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*preroll music*

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Herald: Good evening, thank
you for joining us tonight,

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here at the CCC in Hamburg.
And also thank you for everyone

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tuning in around the
world via our livestream.

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I'm very, very honored and excited
to introduce our new... next guest,

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Mahsa Alimardani?
*laughs*

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- it was my attempt to say the name Mahsa
Alimardani - she's an Iranian-Canadian

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researcher and activist.

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Mahsa is finishing her master's
degree and is a research assistant

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at the Deja Active Lab, both at
the university of Amsterdam,

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and her focus is on freedom of
expression and access to information

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in Iran. She's also the editor
of the Global Voices Iran

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and today she will be sharing some
of her research findings with us

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about the censorship situation
in Iran on mobile platforms.

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With that I would like to ask you to
help me welcome Mahsa Alimardani!

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*applause*

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Mahsa Alimardani: Thank you Sonia,
for the nice introduction,

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and thank you all for
coming to this session,

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I know there's a lot of awesome
computing sessions happening right now.

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And, so, just to introduce you a little
bit to the Iranian internet ecosystem.

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So, there are some realities,
you should know about it.

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*decent laughter*

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Yes, if you're thinking of traveling to
Iran I'd tell this to everyone: Do go!

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It's awesome, it's amazing,
it's a beautiful country.

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Although, take into consideration
the type of work that you do and

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the type of public profile
you have when you do go.

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If you do go do set up TOR relays
'cause that's really helpful to people

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accessing the internet in Iran.

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And one of the things you should
know that the Iranian internet,

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it's often known as the Filter Net.

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And Filter Net sort of has been the name
ascribed to the internet

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because of the censorship
that happens in Iran.

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I think out of the whole
world Iran would come

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second after China in the terms
of the pervasiveness of censorship

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and internet controls around the world.

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Something that you might not know is
that it is also known as the "Kondnet"

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and "kond" means "slow".

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The fact that the internet
is often throttled in Iran,

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and the speeds are very slow,

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and the fact that it can be very
frustrating sometimes to upload a page

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it also has the name of "Kondnet".

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So, this talk will sort of describe this,
I'll talk on Mobile Censorship

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and how they will focus on that.
I just wanna take a sort of broader view

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and to look at more general
look at internet policy in Iran

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and just before I sort of delve into it...

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The reason why I really
wanted to get this talk at

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a conference like the CCC is
because I know this is a community

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full of lots of different
expertise in terms of

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Digital Security,
in terms of Circumvention.

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So, bringing awareness and sort
of knowledge in focus on Iran

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I think is kind of exciting
in a community like this

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'cause a lot of help and
a lot of aid can go towards

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access to internet in Iran
from a group of people like you.

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So: just a broad look at what the internet
infrastructure's like in Iran is.

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The Ministry of Information,
Communication and Technology (ICT)

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runs the Telecommunications
Company of Iran

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and this company is also responsible

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for the main ISP of Iran which is the
Data Communication Company of Iran.

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So, in effect they control all
internet traffic that goes into Iran

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and all ISP's both private and
government are controlled through

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the Data Communication Company of Iran.

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So this company in effect becomes
the point where filtering can occur

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and the blocking of pages or
the blacklisting of keywords occurs.

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Oftentimes the Telecommunications
Company uses proxy servers

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for surveillance by logging all
unencrypted internet traffic that goes on

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in Iran which is why it's really important
for pages that are being used

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especially by Iranians if not
everywhere else in the world

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to have https for all
Mobile Applications to be using

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encryption technology
and things like that.

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Now, all of these things
are really concerning as it is

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the fact that the government has so
much access to data over the internet.

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What's even more concerning
is looking at this chart here.

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So this is the overall view
of the institutions responsible

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for internet policy in Iran.
And you see at the very top

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there is the Supreme Leader. Although
Iran does have no active president,

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ultimately, the Supreme Leader
has the Veto Power

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and is in effect really
the official Head Of State.

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And so while the ministry of ICT is part
of the elected administration

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the Supreme Leader has ultimate power.
And what is particularly

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concerning here is while we have
the ministry of ICT here on the right

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and then you have the Telecommunications
Company. And then you have

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the ISP provider in Iran. You then
have the Revolutionary Guards

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which are a para-military
organization in Iran

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who are not accountable
to the elected government.

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They're ultimately only accountable
to the Supreme Leader.

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They own the largest share of the
Telecommunications Company of Iran.

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This is particularly concerning because
a group like the Revolutionary Guards

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are the ones who are oftentimes
responsible for

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various surveillance programs,
for arrests of dissidents.

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One of their offshoots, the Basij
were the ones on the streets,

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arresting and beating up protesters
during the 2009 Green Movement.

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So the fact that they have access to
this kind of data it's very concerning

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in why things like digital security are of
the upmost importance in Iran.

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Just a little brief overview of why

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this sort of history started in Iran.
It's not always been like this.

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This started during the Reformer's era
in Iran which were the late 90ies.

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This was a period where
relative to the Iranian context

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which is a Islamic theocracy there was
more progressive politics

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and the hardline elements which aren't
often accountable to the electorate

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in Iran kind of clashed with the
Reformer's Government that was in power

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and so the surge in Reformer's
jounalists that were

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in traditional print media meant
that they could start migrating online

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in the early 2000's, late 90ies, when
blogging was becoming really popular

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and the technology to use Persian unicode
was becoming more pervasive.

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During this time the government
sort of realized that there's

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this space that's not
being controlled at all.

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And so filtering of pages
started early on in 2001

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but there was no real systematic
procedure for this filtering.

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So they came up with the
Cybercrimes Law in 2006.

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But that sort of lay
floating around until 2009

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when the internet became
a really big deal because,

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I'm sure some of you have
heard of the Twitter Revolution

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which sort of came out after 2009
Green Movement. And it was at that point

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- when Iranians were coming out en masse
onto the streets protesting

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what they claimed to be a fraudulent
election - that the Iranian Government

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shut down the internet. And so
after this period they codified

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the Cybercrimes Law to sort of ensure
a more systematic way of filtering

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various pages including Twitter
and Facebook, that came out of it.

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And then following this you
had the Revolutionary Guard's

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establishment of Gerdab which is
a Cyber Command Center

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which is now responsible for
the arrest of many different bloggers

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and activists in Iran. And then in 2011

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because there wasn't enough
control over the internet

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they set up the FATA, a police force,
from the police forces.

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While they do sort of take care
of things like cybercrime

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in terms of banking, in identity theft,
they also are responsible

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for the arrests of various bloggers.
There was one popular case in 2012

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of Sattar Beheshti, who had public
dissident posts against the government.

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And then finally in 2012
the Supreme Leader who has

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quite a grand name of its own decided
to setup a very Sci-fi-esque body

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- at least in the English language -
called the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.

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*audience amused*

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This body basically would be responsible
for all of the Internet Policy

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in Iran. And this really marked
a turning point in Iran where

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cyberspace and internet became
a key issue of National Security;

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not only were there concerns
of cyber attacks from the United States

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and Israel, there was also
big concerns of dissidents

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and various movements that could
sort of emerge through Social Media

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and the blogs. And so all the
decision making would occur through

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the members that they decided to appoint
to this council. And it's a mixed bag

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of different ministers as well as
unelected officials and experts.

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Over the years they've had various
different programs to try to control

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the internet and most recently
in last March they came up with

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another grand sounding
program called Spider.

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Spider was a project of the Revolutionary
Guards where they sort of

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talked about doing blanket surveillance
over all Social Media activities,

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activities of Iranians which technically

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- if any of you know anything about
how Facebook or how Twitter works -

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it's quite hard. If posts are private
it's hard to delve into them.

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Anyways, so what is key to understanding
about the internet climate right now

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is that there is a moderate president
Rohani who came into power

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on a platform of many
different progressive policies

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one of which was Internet Freedom.

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And so they've had many
different progressive moments.

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They shut down the hardline judiciary's
attempts to block Whatsapp e.g.

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and they've promised not to really
shut down any other platform

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or censor anything unless there is
a legitimate replacement for them

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and this is a quote by
the minister of ICT.

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But at the same time
they've been trying to cater to

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some of the hardline elements
and try to sort of balance out

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their Internet Freedom policies with
programs like intelligent filtering,

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which would mean not blocking
entire platforms outright but

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blocking individual pages.

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This program... about 66 Mio. Dollars
has been spent on this program

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from the ICT budget. And overall
it's been a bit of a failure.

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I worked on a piece of research
with Frederic Jacobs that sort of

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underlined how the intelligent filtering
on Instagram, which was

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the most tangible,
resolved of this form of control.

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was only occuring because
Instagram had failed to release

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the https on the Mobile API.
So they were able to enable

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intelligent filtering on the mobile
application but not on the browser.

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Later on people found out that there was
still disruptions and images

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weren't loading to Instagram even
after Instagram enabled https

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over the Mobile API. And it turned out that
this was just collateral damage

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from the fact that some of the
images on Instagram were also hosted

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on Facebook which is
outright blocked in Iran.

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So right now we're about to go
up to a election in Iran.

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It's in February,
it's the Parliamentary Elections.

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And typically during these
sensitive moments in Iran

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they start playing around
with the internet and

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this happened in 2013. There was

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a significant throttling of the internet
leading up to the elections.

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And right now there have been
some things spotted although

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it's speculation whether or not
it's related to the elections at all.

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Some websites with foreign
SSL certificates are being blocked.

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There was one example of a
popular blogger based in Iran

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named Jadi who has a
SSL certificate from Cloudflare

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and his website was blocked.
And you'll notice that local certificates

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won't be blocked because ultimately
they're controlled by the government.

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This is a diagram formed by Smallmedia
that sort of explains how

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the certificate authorities are ultimately
in the hands of the government

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and data could potentially be shared.

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There is also throttling of TLS in
November and the best example of this

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was over TOR direct connections which,
you see, experienced a significant drop.

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The shift towards mobile applications
and the fact that Iranians are

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increasingly accessing the web through
their phones means that there's been

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sort of a increased focus by
the government on mobile apps.

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In order to sort of talk to this they've been
coming up with local alternatives

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like WeChat has Dialog which sort of
you can see from the interface

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that this local version is imitating that
application. Instagram had Lenzor.

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But you kind of see that it's not
working as effectively because

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if you look at the Cafe Bazaar Stats,
which is a platform where Iranians

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download their apps, Lenzor
only has about 50000 users

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while Instagram has
more than 9 Mio.

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Viber had another imitation
out called Salam.

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Salam was speculated to be
developed by the Basij.

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So popular apps right now have...
there's Whatsapp and there's Viber

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and Telegram in terms of
chats and communication.

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Telegram is the most popular right now
and that's mainly because

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Viber has been heavily
tampered with and

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a lot of people don't trust Viber anymore
because the media has sort of

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disparaged it in connection with Israel
and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

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And Whatsapp the second most
popular app has been experiencing

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lots of network disruptions.
And so with this increasing shift

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towards Telegram the media
has been focusing on also

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highlighting that Telegram is
a place of moral corruption.

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This is a picture from a semi-official
news source, FARS News,

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sort of depicting how someone could be
dramming in Telegram.

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So Telegram in Iran is really
controversial not only because

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the government's really
concerned about it but

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it had a really confusing
and weird relationship with Iran.

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Starting in August, Bots and Stickers
started getting censored in Iran.

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And the Bots and Stickers are one of the
reasons why Telegram is really popular

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in Iran because the Bots allowed Iranians
to access content on the internet

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without using a VPN
and the Stickers are oftentimes fun

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and kind of rude and in Persian
which not a lot of apps have.

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And so it's really popular.
But these got censored in August.

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And the ministry announced that
the censorship was occuring

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because of cooperation with Telegram,
but Telegram was very quick to deny this.

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Pavel Durov came up and said that they
had not entered in to any agreements.

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On top of that there's a respected community
of security experts have really

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critizised the cryptography and
the security behind Telegram.

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And this is especially worrysome
when you hear things like

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30% of Telegram data is now being
stored in Iran which was a

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announcement by the ministry of ICT
in Iran. But then again

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Telegram was very quick to deny this,
again, saying that this is 100% bullshit.

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*laughter*
And so the Telegram story continues.

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I think it was in late November,

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Pavel Durov made a announcement
saying that the ministry of ICT

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had come to him demanding spying and
censorship capabilities from Telegram

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which is really weird because
beforehand they thought they were

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working together. And there's all sorts of
conspiracy theories about

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how Pavel Durov got on a plane and went
to Tehran to meet with the minister Vaezi.

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Noone really knows what happened,
all speculations and rumours.

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Anyways, he comes out with this
announcement and then a few weeks later

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it's like: "Oh, that was a fake email",
which is really odd and concerning

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and no other internet company has ever
had anything happen like this.

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He said that he received the fake email,
the ministry didn't actually contact him.

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He never released the email.
It's all very strange and it led to

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several advocacy organizations asking
for more transparency from Telegram.

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But Telegram continues to be one of the
most popular apps in Iran.

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What's notable about Telegram is that that
sort of sets a precedent for other

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internet companies inside of Iran
especially as we move towards the removal

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of sanctions. And companies like Facebook
and Twitter will be able to do business

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with Iran potentially. And so noting these
kinds of behaviours and sort of holding

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them to account is really important.

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One last application that sort of
gaining ground in Iran and that

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highlights one of the sort
of habits of Iranians is

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Bisphone. Bisphone is this local app and
Security Researcher Kevin Miston

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who I don't know if he's here [in the
hall] or not, but he's somewhere here

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in the venue, has done some really cool
work into looking what exactly Bisphone is

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'cause it's sort of this rising app
that's gaining a lot of popularity.

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It apparently has connections, the
developers are loosely connected to

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the government. It turns out that the
actual data collection over the ISPs is

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connected to Iran's Telecommunications
Company. Which is very concerning but

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Smallmedia recently did a report asking
Iranians what they thought about the

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security of the apps that they use and the
tendency is that they either don't know

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or it doesn't really
factor in as a big issue.

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So security is a very low
priority for Iranians even though

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it should be higher on their list.
They generally tend to go for

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usability and fun features.
This kind of brings me

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to the take aways of this talk which is:
Internet control in Iran is

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quite pervasive, but it's not as
sophisticated as they would like.

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It's especially important now
'cause there's been more arrests

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of various bloggers, various people
who work in the Tech industry in Iran.

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This might be particularly
problematic as we move towards

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the Parliamentary Elections.

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If you do particular research,
if you do any collection of data

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and circumvention tools I think this is a
very exciting time to be looking at Iran's

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internet ecosystem. Thank you!

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*applause*

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Herald: Thank you, we have 5
minutes now for question/answers.

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So if you have questions for Mahsa
please go to one of the 4 microphones.

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And I would like to ask you to
please say your question slowly

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into the microphone because
it's being recorded.

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*audience mumbles amused*

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Question: Shall I start?
H: Ok we'll start with, yes, that microphone.

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Q: So one thing first as a statement
not a question. If you are in Iran, do not

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ever use your banking, whatever banking...
Mahsa: *whispering* Who's talking?

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00:22:20,540 --> 00:22:24,480
Q: ...without VPN. And then... because
they're gonna block it. You're gonna

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have to go back to your bank and reopen
it. But the question is: Do you know...

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how much do you know about the
relationships with other governments like

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foreign governments or foreign companies
on the filters, there were... and like

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further developments. Because I know from
Rohde&Schwarz like a year ago,

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00:22:41,790 --> 00:22:48,440
when I was there, they were talking about
the relationship with the filters in

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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?

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Mahsa: Yeah, I'm not a particular expert
on Syria but I do know that they have

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exchanged technology and knowledge with
the Syrian Government 'cause they are

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very close with the Assad Regime.

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Q: I meant more specifically like
companies in Europe and in the US.

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M: Yeah, so because of sanctions
I know the US don't really...

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I do know Europe... is...
does work, but I know

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the country that they turn to most for
censorship technology would be China.

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And I know that in the past that they
heavily relied on Chinese technology

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00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:40,460
for censorship and surveillance material
but recently they've been shifting towards

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local vendors and using more
locally grown technology.

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Although it's hard to say. I don't have
direct insight into what technology

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00:23:50,179 --> 00:23:56,410
and where it's coming from. Maybe you
have more insight and can tell me.

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H: Thank you, next question, please.

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00:24:00,980 --> 00:24:05,700
Q: Thank you to bring us the awareness
that we have to fight for our freedom

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00:24:05,700 --> 00:24:08,540
in internet or also to fight
leaders which try to...

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00:24:08,540 --> 00:24:14,400
H: Could you get a little closer to
the microphone, please!

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00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:19,130
Q: My question was: When you go back to
Iran, do you have any repression or

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00:24:19,130 --> 00:24:20,900
problems?
M: Do I personally?

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00:24:20,900 --> 00:24:27,770
Q: Yes. personally.
M: I haven't gone back to Iran since 2010

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00:24:27,770 --> 00:24:31,070
because I do things like come and
talk here on a recorded video

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00:24:31,070 --> 00:24:37,430
*audience amused*
I generally don...

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00:24:37,430 --> 00:24:45,140
*applause*

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00:24:45,140 --> 00:24:50,000
Q: It was my question exactly, and you
should be aware that it's no democratic

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00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,809
there so if they catch you they do
whatever they want with you.

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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

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00:24:57,679 --> 00:25:02,820
I wanna make: There's a lot of
awesome unknown people doing work

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00:25:02,820 --> 00:25:08,120
and doing research and activism on the
Iranian internet that remain anonymous

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and use pseudonyms and can't do
things like come here and talk, so

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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

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00:25:16,780 --> 00:25:21,750
probably will never see
on a platform like this.

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*applause*

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00:25:28,669 --> 00:25:33,529
H: Okay, may I ask on the next
question, please. Thank you.

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00:25:33,529 --> 00:25:37,540
Q: Yeah, thanks for the great talk! I have
a question about the certificate authorities

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00:25:37,540 --> 00:25:43,049
there in the Iranian State. You said that
foreign certificate authorities are

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00:25:43,049 --> 00:25:48,720
blocked by the governmental filters.
With your demonstration of one site...

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of this blogger. Are there any certificate
authorities in Iran not connected to

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00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:00,760
the government, or not... are forced to
giving the private key to the government,

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00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:06,330
so that maybe foreign sites could just
adjust their certificate to an Iranian

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00:26:06,330 --> 00:26:12,570
free or libre CA and so could do an
access for the people there?

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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

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00:26:17,110 --> 00:26:22,950
to fully answer it. But I will point you
towards the Smallmedia report that

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really delved into this. They did like
months of research. I think the person

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00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:31,490
you would probably wanna talk to
would be Amin Sabeti. I could only

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00:26:31,490 --> 00:26:38,040
sort of guess and I'm not sure if
it's broadly done on every website,

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'cause there's obviously a lot of websites
using foreign SSL certificates that

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are not blocked, but if it's sensitive
it's more likely to get blocked in Iran.

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Q: Thank you very much.
H: Thank you, are there any questions

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00:26:52,090 --> 00:26:56,530
from the internet?
*looking out for Signal Angel*

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Yes? Aah, ok. The internet, please!
Signal Angel: So, question.

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00:27:01,290 --> 00:27:04,760
Since there seems to be a lot
of trouble politically-wise,

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is there a hacker scene in Iran? Like
there is in Europe or in the USA?

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00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:15,710
M: Yeah, yeah there is a hacker scene
and there's a, like an emerging

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00:27:15,710 --> 00:27:20,610
open source community doing a lot of
cool work. Yeah, totally the scene exists.

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I'm sure a lot of them would
have loved to have been here.

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H: And the internet, again!
S: A lot of people in Iran, I know,

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use VPNs. Have you heard of VPN providers
cooperating with the government?

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M: Yeah, that's another big security
concern that I didn't cover in this talk,

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00:27:42,429 --> 00:27:47,250
w hich is like using VPNs is ubiquitous,
basically, in Iran. Even

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00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:51,600
members of the government use it.
I think there was even a photo of...

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00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,730
someone in one of the ministries, they
had Psiphon on their desktop and

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00:27:55,730 --> 00:27:59,530
it was pictured on a famous photo that
went viral. But one of the concerns is

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like, the government is actually providing
their own VPN so they can access data

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00:28:04,090 --> 00:28:08,850
and what people are connecting to
through their own backdoored VPNs.

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H: We have one more question, and that's
here in the back, please. You, yeah.

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00:28:16,799 --> 00:28:22,020
Q: Hi, so I have... I was wondering
if you have concrete cases

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about government monitoring data or

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00:28:27,559 --> 00:28:32,960
using that as evidence in court cases.

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Because we have always been
speculating that these guys

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will go through the messages that we send
and then they're gonna use it against us.

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But we have never been able
to prove it. Do you have

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any kind of cases study on that?
M: There is the one really famous one that

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00:28:50,809 --> 00:28:56,259
I'm sure you've heard of,
the Sony-Ericsson case

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00:28:56,259 --> 00:29:00,809
- I think I'm getting the company right -
back in 2009 where they tracked

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00:29:00,809 --> 00:29:05,280
through the cell phone company.
So that's the most concrete case.

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But I suppose there aren't
that many known,

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00:29:09,419 --> 00:29:15,990
and that's one of the problems with
installing sort of a culture of digital

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00:29:15,990 --> 00:29:20,000
security in Iran. Because most people
are afraid of physical surveillance,

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00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,210
this thing that if they're arrested and
they take their computers physically

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00:29:24,210 --> 00:29:30,419
- that's the actual concern, not so much
using encrypted email or encrypted chat.

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00:29:30,419 --> 00:29:35,500
So that might be part of it.
I'm sure there are. I couldn't

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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

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working with Ericsson.
Q: Thank you.

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00:29:45,110 --> 00:29:54,200
H: Ok, thank you!
*applause*

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00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,280
H: And with that one more warm applause
for Mahsa. Thank you so much for

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00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,390
coming today, Mahsa, thank you!

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*postroll music*

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