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65-647: The company also developed filtering systems used by governments such as Iran and Saudi Arabia that blocks their citizens from accessing information on the Internet. In 1984, a research group called the Secure Computing Technology Center ( SCTC ) was formed at Honeywell in Minneapolis, Minnesota . The centerpiece of SCTC was its work on security-evaluated operating systems for the NSA. This work included

130-609: A cyberspace services system bill commission member claimed the government had decided to lower internet access, make it unaffordable, and reduce speed. In February 2024, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Supreme Council of CyberSpace to ban Internet censorship circumvention technology such as virtual private networks (VPNs). In late May 2024, Cloudflare showed that regime had begun blocking IPv6 . The government's censorship techniques has led to internet in Iran being among

195-689: A major inducement for the merger. Although the plan was to completely merge the Borderware product with Sidewinder, and to offer a single product to existing users of both products, this never quite succeeded. In 1998, the Borderware business unit was sold to a new company, Borderware Technologies Inc., formed by one of the original Borderware founders. By this time, the mergers had yielded a highly distributed company with offices in Minnesota , Florida , California , and two or three in Ontario . This proved unwieldy, and

260-487: A massive share of 70% Iranian traffic cut off from the Internet. The median internet speed became worse as of May 2023 according to Speed test, as the government began limited fiber optically connected internet rollout. The Iranian cyber police began purging social media and websites, while the Minister of Science Research, Technology and ICT discussed cutting the internet for university entry exam tests. According to

325-646: A patent was issued in the United Kingdom in 1986. Ultimately, the "challenge" portion of the challenge–response was eliminated to produce a one-time password token similar to the SecurID product. Enigma Logic merged with Secure Computing Corporation in 1996. Secure Computing acquired the SmartFilter product line by purchasing Webster Network Strategies, the producer of the WebTrack product, in 1996. The acquisition included

390-535: A similar set of features to the Secure Web appliance, without requiring any on-premises equipment or software. The company's flagship email security product line was the Secure Mail appliance (formerly known as IronMail). It provided TrustedSource reputation-enabled anti-spam, data-leakage protection (DLP), encryption and anti-malware capabilities. The company's flagship firewall product, formerly known as Sidewinder,

455-554: A variety of data mining/analysis techniques, such as Support Vector Machine , Random forest , and Term-Frequency Inverse-Document Frequency ( TFIDF ) classifiers. The company's flagship web security product line was the Secure Web appliance (formerly known as Webwasher). It provided Anti-Malware protection, TrustedSource reputation-enabled URL filtering controls, content caching, and SSL scanning capabilities. In June 2008, Secure Computing launched Secure Web Protection Service , an in-the-cloud hosted web security service that provided

520-667: A verdict that will hit Iran’s cyber governance the most. Also, financial fines are probable for the infrastructure communication company." Said Sharareh Abdolhoseinzadeh, a PhD in Political Sociology. In January, the Ministry of ICT opened the radar.game software and a DNS for games. The Minister of ICT created 403.online, a DNS and VPN for Iranians bypassing the HTTP 403 code. TLD generic names ending with .online are blocked. On 19 February, Iranians began blocking Cloudflare with

585-577: A way similar to the Great Firewall of China , but with more strict monitoring. After YouTube was blocked in Iran , Aparat , an Iranian online video-sharing platform, was founded. In 2020, due to the activity of an Aparat user, the CEO of Aparat was sentenced to 10 years in prison because of an interview with children about sex and pornography by Gelofen TV. The business of selling virtual private networks ( VPNs ), SOCKS , and proxy servers in Iran

650-466: Is abandoned and irrelevant. The Minister of ICT denied reduced internet speed, claiming that Iran has three times its need. On June 27, the Supreme Council of Cyberspace began a workgroup in association with Ministry of ICT for slow internet to report by one month. The Supreme leader asked judicial system power to begin a program combat "those who are annoying in cyber and real life". In August,

715-523: Is configured to allow local Persian -language sites, and block prominent English-language sites, such as the BBC and Facebook . By 2008, Iran had blocked access to more than five million websites , whose content was deemed as immoral and anti-social. Bess (content-control software) Secure Web SmartFilter EDU , formerly known as Bess , is a brand of content-control software made by Secure Computing Corporation , which acquired maker N2H2 in 2003; it

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780-530: Is estimated that between 64% and 69% of Iranians are internet users. During the 2017–18 Iranian protests , the Iranian government blocked internet access from mobile networks and various websites, including Instagram and Telegram , in an effort to stymie protests. At some points, the government completely blocked internet access in Kurdish parts of the country. A January 2018 report by four special rapporteurs of

845-472: Is usually used in libraries and schools. The main purpose of the system is as an Internet filter, blocking minors using the public computers from accessing web content deemed inappropriate by the local administrators of the system based on the Acceptable Use Policy of the organization. The system is not installed locally (on each individual computer workstation ), but installs on the server between

910-636: Is without its consent— U.S. sanctions prohibit American companies from any dealings with Iran—and in 2005 the company said it is actively working to stop its illegal use. In response to the company, Jonathan Zittrain , co-director of Harvard Law School 's Berkman Center for Internet and Society , stated, "[T]he fact remains that the software has been in use for an extended period of time there. And we've seen Secure Computing software turn up in more than just Iran. We've seen it in Saudi Arabia as well." In 2001 The New York Times reported that Secure Computing

975-407: Is worth millions of dollars due to their large demand. The twelfth Minister of Information and Communications Technology in Iran announced that the lucrative business of selling VPNs and proxies has generated substantial profits for its manufacturers and retailers, and there are efforts to stop these businesses. In 2006 and 2010, the activist group Reporters Without Borders labeled Iran one of

1040-455: The CipherTrust acquisition, was a key technology for the company, enabling all product lines with global intelligence capability based on behavioral analysis of traffic patterns from all of company's email, web and firewall devices and hosted services, as well as those of numerous OEM partners. TrustedSource derived real-time reputation scores of IPs, URLs, domains, and mail/web content based on

1105-480: The March 2012 elections and the launch of a national internet, the Iranian government instituted strict rules for cybercafés. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Iran's Supreme Leader, instructed the Iranian authorities to set up the Supreme Council of Cyberspace , a body to oversee the internet. It consists of the president of Iran, the Minister of Intelligence, and IRGC chiefs. It defines policy and coordinates decisions regarding

1170-525: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about the blocking, stating, "Communication blackouts constitute a serious violation of fundamental rights ". During the nationwide 2019 fuel protests in Iran, the Iranian authorities deliberately shut down the internet, hiding the true scale of unlawful killings by security forces. As protests intensified,

1235-701: The Secure Ada Target (SAT) and the Logical Coprocessing Kernel (LOCK), both designed to meet the stringent A1 level of the Trusted Computer Systems Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC). Over the next several years, Secure Computing morphed from a small defense contractor into a commercial product vendor, largely because the investment community was much less interested in purchasing security goods from defense contractors than from commercial product vendors, especially vendors in

1300-486: The open source community was spotty due to the company's ownership of patents related to Type enforcement. The Sidewinder never really tried to achieve an A1 TCSEC rating, but it did earn an EAL-4+ Common Criteria rating. Along with Sidewinder, Gauntlet had been one of the earliest application layer firewalls; both had developed a large customer base in the United States Department of Defense . Gauntlet

1365-694: The 13 countries designated "Enemies of the Internet." Reporters Without Borders sent a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay , to share its deep concern and ask for her intervention in the case of two netizens and free speech defenders, Vahid Asghari and Hossein Derakhshan . Following the 2009 election protests , Iran ratified the Computer Crimes Law (CCL) in 2010. The CCL established legal regulations for internet censorship. Notable provisions of

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1430-510: The CCL include the following: Article 10, which effectively prohibits internet users and companies from using encryption or protecting data in a manner that would "deny access of authorized individuals to data, computer, and telecommunication systems"; Article 14, which criminalizes "producing, sending, publishing, distributing, saving or financially engaging in obscene content"; Article 21, which requires ISPs to maintain records of internet traffic data and

1495-483: The Iranian authorities implemented a near-total internet blackout by ordering different internet service providers (ISPs) to shut down. IODA observed steady drops in signals, which started when cellular operators were ordered to disconnect around 2pm local time on 16 November. By 7pm, Iran had descended into digital darkness. Iran’s domestic internet remained online, allowing activities such as government services and banking to continue, which minimized financial losses in

1560-415: The Iranian government would allocate internet access levels to individuals, based on their social class. This would grant varying degrees of access to selected internet domains. In July 2023, The Minister of ICT claimed they sued Starlink that them with help from ITU Article 18 Radio Regulation board and WRC article 23 compelled Starlink to cut access in Iran. The seventh development program ordered

1625-606: The Iranian people from the outside world. Such a network, similar to one used by North Korea , would prevent unwanted information from outside of Iran from entering the closed system. In 2012, Iran's ministry of information and communication technology began testing a countrywide "national internet" network as a substitute for services run through the World Wide Web. It also began working on software robots to analyze emails and chats and find more "effective ways of controlling user's online activities". One Iranian IT expert defended

1690-517: The Islamic Council's supervisory committee, part of a working group tasked with identifying instances of criminal online content, responded by nothing fluctuations in website accessibility, mentioning that some sites were intermittently blocked or unfiltered based on the government's preferences. The Minister of Communications indicated a willingness to address these issues by considering selective removal of filters in certain contexts. Additionally, it

1755-470: The Ministry of Communications of the Ebrahim Raisi government has made contradictory statements on this matter. This time, the international community has decided to fight back, with many countries severing economic and diplomatic relations with Iran after these censorships. "The country’s cyber governance has been compromised by such an action  It is possible that the international court will issue

1820-540: The Parliament research group head, VPN sales were highly profitable, estimated to be whopping 50,000 billion Toman (about US$ 1.01 billion) annually which is then taxed by Iranian government. It was noted by the newspaper Ham-Mihan that while prices stayed the same, data bandwidth was now more expensive. A seventh five-year plan increased internet tariffs, making the national information network far cheaper. The Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism had claimed that

1885-514: The Saudi government's censorship "most extensively covers religious and social content, though sites relating to opposition groups and regional political and human rights issues are also targeted." The governments of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan, and Tunisia also actively use SmartFilter. The Tunisian government goes so far as to redirect blocked pages to a fake Error 404 page, to hide

1950-800: The Webwasher development office in Paderborn, Germany , and a SnapGear development office in Brisbane, Australia . In 2006, the company merged with Atlanta-based CipherTrust , a developer of email security solutions. The merger was announced in July 2006 and completed in August 2006. On July 30, 2008, Secure Computing announced its intention to sell the SafeWord authentication product line to Aladdin Knowledge Systems , leaving

2015-629: The administration of conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . In 2005–2018, Ayatollah Khamenei sent letters to the presidents of Iran , the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, and the IRGC, ordering them to form a national intranet called the National Information Network . The National Information Network was unveiled during the 2019 Iranian protests . The NIN works in

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2080-577: The company scaled back to offices in Minnesota and California. In 2002, the company took over the Gauntlet Firewall product from Network Associates . In 2003, Secure Computing acquired N2H2 , the makers of the Bess web filtering package. There has been some consolidation of Bess and SmartFilter, and Bess is now referred to as "Smartfilter, Bess edition" in company literature. An acquisition of CyberGuard

2145-422: The company with a business focused on web/mail security and firewalls. The sale was concluded later that year. On September 22, 2008, McAfee announced its intention to acquire Secure Computing. The acquisition was completed not long afterwards, and the combined company formed the world's largest dedicated security company at the time. TrustedSource , a reputation system that Secure Computing obtained as part of

2210-437: The country’s economy. It was only around five days later, at approximately 10am on 21 November, that internet access began to be restored. It did not completely return until 27 November. "The authorities deliberately blocked internet access inside Iran, hiding the true extent of the horrendous human rights violations that they were carrying out across the country" said Iranian expert Diana Eltahawy. During Mahsa Amini protests,

2275-528: The domain name webster.com, which was eventually sold to the publishers of Webster's Dictionary . Shortly after acquiring the Webster/SmartFilter product, Secure Computing merged with Border Network Technologies, a Canadian company selling the Borderware firewall. Border Network Technologies boasted an excellent product and a highly developed set of sales channels; some said that the sales channels were

2340-541: The fact that blocking software is being used. The Tunisian Government is generally recognized as having a poor record when it comes to the right of free expression . Internet censorship in Iran Iran is known for having one of the world's most restrictive internet censorship systems. The Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have blocked access to 70 percent of

2405-472: The forename, surname, name of the father, national identification number, postcode, and telephone number of each customer. Besides the personal information, they must maintain other information of the customer such as the date and the time of using the internet and the IP address, and the addresses of the websites visited. They should keep these informations for each individual for at least six months. In preparation for

2470-530: The government implemented a near-total Internet shutdown, reducing traffic to just 5% of normal levels. A 2022 poll ranked Iran as the country with the second highest level of Internet censorship after it repeatedly disrupted Internet access and blocked social media platforms to curb protests following the death of Mahsa Amini . The government is now targeting Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in an effort to completely block citizens' access to foreign media and online content. In November 2024 Iranian regime

2535-410: The government shutdown and slowed internet. US government issued license D-2 sanctions relief for American internet companies to help Iranians. Earlier this year, the cyberspace protection act was run. Restrictions were put in place for LTE networks such as Irancell , Hamrahe-Aval And Rightel completely blocking access to all website excluding those hosted in Iran. On December 4, a news article

2600-621: The government to incorporate a new department into Minister of ICT, called the Dept. Security, integration, innovation. The Iranian government began training 500,000 personnel for cyberspace and video content. They claim that the operation of their program will have a positive economic impact. Iran's SmartFilter blocks access to most pornography , gay and lesbian sites, political sites, news media, and software privacy tools. Iran has been accused of censoring more internet traffic than any other nation besides China . As of 2006, Iran's SmartFilter

2665-402: The growing Internet space. Secure Computing became a publicly traded company in 1995. Following the pattern of other Internet-related startups , the stock price tripled its first day: it opened at $ 16 a share and closed at $ 48. The price peaked around $ 64 in the next several weeks and then collapsed over the following year or so. It ranged between roughly $ 3 and $ 20 afterward until the company

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2730-524: The internet closed access. The Iranian state spokesman compared the internet to arms control , while the Minister of Science Research and Technology promoted the mass censorship program as an "open internet for academics". The Minister of ICT also promised journalists that they would be granted internet access. On 11 June 2023, the Minister of Tourism and Cultural Heritage demanded that foreign tourists should be allowed unfiltered internet access whilst visiting Iran, via 'tourist' SIM cards . This plan

2795-474: The internet would be restored once the upheaval is gone. However, according to the newspaper Resalat , as of June 2023, a branch of Islamic Republic military are pro-denial of free internet access and are actively working towards it, even obstructing others efforts to achieve it. In June 2023, a member of parliament claimed that the Cyberspace protection bill is now in full effect, while according to another, it

2860-400: The internet, many popular websites and online services, including YouTube , Twitter , Facebook , Instagram and Telegram . Internet traffic in the country is heavily restricted and monitored. Internet Filtering Committee (Iran) headed by Prosecutor-General of Iran decides which websites must be censored and implements this vast censorship. In response to the 2019 Iranian protests ,

2925-628: The internet. It is thought to be the strongest attempt at internet censorship by any country to date. It requires all Iranians to register their websites with the Ministry of Art and Culture. Also in March 2012, Iran began implementing a national intranet . This effort was partially in response to Western actions such as the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's main uranium enrichment facility, which fueled suspicions against foreign technologies. The government and Islamic Revolutionary Guard's response has been to mandate

2990-410: The national network. Iranian media reported that the new system would be ready by March 2013. Gmail and Google were later unblocked. The Iranian alternative to Google was Parsijoo , which is disabled now. The network already hosted some government and academic sites. The isolation of the separate network was also touted as an improvement to network security in the wake of Stuxnet . A computer virus

3055-526: The opinion of the Minister of Communications was that action would be taken to remove the filter in some places. In addition, many sites that are normally filtered are available for classes, university professors, businessmen and all those who need it professionally. In December 2022, the government unveiled plans to implement a program initially targeting students at the Sharif University of Technology, known as Goshayesh ("Opening"). Under this initiative,

3120-417: The personal information of their Internet users; and Article 48, which requires Internet Service Providers to record data from telephone conversations over the internet. In April 2011, Ali Agha-Mohammadi , a senior official, announced the government had plans to launch a halal internet that would conform to Islamic values and provide government-approved services. This would effectively completely disconnect

3185-435: The program as aimed not "primarily" at curbing the global internet but at securing Iran's military, banking, and sensitive data from outside cyber-attacks such as Stuxnet . In addition, by late January 2012, internet café owners were required to record the identities of their customers before providing services. According to the news website Tabnak, an Iranian policy statement states: Internet cafes are required to write down

3250-447: The restrictions to the ban on fax machines, video recorders, and videotapes after the 1979 revolution. In December 2016, Iranian Prosecutor Ahmad Ali Montazeri, who heads Iran's internet censorship committee, banned and closed 14,000 websites and social networking accounts in Iran. He underlined that President Rouhani and Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli agreed with him and have addressed "serious warnings" on this issue. As of 2018, it

3315-428: The use of Iranian email systems, block popular web-mail services, inhibit encryption use by disabling VPNs and HTTPS, and ban externally developed security software. In May 2012, Iran criticized Google for dropping the name "Persian Gulf" from its maps, leaving the feature unlabeled. Six days after Khamenei's statement, Iran announced that Google and Gmail would be added to the list of banned sites, to be replaced by

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3380-733: The users and the open Internet . This feature makes it harder to bypass, though it is not uncommon for students with more extensive computer knowledge to attempt to bypass the system. The system allows for teachers or administrators to temporarily bypass the system if they need to access blocked sites for educational purposes. The system is compliant with the Children's Internet Protection Act . Like other similar filters, Secure Web SmartFilter EDU has come under attack for unnecessarily impeding school research ( false positives ), being too aggressive in its filtering procedures or not being aggressive enough in its filtering procedures. Other critics believe that

3445-631: The worst worldwide, according to a report by the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association (TECA). The report noted the effect of new filtering equipment within the domestic network, which causes functional disruptions and processor saturation. Iranian government had released another law in 2024 that allow censored apps to be accessible through government enabled client side forks. Minister of communications offered selling class " professional " based internet access to startups and corporations with less restrictions. IRNA defended

3510-475: Was also found in Iran's major Kharg Island oil export terminal in April. Communications and Technology Minister Reza Taqipour said, "Control over the internet should not be in the hands of one or two countries. Especially on major issues and during crises, one cannot trust this network at all." In September 2012, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Western leaders to censor the trailer for Innocence of Muslims , which

3575-660: Was announced in August 2005 and approved in January 2006. (A year earlier, CyberGuard had attempted to acquire Secure Computing, but the proposal had been rejected). This was the largest merger by Secure Computing at the time and resulted in the addition of several product lines, including three classes of firewalls, content and protocol filtering systems, and an enterprise-wide management system for controlling all of those products. Several offices were also added, including CyberGuard's main facility in Deerfield Beach, Florida , as well as

3640-422: Was noted that various filtered websites remained accessible to specific groups such as students, university professors, and professionals in need of them for government-approved purposes. A member of the Islamic Council's supervisory committee in the working group to determine examples of criminal computer content stated that some websites at some times were blocked and unfiltered according to requirements and that

3705-514: Was one of ten companies competing for the Saudi government's contract for software to block its citizens' access to websites it deemed offensive. The company already had a deal with the Saudis that was due to expire in 2003. In its defense, Secure Computing has always stated that it cannot control how customers use a product once it has been sold. According to the OpenNet Initiative's 2007 report,

3770-531: Was originally developed by Trusted Information Systems (TIS) as a commercial version of the TIS Firewall Toolkit , an early open source firewall package developed under a DARPA contract. The OpenNet Initiative studied filtering software used by governments to block access by their citizens and found Secure Computing's SmartFilter program heavily used by both the Iranian and Saudi governments. According to Secure Computing, any use of its software in Iran

3835-403: Was posted to YouTube . Khamenei alluded to bans on Nazi-related or anti-gay sites in some countries, asking, "How there is no room for freedom of expression in these cases, but insulting Islam and its sanctities is free?". Starting in mid-2014, the government of then-President Hassan Rouhani sought to ease internet restrictions in the country, with Ali Jannati , the culture minister, likening

3900-480: Was published in the media quoting Ahmad Vahidi , the Minister of Interior of the 13th government, citing a “complete filtering of cyberspace” and it was denied a few hours later. On December 18, Mohsen Taeb, the former head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, said, “[t]here will come a day on the platforms where we will determine whose photo will be published and who will not.” In the last 3 months,

3965-519: Was purchased by McAfee. The company headquarters were moved to San Jose, California , in 1998, though the bulk of the workforce remained in the Twin Cities . The Roseville employees completed a move to St. Paul, Minnesota , in February 2006. Several other sites now exist, largely the result of mergers. Secure Computing consisted of several merged units, one of the oldest being Enigma Logic, Inc., which

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4030-485: Was renamed McAfee Firewall Enterprise; McAfee sold Sidewinder to Forcepoint in January 2016. Over the years, Secure Computing (and its antecedent organizations) has offered the following major lines of firewall products: The Sidewinder firewall incorporated technical features of the high-assurance LOCK system, including Type enforcement , a technology later applied in SELinux . However, interaction between Secure Computing and

4095-500: Was reportedly talking about removing internet restrictions possibly with reduced speed and higher tariffs cost. Persian language has been almost wiped out from the web because of the censorship. Iran underwent a significant increase in internet usage in the early 2000s. Many users saw the internet as an easy way to circumvent Iran's strict press laws. As international internet usage grew, its censorship increased, and many popular websites were blocked, especially after 2005 under

4160-525: Was started around 1982. Bob Bosen, the founder, claims to have created the first security token to provide challenge–response authentication . Bosen published a computer game for the TRS-80 home computer in 1979, called 80 Space Raiders , that used a simple challenge–response mechanism for copy protection. People who used the mechanism encouraged him to repackage it for remote authentication. Bosen started Enigma Logic to do so, and filed for patents in 1982–83;

4225-468: Was subsequently approved by the Iranian government in September 2023. On 15 June 2023, the Minister of Communications denied copying Chinese internet rules . In August 2023, the number of anonymous internet users in Iran rose. The Minister of ICT claimed he was dissatisfied with the restrictions placed on speed, quality and the filtering of websites, proposing to whitelist some websites. A member of

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