Re: Meet the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s Internet
Razer
Rayzer at riseup.net
Mon Nov 2 11:23:03 PST 2015
On 11/02/2015 09:26 AM, Cari Machet wrote:
> its not fucking 'unusual'
>
> it is hilarious though - the depth of reporting #pathetic
"Link-based reporting". It's prolly safer that way,
RR
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Razer <Rayzer at riseup.net
> <mailto:Rayzer at riseup.net>> wrote:
>
> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html
>
> * <https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Farticles%2F2015%2F11%2F01%2Fmeet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html%3Fvia%3Ddesktop%26social%3Dgoogleplus>
>
>
> Disconnect
>
> 11.01.1512:01 AM ET
>
>
> Meet the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s Internet
>
> A company that works for American spies and generals has quietly
> started providing Internet service to the Islamic Republic. What’s
> going on here?
>
> Nestled in a suburban Washington, D.C.
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/01/what-jane-jacobs-got-wrong-about-cities.html>,
> office park, across the street from a shopping mall, a technology
> company that counts the U.S. Defense Department
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/27/the-u-s-war-casualties-the-pentagon-doesn-t-want-you-to-see.html>
> as its biggest customer is charting out a new frontier: providing
> Internet service to Iran.
>
> But GTT Communications Inc.—headquartered in McLean, Virginia,
> just a 15-minute drive from the headquarters of the CIA and hired
> by various unnamed U.S. intelligence agencies and satellite
> operators—hasn’t exactly been touting its new venture.
>
> The company has issued no press release about its deal with an
> undersea cable network that sells Internet services to Iran and
> other Persian Gulf. (One of the cables comes ashore at the city of
> Bushehr, home to a nuclear plant that’s been the subject of
> intense debate about its role in Iran’s nuclear program.)
>
> Instead, the partnership was announced
> <http://twitter.com/GBI_Network/status/598225813419360256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
> in a single tweet last May; both parties have been largely silent
> about the deal since then. When contacted by The Daily Beast for
> details about the deal with the Doha-based submarine cable
> operator, Gulf Bridge International, a GTT spokesperson said the
> agreement wouldn’t be finalized for a few more weeks.
>
> And yet technical data shows that GTT was providing Internet
> service to Iran for months.
>
> The Islamic Republic has been off limits to most U.S. companies
> for years. A complex sanctions
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/14/nuke-deal-helps-qasem-soleimani-the-top-iranian-general-with-american-blood-on-his-hands.html>
> regime
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/14/nuke-deal-helps-qasem-soleimani-the-top-iranian-general-with-american-blood-on-his-hands.html>,
> meant in part to isolate the regime in Tehran and obstruct its
> efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon, bars the sale of good and
> services by many American companies, including through intermediaries.
>
> But last year, the Treasury Department, which administers the
> sanctions program, issued new rules (PDF
> <http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran_gld1.pdf>)
> authorizing the sale of “consumer-grade Intemet connectivity
> services.” That created an opening for GTT, as well as any other
> American companies that want to cash in on the Iranian market for
> Internet service, which is booming thanks in large part to a surge
> of new mobile phone users in the country.
>
> The company began providing bandwidth to Iran’s state-owned
> telecom company, TIC, via one of Gulf Bridge’s submarines cables
> on June 10, Doug Madory, the director of analysis at Dyn, a
> research company that monitors Internet connectivity, told The
> Daily Beast. Notably, that was nearly a month before the U.S.,
> Iran, and other world powers announced an agreement
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/02/it-ll-be-a-miracle-if-this-iran-nuke-deal-really-gets-done.html>
> to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting
> some sanctions.
>
> Only Iranian officials would know the exact percentage of Iran’s
> Internet traffic that was flowing to and from GTT, said Madory,
> who first noted
> <http://research.dyn.com/2015/09/iran-latest-nation-to-host-critical-global-internet-infrastruture/#%21prettyPhoto>
> the company’s presence in Iran last month. But, he said, the
> Iranian Internet is effectively composed of about 5,000 network
> routes, and at its peak in August, “GTT was handling anywhere from
> some to all of the international traffic” to more than 1,800 of
> those routes, or about 16.6 percent of the total.
>
> So GTT was not some small-time provider.
>
> Asked for more details about its work in Iran, the GTT
> spokesperson, Ann Rote, said that she would be able to provide
> specifics after the partnership was finalized.
>
> But, Rote said, the company’s work violated no sanctions, and was
> in line with “U.S. policy to facilitate the flow of information to
> and from Iran.”
>
> When contacted by The Daily Beast for details about the Iran
> deal, a GTT spokesperson said the agreement wouldn’t be
> finalized for a few more weeks. And yet technical data shows
> that GTT was providing Internet service to Iran for months.
>
> “GTT does not conduct any business in Iran or with the Government
> of Iran,” Rote said. “Any Internet traffic coming from Iran and
> transiting GTT’s global IP [Internet protocol] network is coming
> indirectly from customers of wholesale or carrier partners in the
> Middle East region.”
>
> Technically, she’s right. GTT’s customer is Gulf Bridge
> International, the undersea cable provider. But the technical data
> strongly suggest that GTT knew—or should have known—that it was
> providing service to the state telecom of Iran. And that’s a
> crucial question, because while U.S. companies are allowed to sell
> Internet service to Iran, they may not do so if they have
> “knowledge or reason to know that such services … are intended for
> the Government of Iran,” according to Treasury Department rules.
> State-owned companies are also covered by that prohibition, two
> lawyers who are expert in the sanctions rules told The Daily Beast.
>
> In October, GTT was “transiting” 521 Iranian routes, Madory said,
> meaning that at some level GTT was responsible for “propagating
> these routes to the greater Internet.” Effectively, GTT was
> advertising that route for traffic destined to particular Internet
> addresses in Iran
>
> But on October 5, the service abruptly stopped, apparently after
> one of Gulf Bridge International’s cables was cut. The service has
> not been restored, Madory said. Up until that point, it had been
> going strong for nearly four months.
>
> GTT’s service to Iran raises questions about why an American
> Internet company with close ties to the U.S. government and
> intelligence community would be selling off bandwidth to a country
> that is still a major strategic adversary of the United States.
>
> Despite the nuclear deal, Iran is providing the bulk of ground
> forces to crush Syrian rebels opposed to Bashar al-Assad, and is
> part of an emerging power axis with Russia, which has launched
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/29/u-s-to-putin-welcome-to-the-isis-quagmire.html>
> airstrikes to keep the Syrian dictator in power and to keep
> Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East.
>
> But Iran is expanding economically—and digitally—as well. And that
> presents an opportunity for American technology companies.
>
> Since August 2014, when the Iran’s national telecom regulator
> began awarding licenses for 3G and 4G mobile phone service,
> subscriptions have surged, to about 20.5 million people last
> month, Amy Cameron, a senior analyst with BMI Research, told The
> Daily Beast. That’s about 27 percent of the country’s population,
> the majority of which is under 30 and, presumably, eager to
> embrace new technologies and the access to information that comes
> with them.
>
> The surge in mobile phone service is a big business, and Iran
> needs more Internet addresses and access for all those new
> devices, Cameron said. In addition to acquiring new service
> routes—like the ones GTT provides—the government has also been
> buying up Internet addresses that use the so-called “version 4”
> <http://research.dyn.com/2015/04/ipv4-address-market-takes-off>
> protocol, a vital, and increasingly scarce, component of the
> world’s Internet infrastructure. And Iran plans to auction more
> wireless broadband spectrum, which should in turn attract more
> investment in mobile networks.
>
> “All of these developments point towards Iran making concerted
> efforts to open its Internet market,” Cameron said. Of course,
> there are limits to that openness: Iran’s primary telecom company
> is owned by the military, and the Tehran government monitors
> communications for prohibited content.
>
> All of which makes its affiliation with a telecom company in
> suburban Washington even more unusual.
>
> --30--
>
>
>
>
> --
> Cari Machet
> NYC 646-436-7795
> carimachet at gmail.com <mailto:carimachet at gmail.com>
> AIM carismachet
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> Twitter: @carimachet <https://twitter.com/carimachet>
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