One of the principal ways that Iranians have been able to maintain access to the global Internet has been through the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which allow users to circumvent government filters by providing encrypted links to networks ...

Censorship and state control over the Internet in Iran is changing: it is becoming more systemic and less detectable, posing an ever-greater threat to Iranian users. Increasingly, the state is focusing on developing the technological infrastructure to effectively control access ...

The Rouhani administration has pushed back some--a statement defending the need for open Internet access is made, a block on ...

The National Data Centers are one of the most important infrastructure components of the National Information Network. These Centers will be set up in Tehran and other cities across the country, and will house the various telecommunications and storage systems ...

Officials in Iran have attributed the delays and uneven progress in the development and implementation of the country’s National Internet to technological problems, difficulties created by international sanctions against the country, and budgetary constraints. Yet these delays must also be ...

HISTORY While the state devoted considerable resources and institutional capacity to filtering the Internet up to this time, a new dimension began during the Ahmadinejad period (2005-2013) regarding Iran’s approach to the Internet. Namely, the development of a national infrastructure that ...

The Internet first became available in Iran in 1993 with the start of dial-up services. Over the next few years, there were no clear guidelines for filtering sites and filtering remained relatively limited, with only intermittent instances of blocking ...