00:17:37,270 critizised the cryptography and the security behind Telegram. 233 00:17:37,270 --> 00:17:40,270 And this is especially worrysome when you hear things like 234 00:17:40,270 --> 00:17:45,679 30% of Telegram data is now being stored in Iran which was a 235 00:17:45,679 --> 00:17:49,550 announcement by the ministry of ICT in Iran. But then again 236 00:17:49,550 --> 00:17:55,080 Telegram was very quick to deny this, again, saying that this is 100% bullshit. 237 00:17:55,080 --> 00:18:00,670 *laughter* And so the Telegram story continues. 238 00:18:00,670 --> 00:18:05,550 I think it was in late November, 239 00:18:05,550 --> 00:18:09,830 Pavel Durov made a announcement saying that the ministry of ICT 240 00:18:09,830 --> 00:18:15,820 had come to him demanding spying and censorship capabilities from Telegram 241 00:18:15,820 --> 00:18:18,850 which is really weird because beforehand they thought they were 242 00:18:18,850 --> 00:18:22,350 working together. And there's all sorts of conspiracy theories about 243 00:18:22,350 --> 00:18:26,750 how Pavel Durov got on a plane and went to Tehran to meet with the minister Vaezi. 244 00:18:26,750 --> 00:18:30,230 Noone really knows what happened, all speculations and rumours. 245 00:18:30,230 --> 00:18:35,230 Anyways, he comes out with this announcement and then a few weeks later 246 00:18:35,230 --> 00:18:40,120 it's like: "Oh, that was a fake email", which is really odd and concerning 247 00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:45,740 and no other internet company has ever had anything happen like this. 248 00:18:45,740 --> 00:18:49,960 He said that he received the fake email, the ministry didn't actually contact him. 249 00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:54,470 He never released the email. It's all very strange and it led to 250 00:18:54,470 --> 00:19:01,150 several advocacy organizations asking for more transparency from Telegram. 251 00:19:01,150 --> 00:19:06,580 But Telegram continues to be one of the most popular apps in Iran. 252 00:19:06,580 --> 00:19:09,710 What's notable about Telegram is that that sort of sets a precedent for other 253 00:19:09,710 --> 00:19:14,300 internet companies inside of Iran especially as we move towards the removal 254 00:19:14,300 --> 00:19:19,740 of sanctions. And companies like Facebook and Twitter will be able to do business 255 00:19:19,740 --> 00:19:24,850 with Iran potentially. And so noting these kinds of behaviours and sort of holding 256 00:19:24,850 --> 00:19:29,890 them to account is really important. 257 00:19:29,890 --> 00:19:33,540 One last application that sort of gaining ground in Iran and that 258 00:19:33,540 --> 00:19:38,040 highlights one of the sort of habits of Iranians is 259 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:47,030 Bisphone. Bisphone is this local app and Security Researcher Kevin Miston 260 00:19:47,030 --> 00:19:50,250 who I don't know if he's here [in the hall] or not, but he's somewhere here 261 00:19:50,250 --> 00:19:55,380 in the venue, has done some really cool work into looking what exactly Bisphone is 262 00:19:55,380 --> 00:20:01,980 'cause it's sort of this rising app that's gaining a lot of popularity. 263 00:20:01,980 --> 00:20:05,580 It apparently has connections, the developers are loosely connected to 264 00:20:05,580 --> 00:20:12,770 the government. It turns out that the actual data collection over the ISPs is 265 00:20:12,770 --> 00:20:18,450 connected to Iran's Telecommunications Company. Which is very concerning but 266 00:20:18,450 --> 00:20:25,920 Smallmedia recently did a report asking Iranians what they thought about the 267 00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:30,340 security of the apps that they use and the tendency is that they either don't know 268 00:20:30,340 --> 00:20:34,460 or it doesn't really factor in as a big issue. 269 00:20:34,460 --> 00:20:40,640 So security is a very low priority for Iranians even though 270 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:43,760 it should be higher on their list. They generally tend to go for 271 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:48,740 usability and fun features. This kind of brings me 272 00:20:48,740 --> 00:20:52,500 to the take aways of this talk which is: Internet control in Iran is 273 00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:58,660 quite pervasive, but it's not as sophisticated as they would like. 274 00:20:58,660 --> 00:21:00,900 It's especially important now 'cause there's been more arrests 275 00:21:00,900 --> 00:21:05,660 of various bloggers, various people who work in the Tech industry in Iran. 276 00:21:05,660 --> 00:21:08,910 This might be particularly problematic as we move towards 277 00:21:08,910 --> 00:21:13,730 the Parliamentary Elections. 278 00:21:13,730 --> 00:21:17,809 If you do particular research, if you do any collection of data 279 00:21:17,809 --> 00:21:23,260 and circumvention tools I think this is a very exciting time to be looking at Iran's 280 00:21:23,260 --> 00:21:27,109 internet ecosystem. Thank you! 281 00:21:27,109 --> 00:21:38,230 *applause* 282 00:21:38,230 --> 00:21:42,970 Herald: Thank you, we have 5 minutes now for question/answers. 283 00:21:42,970 --> 00:21:51,380 So if you have questions for Mahsa please go to one of the 4 microphones. 284 00:21:51,380 --> 00:21:55,320 And I would like to ask you to please say your question slowly 285 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,090 into the microphone because it's being recorded. 286 00:21:58,090 --> 00:22:00,390 *audience mumbles amused* 287 00:22:00,390 --> 00:22:08,610 Question: Shall I start? H: Ok we'll start with, yes, that microphone. 288 00:22:08,610 --> 00:22:15,929 Q: So one thing first as a statement not a question. If you are in Iran, do not 289 00:22:15,929 --> 00:22:20,540 ever use your banking, whatever banking... Mahsa: *whispering* Who's talking? 290 00:22:20,540 --> 00:22:24,480 Q: ...without VPN. And then... because they're gonna block it. You're gonna 291 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:29,820 have to go back to your bank and reopen it. But the question is: Do you know... 292 00:22:29,820 --> 00:22:33,590 how much do you know about the relationships with other governments like 293 00:22:33,590 --> 00:22:38,460 foreign governments or foreign companies on the filters, there were... and like 294 00:22:38,460 --> 00:22:41,790 further developments. Because I know from Rohde&Schwarz like a year ago, 295 00:22:41,790 --> 00:22:48,440 when I was there, they were talking about the relationship with the filters in 296 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:54,840 I-don't-know Syria, maybe. And that they're not officially related but they were used? 297 00:22:54,840 --> 00:23:02,480 Mahsa: Yeah, I'm not a particular expert on Syria but I do know that they have 298 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,390 exchanged technology and knowledge with the Syrian Government 'cause they are 299 00:23:06,390 --> 00:23:10,210 very close with the Assad Regime. 300 00:23:10,210 --> 00:23:16,110 Q: I meant more specifically like companies in Europe and in the US. 301 00:23:16,110 --> 00:23:19,929 M: Yeah, so because of sanctions I know the US don't really... 302 00:23:19,929 --> 00:23:26,160 I do know Europe... is... does work, but I know 303 00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:31,600 the country that they turn to most for censorship technology would be China. 304 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,040 And I know that in the past that they heavily relied on Chinese technology 305 00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:40,460 for censorship and surveillance material but recently they've been shifting towards 306 00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:45,679 local vendors and using more locally grown technology. 307 00:23:45,679 --> 00:23:50,179 Although it's hard to say. I don't have direct insight into what technology 308 00:23:50,179 --> 00:23:56,410 and where it's coming from. Maybe you have more insight and can tell me. 309 00:23:56,410 --> 00:24:00,980 H: Thank you, next question, please. 310 00:24:00,980 --> 00:24:05,700 Q: Thank you to bring us the awareness that we have to fight for our freedom 311 00:24:05,700 --> 00:24:08,540 in internet or also to fight leaders which try to... 312 00:24:08,540 --> 00:24:14,400 H: Could you get a little closer to the microphone, please! 313 00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:19,130 Q: My question was: When you go back to Iran, do you have any repression or 314 00:24:19,130 --> 00:24:20,900 problems? M: Do I personally? 315 00:24:20,900 --> 00:24:27,770 Q: Yes. personally. M: I haven't gone back to Iran since 2010 316 00:24:27,770 --> 00:24:31,070 because I do things like come and talk here on a recorded video 317 00:24:31,070 --> 00:24:37,430 *audience amused* I generally don... 318 00:24:37,430 --> 00:24:45,140 *applause* 319 00:24:45,140 --> 00:24:50,000 Q: It was my question exactly, and you should be aware that it's no democratic 320 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,809 there so if they catch you they do whatever they want with you. 321 00:24:52,809 --> 00:24:57,679 It's not, like, we control the police... M: Yeah, I mean that's also another point 322 00:24:57,679 --> 00:25:02,820 I wanna make: There's a lot of awesome unknown people doing work 323 00:25:02,820 --> 00:25:08,120 and doing research and activism on the Iranian internet that remain anonymous 324 00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:13,260 and use pseudonyms and can't do things like come here and talk, so 325 00:25:13,260 --> 00:25:16,780 that's a decision I've made. There's other people doing really amazing work that you 326 00:25:16,780 --> 00:25:21,750 probably will never see on a platform like this. 327 00:25:21,750 --> 00:25:28,669 *applause* 328 00:25:28,669 --> 00:25:33,529 H: Okay, may I ask on the next question, please. Thank you. 329 00:25:33,529 --> 00:25:37,540 Q: Yeah, thanks for the great talk! I have a question about the certificate authorities 330 00:25:37,540 --> 00:25:43,049 there in the Iranian State. You said that foreign certificate authorities are 331 00:25:43,049 --> 00:25:48,720 blocked by the governmental filters. With your demonstration of one site... 332 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:55,720 of this blogger. Are there any certificate authorities in Iran not connected to 333 00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:00,760 the government, or not... are forced to giving the private key to the government, 334 00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:06,330 so that maybe foreign sites could just adjust their certificate to an Iranian 335 00:26:06,330 --> 00:26:12,570 free or libre CA and so could do an access for the people there? 336 00:26:12,570 --> 00:26:17,110 M: That's a really good question. I don't think I have the knowledge or expertise 337 00:26:17,110 --> 00:26:22,950 to fully answer it. But I will point you towards the Smallmedia report that 338 00:26:22,950 --> 00:26:27,600 really delved into this. They did like months of research. I think the person 339 00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:31,490 you would probably wanna talk to would be Amin Sabeti. I could only 340 00:26:31,490 --> 00:26:38,040 sort of guess and I'm not sure if it's broadly done on every website, 341 00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:42,080 'cause there's obviously a lot of websites using foreign SSL certificates that 342 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:47,020 are not blocked, but if it's sensitive it's more likely to get blocked in Iran. 343 00:26:47,020 --> 00:26:52,090 Q: Thank you very much. H: Thank you, are there any questions 344 00:26:52,090 --> 00:26:56,530 from the internet? *looking out for Signal Angel* 345 00:26:56,530 --> 00:27:01,290 Yes? Aah, ok. The internet, please! Signal Angel: So, question. 346 00:27:01,290 --> 00:27:04,760 Since there seems to be a lot of trouble politically-wise, 347 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:09,520 is there a hacker scene in Iran? Like there is in Europe or in the USA? 348 00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:15,710 M: Yeah, yeah there is a hacker scene and there's a, like an emerging 349 00:27:15,710 --> 00:27:20,610 open source community doing a lot of cool work. Yeah, totally the scene exists. 350 00:27:20,610 --> 00:27:24,789 I'm sure a lot of them would have loved to have been here. 351 00:27:24,789 --> 00:27:30,630 H: And the internet, again! S: A lot of people in Iran, I know, 352 00:27:30,630 --> 00:27:34,660 use VPNs. Have you heard of VPN providers cooperating with the government? 353 00:27:34,660 --> 00:27:42,429 M: Yeah, that's another big security concern that I didn't cover in this talk, 354 00:27:42,429 --> 00:27:47,250 w hich is like using VPNs is ubiquitous, basically, in Iran. Even 355 00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:51,600 members of the government use it. I think there was even a photo of... 356 00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,730 someone in one of the ministries, they had Psiphon on their desktop and 357 00:27:55,730 --> 00:27:59,530 it was pictured on a famous photo that went viral. But one of the concerns is 358 00:27:59,530 --> 00:28:04,090 like, the government is actually providing their own VPN so they can access data 359 00:28:04,090 --> 00:28:08,850 and what people are connecting to through their own backdoored VPNs. 360 00:28:08,850 --> 00:28:16,799 H: We have one more question, and that's here in the back, please. You, yeah. 361 00:28:16,799 --> 00:28:22,020 Q: Hi, so I have... I was wondering if you have concrete cases 362 00:28:22,020 --> 00:28:27,559 about government monitoring data or 363 00:28:27,559 --> 00:28:32,960 using that as evidence in court cases. 364 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,770 Because we have always been speculating that these guys 365 00:28:37,770 --> 00:28:43,350 will go through the messages that we send and then they're gonna use it against us. 366 00:28:43,350 --> 00:28:46,960 But we have never been able to prove it. Do you have 367 00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,809 any kind of cases study on that? M: There is the one really famous one that 368 00:28:50,809 --> 00:28:56,259 I'm sure you've heard of, the Sony-Ericsson case 369 00:28:56,259 --> 00:29:00,809 - I think I'm getting the company right - back in 2009 where they tracked 370 00:29:00,809 --> 00:29:05,280 through the cell phone company. So that's the most concrete case. 371 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,419 But I suppose there aren't that many known, 372 00:29:09,419 --> 00:29:15,990 and that's one of the problems with installing sort of a culture of digital 373 00:29:15,990 --> 00:29:20,000 security in Iran. Because most people are afraid of physical surveillance, 374 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,210 this thing that if they're arrested and they take their computers physically 375 00:29:24,210 --> 00:29:30,419 - that's the actual concern, not so much using encrypted email or encrypted chat. 376 00:29:30,419 --> 00:29:35,500 So that might be part of it. I'm sure there are. I couldn't 377 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:39,340 name them to you right now but the most famous would be from 2009 when they were 378 00:29:39,340 --> 00:29:45,110 working with Ericsson. Q: Thank you. 379 00:29:45,110 --> 00:29:54,200 H: Ok, thank you! *applause* 380 00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,280 H: And with that one more warm applause for Mahsa. Thank you so much for 381 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,390 coming today, Mahsa, thank you! 382 00:30:01,390 --> 00:30:05,900 *postroll music* 383 00:30:05,900 --> 00:30:08,350 created by c3subtitles.de in 2016