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*Music*

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Herald: Because Iran pops up in the news

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frequently and mostly when it pops up,
it's often about censorship and

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surveillance and our speaker here Mahsa
Alimardani she's actually an expert on

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this topic. She's a specialist, she
currently works at the Oxford Internet

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Institute, where she researches politics
of Iran and of the Iranian internet but

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she also works for the NGO Article 19 and
in her talk - which we hope we'll have

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the slides up very soon - in her talk
she's doing a rundown of the current state

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of censorship and surveillance in Iran. So
thank you for waiting until now, please

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give a warm round of applause to

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Mahsa Alimardani

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*Applause*

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Mahsa Alimardani: Well, thank you for coming and

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being so patient to hear me talk today I
have to admit I did not anticipate doing

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this without my computer in front of me
but I guess it's a good exercise in

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becoming less reliant on my devices. But I
do still have my phone in my hand with the

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slide so I think that'll be useful; so,
the name of the talk is "Tightening the

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Net" and so as the introduction went I'm
going to be talking a little bit about how

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information controls work on the Iranian
intranet. You're probably listening to my

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voice wondering why someone with an
Iranian name sounds kind of American. I'm

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- I grew up in Canada and I spent most of
my life going back and forth between the

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various countries I lived in abroad and
back to Iran, so that's why I sound this

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way. It's a Canadian accent. And so I, I
had slides to accompany what I was going

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to say next and it had a frightening
Iranian vampire, that I was going to get

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into later on, but it seems that I can you
know replace the frightening Iranian

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vampire for now. So the reason why I am
here. Who am I?Well I wear a lot of

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different hats, the introduction said that I am,

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oh, that's not my slide,

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there's a frightening woman in front of me.

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*Laughter*

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So I, I'm doing my PhD at the Oxford Internet

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Institute and there I'm studying how
social media evolves in Iran's information

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control space to see how political
participation shapes, especially during

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elections and things like that. I also
spend the majority of my time at a london-

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based NGO called Article 19 and there I
work with an Iran team that tracks how

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freedom of expression and access to
information takes shape in Iran, and uh, I

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think my slides are on their way up here?
No? Is it there? It will come? That's

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promising. So at Article 19.

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*Applause*

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Yay, my slides are here, that's so

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exciting. Oh can I actually? then I it goes

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... can I actually control it?

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Herald: You have to signal.

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MA: Oh, I have to signal, okay. We

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can go to the next slide.

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*Laughter*

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No, nope, oh
this is fun, okay, so this was the part

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that would appear when I'm explaining
who I am. What are you? It's the scene

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from the movie, but, I've been
referencing, it's called "A girl walkes

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home alone at night" I think you should
all watch it. So, we can go to the next

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slide. So, um, there was a troll on
Twitter yesterday when I posted about my

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talk, who were saying that I'm kind of
doing war-mongering or something like

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that, so I just want to leave a
disclaimer: I do work on human rights, I

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am talking about some of the repressive
things that happens in Iran, but this is

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not a talk to scare you away from Iran. In
fact, if - you can go back - in fact, if

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it, if I weren't here and if I weren't
doing this particular type of work I would

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probably be in Iran with my family for the
holidays, so I urge you, if you have no

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security concerns, please go. It's a
amazing country lots to see. But, one

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thing you will find is that the internet
experience is a little bit different than

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what you would experience here in Leipzig,
which kind of brings me round to the topic

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of my talk. So, the Iranian internet is
sometimes known as "Filter-Net", this is a

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term that a lot of us who do kind of
digital advocacy for Iran know and often

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use. I think the term was coined around
2009 or 2010 by a Iranian journalist, who

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focuses on technology named Mima Akbar,
for, you can follow the hashtag on Twitter

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and you could see lots of different things
related to Internet censorship and

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surveillance in Iran. And so - next slide
- there's also the series, that I helped

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run with a number of colleagues at Article
19, which is called "Tightening the Net"

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the name of this talk and if you want to
get into the nitty gritty details of what

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happens in terms of internet policy, in
terms of how users are put at risk in Iran

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this is a series you can follow and it
started initially with the national

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internet project, which is sort of
sometimes known as the "Halal-Net".

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And then, we looked at software and cyber
tactics in Iran for the next edition and

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now every quarter we come out with a
rundown of what's going on, online in

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Iran, with a series of advocacy
recommendations for various branches of

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the Iranian government. So, if you want to
get more information beyond the

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generalities of this talk to check that
out. Next slide. So, understanding the

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#filternet. In order to understand - next
slide - so whenever I do this, it means

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next slide.
So, understanding what happens online you

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have to kind of understand that in Iran
there is an infrastructure of control,

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that kind of shapes how this works and I
can show this to you. Here, which is kind

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of a map of what's going on in Iran and
you can see that in Iran the head of state

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is in fact not elected, it's the supreme
leader. He's kind of a religious

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authority, but also he has ultimate veto-
power over everything that happens in the

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country and you can see him up at the top.
I'm not signaling to change, I'm just pointing.

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It's, he's up at the top there
and everything sort of like falls under

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his umbrella. And, what's interesting to
know that, every four years there, are

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there is a democratic element to the
government in Iran and there is a

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president that gets elected and within the
president's cabinet you have the Ministry

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of ICT information communications and
technology and within the Ministry of ICT

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you see a lot of what happens in terms of
control inside of Iran. So the Ministry of

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ICT runs the telecommunications company of
Iran and they maintain and authorize all

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the ISP and so in some ways this has been
really good, because the current

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administration, that was elected back in
2013 and it was reelected in 2017 is a

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moderate administration and so it's done a
lot to improve internet conditions in

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Iran.
Internet speeds have improved by huge

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amounts. So, sometimes the Iranian
internet was named, known as "condnet"

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which, kind of is like "slow internet",
but that's really improved since this

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government has come into power and it's
the government of President Rouhani and

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other things, like Internet access has
come to villages, that often didn't have

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this kind of access. So in terms of ICT
for development there's been a lot of

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progress over the past few years because
of the work of this government in that

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ministry, but in terms of how surveillance
occurs. So all Internet traffic is routed

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through the telecommunications company of
Iran including private and government ISPs

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and the TCI - as you can see right below
the Ministry of ICT - is responsible for

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blocking webpages and blacklists and
keywords and in terms of surveillance the

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TCI also uses proxy servers for
surveillance by logging all unencrypted

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web traffic which is why it's really
important for there to be HTTPS over

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websites in Iran.
What was particularly concerning is that

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underneath the control of the Supreme
Leader there's a body called the

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Revolutionary Guards and so, every time
there's a protest movement in Iran or

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there's any sort of opposition's of the
status quo the Revolutionary Guards help

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the regime kind of, you know, quell
protesters, arrest them, gather

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intelligence and so the IRGC, excuse me.
In 2009 the IRGC a consortium owned by

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this kind of paramilitary organization
bought about 51% of the telecommunications

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company of Iran, because the government
was trying to privatize it, but in essence

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its ownership falls, fell under this kind
of repressive body within the

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establishment. So, beyond strengthening
the the Revolutionary Guards, with you

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know, financial, through financial means
they had direct access to the data of

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ordinary citizens which is super
concerning. We can go to the next slide now.

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This was the news back in 2009 when they

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got 51% of the shares of the
telecommunications company of Iran. Next

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slide. So, just to go over a brief history
of controls, because along with the

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infrastructure of control, there's kind of
a legal mechanism for how this kind of

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established itself. So, back in 2001,
filtering really started in Iran because

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there is a crackdown on newspapers and a
lot of people started migrating online.

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The scripts for writing Persian online was
developing so, there was this huge

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migration and it was only around 2001 that
the government started targeting and doing

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censorship of these, you know, more
reformist or progressive journalists and

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activists, who were writing and kind of
going against the ethos of the regime.

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You can go back, you went ahead too. Oh,
so were you doing it? Oh sorry.

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*Laughter*

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Totally did not make that connection.
So that was in 2001 and they wanted to

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codify how the system works, in terms of
the filtering committee that enables this

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and so in 2006 there was a draft law known
as the computer crimes law and actually

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Article 19, the law team and that Iran
team - I wasn't part

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of it because this was before my time at
the organization - they actually are the

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only source of translating and analyzing
this law and so, it came into a draft form

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in 2006 and then by 2009 they really
wanted to mobilize it and make sure it

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went into law. And 2009 was when the green
movement happened and so the government

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was kind of trying to rein in control over
what kind of discourse was going on

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online, because they they effectively shut
down the internet for a small period of

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time during that protest movement and so
right after this happened they picked up

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speed on this and made sure it passed and
by 2010 this became law.

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You can take a look at this document in
more precise form, different things like

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article 10, which makes things like
encryption illegal came out of this

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document, different things like the
filtering committee that decides through

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multi agency network of different
ministries and different experts in the

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government what content needs to be
filtered.

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Do you want me to do this and you can.

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*Laughs*

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Sorry I feel bad I've made you, yeah.

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*Laughter*

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Here she is.

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*Applause*

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Okay, okay, yeah, I'm sorry, I
didn't realize and she was crouching here

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the entire time and that's not cool.
So, so the next thing I have is a video

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which I feel like it's gonna get really
difficult. So, the law came into effect in

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2010 and different bodies came into
formation as well, things like the

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Revolutionary Guard set up their own cyber
division known as Gharargah in 2009, right

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after the protest movement.
Iran's police forces also established

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their own pulley of cyber force named
Fatah in 2011 and because the

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establishment was realizing that the
internet was so, basically crucial to the

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functioning of the nation, national
security was being compromised, things

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like cyber attacks against the country's
infrastructure was happening, the supreme

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leader basically wanted everything
centralized to him, and so he created the

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"Supreme Council of Cyberspace" which, its
name translated into English, is very

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scifi and fun to say sometimes and that
happened in 2012.

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And so, this is all kind of like boring
and I guess lots of dates and lots of

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things, but it's really important to how
things happen day to day in Iranian's

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lives and how they experience the internet
and so... Back in a few years ago, a

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colleague and I, okay, at the University
of Amsterdam, decided to go through the

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censorship redirect page. So everytime you
want to visit a page that's censored it's

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called peyvandha.ir - you can probably
look this up, if you want - and so we

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using the wayback machine we, like, traced
it over the years and how it evolved and

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how it kind of reflects on this changing
internet policy.

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So I'm gonna take a crack at playing this,
I'm probably gonna really mess this up,

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actually, but... uhm... so this is the
video... Can I do it without...?

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AH: Let's try it... I can

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MA: Yes. Yeah!

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Video: arose with the establishment of
Iran cybercrime laws following the 2009

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Green movement. The different versions of
peyvandha.ir, which contain literature

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related to these laws and regulations,
evolve as norms of what constitutes as

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filtered content becomes more entrenched
with Iran. From the inception of the very

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first version of the page, whereby users
are told: "In the name of god, according

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to the Computer Crimes Act, access to this
website requested, is not possible." The

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messages users are viewing as censorship
page, is toned down in the next version,

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whereby users are only told, that the
links they are viewing are some of the

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registered links. Within version 2, we
also see the peyvandha.ir website creating

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pages related to Internet policy. the 3rd
version of peyvandha.ir continues with the

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theme of religious references, with a poem
featured that states: "If you listen to

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the words of the poet Saadi, he says, he
consents to require the consent of him".

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Immediately to the right of this, users
see the text: "In the name of god and the

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merciful", as if to subtly tell users that
the censorship they are experiencing, is

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by the will of god.
These religious references are continued

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in version 4, whereby the main feature of
the page is a changing image that makes

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references to national holidays and
events, maintaining the theme of allusions

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to Shia Islam and national Imams. This
image, for instance, depicts a mosque,

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marking the festival of Imam Reza, asking
users to click on a link to submit ideas

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for the festival.
Version 5 of peyvandha.ir brings attention

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to the islamic nature of censorship. The
links featured here are perhaps the most

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related to state propaganda in comparisons
to the other versions. While the previous

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version did not display any links, all
previous versions of peyvandha.ir featured

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the popular Persian language blogging
platform, BlogFa. However, this version

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omits the website. The omission of the
main image in version 5 makes it hard to

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establish a firm connection between the
previous and following versions. This

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finding is in line with the notion that
archives of web pages are not always

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successful in capturing all of the
content. However, further research shows

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that this version still made use of images
regarding Shia Islam. The after the Green

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movement, internet controls in Iran from
2009 and 2012 report, by the OpenNet

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initiative has captured and saved the
version of peyvandha.ir, as it was on a

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25th of October 2012. This image features
quranic writings. The last 2 iterations of

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the website in version 6 and 7 are very
similar in design. The sudden change in

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design was explained by an anonymous
source to make filtering more pleasant. Or

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rather to appear as a subtle part of the
Iranian internet experience rather than

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one presented with indoctrinating aspects
of the government. The significant change

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that comes in version 7, however, is the
prominent feature of the Internet policy

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00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:31,850
links. Concluding, we can say that this
historiography of the peyvandha.ir website

218
00:19:31,850 --> 00:19:35,220
demonstrates a timeline of the beginning
of the heightened internet controls from

219
00:19:35,220 --> 00:19:41,000
the inception of the page in 2010 to the
present day. The changes in the page

220
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,289
essentially demonstrate the evolution of
the ways the Iranian state represents its

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00:19:45,289 --> 00:19:50,519
censorship policies. The notions of
religious motifs decrease over time,

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whereas the focus on internet policy
becomes more present by the last iteration

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of the page.

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MA: And that was that. And as I struggle

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to go back to my presentation... Oh, I did
it... without any glitches... how

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exciting... and so, over the years there
have been different programs that the

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00:20:10,990 --> 00:20:16,040
government has kind of put into place
beyond the censorship that they do. Things

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00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:20,460
that I have been following through my own
work have been "the spider program", which

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00:20:20,460 --> 00:20:26,320
comes from the Revolutionary Guards
Garrideb division, the cyber... kind of

230
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,820
Iranian cyber division of the
Revolutionary Guards and intelligent

231
00:20:29,820 --> 00:20:37,080
filtering, the National Information
Network, and the different ways that the

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00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:41,549
Iranian government has been trying to
attack journalist, activists, and human

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00:20:41,549 --> 00:20:47,509
rights defenders in terms of... that the
attacking these kind of vulnerable

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00:20:47,509 --> 00:20:52,370
individuals that pose a threat. There's a
lot of different projects article 19

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00:20:52,370 --> 00:20:56,799
had an Iranian cyber army report about
this, and there's been really great work

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00:20:56,799 --> 00:21:03,230
to track this being done by the campaign
for human rights in Iran by their

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00:21:03,230 --> 00:21:08,299
researcher Amir Rashidi and by two other
researchers who've been tracking this with

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00:21:08,299 --> 00:21:14,390
the Iran threats project - Colin Anderson
and Claudio Ranieri - so there's tons of

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00:21:14,390 --> 00:21:20,850
great research being done in terms of
identifying these attackers. The

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00:21:20,850 --> 00:21:24,950
intelligent filtering project that the
Iranian government has been doing is

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00:21:24,950 --> 00:21:31,279
something that I looked into with another
colleague - Frederic Jacobs - in 2015 and

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basically at that time we were noticing
that the Iranian government was making

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00:21:35,100 --> 00:21:41,190
these really grand statements. That's the
Ministry of ICT about how they had

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sophisticated means to censor individual
pages on different social media. And

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basically this has been a old policy that
they've wanted to do, so sites like

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Facebook and Twitter were censored after
the protest movement in 2009. Actually in

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00:21:58,710 --> 00:22:04,409
the lead-up to the protest movement they
were censored. And so for a long time

248
00:22:04,409 --> 00:22:08,390
various members of the government have
said they want to unblock these platforms

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00:22:08,390 --> 00:22:12,600
and find the means to just censor
individual pages, or problematic content

250
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,669
and leave these websites open.
However, that's really

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hard to do, unless the government has a
relationship with these companies. If they

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00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:25,081
have a relationship with Facebook or
Twitter. And so back in 2015, they made a

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00:22:25,081 --> 00:22:28,179
grand announcement that they had finally
nailed it, and they were doing this on

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Instagram. And Instagram is one of the
more popular social media platforms and so

255
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:38,600
what we noticed was that the censorship -
intelligence censorship, which is just

256
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:44,159
individual pages or individual pictures or
accounts being censored - it was only

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being done on the mobile app, and the
reason was that Instagram hadn't yet

258
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rolled out HTTPS on the mobile
application. It had enabled it on the the

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00:22:56,580 --> 00:23:02,309
browser version of the website, and so the
running governments great, grand unveiling

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00:23:02,309 --> 00:23:08,319
of intelligent censorship was in reality
just Instagram not doing this.

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And so we found what kind of content they
were targeting, which was really

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00:23:12,999 --> 00:23:18,649
interesting, kind of cultural research in
terms of how censorship was working.

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00:23:18,649 --> 00:23:24,840
And then my colleague got in touch with
Instagram, and they soon rolled out the

264
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:30,850
HTTPS on the mobile app and then
intelligent censorship came unraveling as

265
00:23:30,850 --> 00:23:35,970
the motherboard writer Lorenzo "Iran smart
Instagram censorship isn't that smart."

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00:23:35,970 --> 00:23:42,379
And so that's just one example of these
grand policies that actually don't really

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00:23:42,379 --> 00:23:47,241
add up to very much in terms of
intelligent filtering. The researcher

268
00:23:47,241 --> 00:23:53,320
Colin Anderson recently found this
database of Europe URLs that different

269
00:23:53,320 --> 00:24:01,309
ISPs were giving to this company called
Sahab Pardaz. I can't talk too much about

270
00:24:01,309 --> 00:24:06,090
this, but this was kind of a public notice
he put out to ask anyone interested in

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this data set, to see if this is actually
another phase of intelligent filtering.

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00:24:10,530 --> 00:24:17,240
However, the minister of ICT did respond
to this and said that they are not

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00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:23,370
actually compromising users' data, and he
condemned the work of this company Sahab

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00:24:23,370 --> 00:24:30,200
Pardaz, which doesn't quite add up, which
I guess helps illustrate how confusing

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Internet policy is in Iran, like what are
they actually doing, what are they

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00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:40,219
actually saying, how does it align with
the laws, and those kinds of regulations.

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In 2016... through the budget, it was
announced that Iran was spending about 66

278
00:24:47,379 --> 00:24:52,010
million on the intelligent filtering
project, however it's really unclear what

279
00:24:52,010 --> 00:24:55,610
that adds up to, like what are the
deliverables on this work that they're

280
00:24:55,610 --> 00:25:02,639
doing? So again, it's kind of like this
chaotic quagmire of what's actually

281
00:25:02,639 --> 00:25:07,629
happening or not in terms of their ability
to silence

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00:25:07,629 --> 00:25:16,750
different voices in Iran. They have been
kind of targeting different users in

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00:25:16,750 --> 00:25:25,769
different ways in 2015, 2016 the Garrideb
spider program was rounding up series of

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00:25:25,769 --> 00:25:29,440
models and people in the fashion industry
in Iran that are quite prominently present

285
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:36,259
on Instagram, and while some of the
statements coming from Garrideb was saying

286
00:25:36,259 --> 00:25:39,610
that they had technical hacking abilities,
what they were actually doing

287
00:25:39,610 --> 00:25:45,390
was arresting these models and forcing
passwords and getting their accounts that

288
00:25:45,390 --> 00:25:50,450
way, but during that time I actually got
an Instagram request from one of these

289
00:25:50,450 --> 00:25:56,779
seized accounts, Nikahang Clothing, which
you can see over there, and you can see

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00:25:56,779 --> 00:26:02,090
that Garrideb had taken it over, because
there's a notice that's saying because of

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00:26:02,090 --> 00:26:07,610
such-and-such law this account has been
seized under the spider program, and so

292
00:26:07,610 --> 00:26:14,190
that was happening for a while under this.
Again, more actual physical takeover than

293
00:26:14,190 --> 00:26:18,799
technical sophistication of that kind of
work. Another thing that's quite

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00:26:18,799 --> 00:26:22,950
concerning, that the campaign for human
rights actually was the first to report

295
00:26:22,950 --> 00:26:30,539
on, was the Supreme Council of cyberspace
requiring all telegram accounts to

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00:26:30,539 --> 00:26:37,690
register with the government, and so
Telegram is hugely popular inside of Iran,

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00:26:37,690 --> 00:26:42,440
it's almost ubiquitous, and it's often
used as a social media application,

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00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:47,470
and so the public channels are run by
administrators, and if you have more than

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00:26:47,470 --> 00:26:52,309
5,000 followers, they basically needed you
to register and get approval, and by

300
00:26:52,309 --> 00:26:57,460
registering they would add a bot to the
account, and the bot could basically get

301
00:26:57,460 --> 00:27:01,620
information of the administrators and the
followers, which was quite dangerous

302
00:27:01,620 --> 00:27:07,570
because last May, when in the lead-up to
the presidential elections there was a

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00:27:07,570 --> 00:27:13,059
roundup of Telegram administrators that a
lot of digital activists believe was

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00:27:13,059 --> 00:27:23,350
through this registration program of
having all of this personal data. Excuse

305
00:27:23,350 --> 00:27:30,220
me. In terms of the national internet
project, it's quite a contentious project

306
00:27:30,220 --> 00:27:36,059
in that a lot of people say that on one
extreme it goes towards being like North

307
00:27:36,059 --> 00:27:41,030
Korea's intranet, kind of closed off from
the rest of the world. I... through

308
00:27:41,030 --> 00:27:45,399
my own work I don't think this is what
the Iranian government wants to do. They

309
00:27:45,399 --> 00:27:49,759
do want to localize certain things like
banking and different forms of

310
00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:55,620
infrastructure against cyberattacks like
Stuxnet, but in general what they want to

311
00:27:55,620 --> 00:28:00,919
do is keep data inside of the country, so
they can have access and control in...

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00:28:00,919 --> 00:28:04,260
part of this project has been to create
imitation versions

313
00:28:04,260 --> 00:28:09,429
of foreign companies, so like I
said they couldn't force Facebook or

314
00:28:09,429 --> 00:28:13,200
Twitter to censor things for them, because
they don't have a relationship, but if

315
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:17,809
they have local versions they can
effectively do this, and so and they've

316
00:28:17,809 --> 00:28:22,860
come up with alternatives for things like
Instagram, with Lenzor, which you can see

317
00:28:22,860 --> 00:28:31,559
has a very oddly similar user interface,
but oftentimes users inside of Iran don't

318
00:28:31,559 --> 00:28:36,429
trust these imitation apps, so usage
amongst for like Instagram it's always

319
00:28:36,429 --> 00:28:40,600
much higher than it is
for the local alternatives. One researcher

320
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:48,850
a few years ago saw that the way that a
Telegram imitation app was implemented

321
00:28:48,850 --> 00:28:53,460
kind of traced how the data was going back
to the government, so there's generally a

322
00:28:53,460 --> 00:29:00,549
sense of distrust for this kind of work.
Throughout the year, since 2016 this

323
00:29:00,549 --> 00:29:05,699
attempt to localize user content has
really increased. They put a ultimatum on

324
00:29:05,699 --> 00:29:10,000
platforms that have not been censored yet,
like Telegram and Instagram, that they had

325
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,999
a year to bring their servers inside of
the country, or else it would be censored.

326
00:29:14,999 --> 00:29:21,960
This obviously didn't work, so in 2017,
this past year, they've been doing

327
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:27,590
different things that kind of have
basically added up to net discrimination,

328
00:29:27,590 --> 00:29:32,010
like they've been going against net
neutrality values by offering incentives

329
00:29:32,010 --> 00:29:38,320
for people to use local traffic, access
local traffic, local platforms and

330
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,270
websites over international ones, and
they've been giving million-dollar

331
00:29:43,270 --> 00:29:48,830
incentives to developers to create apps,
and for example if they got a million

332
00:29:48,830 --> 00:29:56,830
users, they would get a million American
dollars for developing such a platform.

333
00:29:56,830 --> 00:30:04,710
Recently, we just translated and analyzed
a new policy that's forming into a law by

334
00:30:04,710 --> 00:30:09,340
the Supreme Council of cyberspace policy,
an action on organizing social media

335
00:30:09,340 --> 00:30:14,860
messaging applications, and this is just a
set of rules for local apps and foreign

336
00:30:14,860 --> 00:30:18,070
apps that
need to follow in order to operate inside

337
00:30:18,070 --> 00:30:27,850
of Iran. This is supposed to be a gif,
but that didn't work. So, another point

338
00:30:27,850 --> 00:30:32,999
that's kind of come up over... especially
over the past year, is how controls don't

339
00:30:32,999 --> 00:30:34,981
only come from the Iranian government,
but they

340
00:30:34,981 --> 00:30:46,500
also come from abroad. So companies like
Apple and Google, in order to comply and

341
00:30:46,500 --> 00:30:51,090
sometimes over-comply with US sanctions,
they've been denying certain services to

342
00:30:51,090 --> 00:30:56,649
Iranians. So what has been happening... it
has been... Iranian app developers have

343
00:30:56,649 --> 00:31:02,349
been seeing their apps being rejected from
the Google Play Store, and the Apple...

344
00:31:02,349 --> 00:31:09,330
the App Store. Mainly because they were
providing financial transactions over it,

345
00:31:09,330 --> 00:31:13,330
and even things that weren't directly
doing financial payments were getting

346
00:31:13,330 --> 00:31:19,080
blocked, such as one particular app, which
is kind of the Uber of Iran, called Snap,

347
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:23,330
they were told to remove financial
payments over the app or else they would

348
00:31:23,330 --> 00:31:27,900
be getting removed from the App Store.
Once they did remove that, it seemed that

349
00:31:27,900 --> 00:31:32,080
they knew that there was some sort of
financial transaction occurring offline

350
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:36,980
and they still removed
that app from the App Store, just to

351
00:31:36,980 --> 00:31:46,179
comply with sanctions. There's also a kind
of threat to other companies, as the

352
00:31:46,179 --> 00:31:50,929
nuclear negotiations went through back in
2015, there's a lot of foreign companies

353
00:31:50,929 --> 00:31:56,500
going in. There's been a huge influx of
the telecom sector, like Vodafone and

354
00:31:56,500 --> 00:32:00,699
Orange, and different companies like that
going to Iran, and there's kind of a fear

355
00:32:00,699 --> 00:32:05,269
that social media giants like Twitter
and Facebook might find incentive to also

356
00:32:05,269 --> 00:32:10,899
go, so it's always good to keep pressure
to... for them to the remain transparent

357
00:32:10,899 --> 00:32:18,299
about their dealings with Iran. The new
minister of ICT recently said that he had

358
00:32:18,299 --> 00:32:23,320
started negotiations with Twitter to
unfilter Twitter in Iran, however Twitter

359
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:31,029
has refused to officially reply, or say
anything. So the thing that I spend most

360
00:32:31,029 --> 00:32:37,130
of my time working on in terms of social
media discourse is Telegram, because

361
00:32:37,130 --> 00:32:42,299
Telegram is kind of an exciting new
territory in understanding social media,

362
00:32:42,299 --> 00:32:47,220
especially in Iran, because internet
penetration and Telegram usage are

363
00:32:47,220 --> 00:32:55,100
almost on par, so there's about 40 to 45
million Internet users inside of Iran, and

364
00:32:55,100 --> 00:32:59,870
according to the company Telegram, there's
about 25 million daily users and about

365
00:32:59,870 --> 00:33:04,499
40 million monthly users. 
So what this means for how

366
00:33:04,499 --> 00:33:10,020
people communicate, how people are
accessing information in Iran, is huge,

367
00:33:10,020 --> 00:33:14,520
because oftentimes everything from
shopping to staying in touch with friends

368
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,980
to getting updates on the weather and
traffic and news, it comes from Telegram

369
00:33:18,980 --> 00:33:27,299
and the public channels. So understanding
this, and how the government is responding

370
00:33:27,299 --> 00:33:31,740
to such an important application for
communication, is also really important

371
00:33:31,740 --> 00:33:38,789
and as always it's become sort of a target
for vulnerable at-risk users, for example

372
00:33:38,789 --> 00:33:44,780
a number of journalists a few years ago
were having their accounts seized through

373
00:33:44,780 --> 00:33:51,150
SMS brute-force entry, I mean through SMS
logins, they were

374
00:33:51,150 --> 00:33:59,659
able to get in, and so there's those kinds
of concerns. Telegram has been kind of

375
00:33:59,659 --> 00:34:04,619
reactive to these security flaws. When the
journalist had their accounts taken over

376
00:34:04,619 --> 00:34:10,600
through the SMS hacks, they did help
reinstate them. A few weeks ago there was

377
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:18,850
a flaw in a notification that users got in
Iran on Telegram, that hackers were able

378
00:34:18,850 --> 00:34:23,170
to sort of take over - you can see in that
picture over there - and Telegram kind of

379
00:34:23,170 --> 00:34:31,150
reacted really fast and fixed the flaw.
But the issue that a lot of digital rights

380
00:34:31,150 --> 00:34:37,760
activists on Iran find is that Telegram is
so important, and it's so crucial to how a

381
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:42,960
lot of things operate inside of Iran, yet
they're not really trying to prevent

382
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:50,760
anything, they're being much more
reactive. There's also been concerns about

383
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:56,910
how they interact with the Iranian
government as well, and... however,

384
00:34:56,910 --> 00:35:02,570
Telegram has kind of always made a...
taking a stand to say that they are not

385
00:35:02,570 --> 00:35:11,940
cooperating with the Iranian government
and... but they do say large things,

386
00:35:11,940 --> 00:35:16,790
boastful things, that they stand for
freedom of speech, yet they have failed to

387
00:35:16,790 --> 00:35:23,090
really reach out to civil society and
human rights activists for Iran and so

388
00:35:23,090 --> 00:35:28,690
there's a general kind of plea towards
this platform that's so important, for

389
00:35:28,690 --> 00:35:34,330
them to be a bit more cooperative and
prioritize these human rights concerns in

390
00:35:34,330 --> 00:35:42,860
Iran a little bit more. I was going to
slightly get into more security

391
00:35:42,860 --> 00:35:49,670
aspects of things, but I'll quickly go over
it. Obviously, there's security concerns

392
00:35:49,670 --> 00:35:55,150
with Telegram. It takes up some of the
work that I do at article 19, working with

393
00:35:55,150 --> 00:36:00,940
civil society and protecting them in that
way, so I'll just quickly go over it

394
00:36:00,940 --> 00:36:09,610
because I wanted to end on a particular
note. This is like a very... a standard

395
00:36:09,610 --> 00:36:14,570
thing I'd like to say is you don't
necessarily apply the same security

396
00:36:14,570 --> 00:36:19,230
concerns to Iran that you would here, so
just these grand statements of

397
00:36:19,230 --> 00:36:24,690
"use Signal, use TOR" often don't work.
Telegram is hugely popular, so I often say

398
00:36:24,690 --> 00:36:28,700
"why don't we work on making Telegram
safer," because users are not going to

399
00:36:28,700 --> 00:36:33,740
migrate away from it unless Signal comes
and creates a whole infrastructure

400
00:36:33,740 --> 00:36:38,380
and platform that's going to cater to
those specific needs of being both social

401
00:36:38,380 --> 00:36:44,200
media and having the different usability
features. That's really the last point

402
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:53,370
I wanted to take away with. But I also just
wanted to have one kind of message, which is

403
00:36:53,370 --> 00:36:59,130
I am super privileged to be standing
here and talking about this topic that

404
00:36:59,130 --> 00:37:07,280
I am really passionate about and I am really
grateful that I've had this opportunity,

405
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:15,410
since over the years to work on these kind
of digital rights concerns on Iran, and

406
00:37:15,410 --> 00:37:22,580
I've had certain personal hurdles in terms
of, without cutting into the nitty-gritty

407
00:37:22,580 --> 00:37:28,070
of my personal life and the things I've
had to go through, but there's been this

408
00:37:28,070 --> 00:37:34,830
general kind of mood in the past year,
with the #MeToo movement and all these

409
00:37:34,830 --> 00:37:43,800
different stories of harassment and
basically I've been really grateful to all

410
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:48,030
the people who have supported me over the
years to make sure that the hurdles I've

411
00:37:48,030 --> 00:37:54,840
had to encounter for the specific kind of
unfortunate personal events that took

412
00:37:54,840 --> 00:38:00,581
place, that have affected my career...
To really help support me and when I was

413
00:38:00,581 --> 00:38:05,310
coming to Leipzig I
was super proud to be coming to the Chaos

414
00:38:05,310 --> 00:38:11,550
Computer Club's events and the stories
I've been hearing about people who have

415
00:38:11,550 --> 00:38:18,540
been victims of harassment have really
upset me and I think it would be...

416
00:38:18,540 --> 00:38:22,520
I would be remiss to not make a point
of saying that I'm a little bit

417
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:28,080
disappointed, that I've been reading these
things, and

418
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:39,120
*Applause*

419
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:41,980
And while I really appreciate all of you

420
00:38:41,980 --> 00:38:47,840
and all the help you
give me to set up my talk and I appreciate

421
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:52,161
that I've been given this platform, but I
really hope we can do better, because this

422
00:38:52,161 --> 00:38:58,110
is just not cool. It's not cool for people
to not feel safe and I know how it feels

423
00:38:58,110 --> 00:39:04,450
personally and I hope Dina - I haven't
seen her yet, I have chatted with her

424
00:39:04,450 --> 00:39:09,620
briefly, I hope she's having a great time
at this Congress, because... and I'm

425
00:39:09,620 --> 00:39:14,170
really sorry to hear that some of... some
people that I think are doing great work

426
00:39:14,170 --> 00:39:19,390
and should be in the space are not here
this year, and I just hope we can do

427
00:39:19,390 --> 00:39:24,700
better in 2018. And that's about it. Thank
you.

428
00:39:24,700 --> 00:39:45,130
*Applause*

429
00:39:45,130 --> 00:39:46,300
Herald: Thanks for your talk. Mahsa

430
00:39:46,300 --> 00:39:51,270
Alimardani, and for your patience with our
technical problems. Thank you very much.

431
00:39:51,270 --> 00:39:56,360
Please line up at the microphones. There
are four microphones here in the room.

432
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,310
Please
line up there. We have a couple more

433
00:39:59,310 --> 00:40:02,350
minutes for Q&A. You wanna hold a Q&A? Yes?

434
00:40:02,350 --> 00:40:04,450
MA: Sure.

435
00:40:04,450 --> 00:40:06,030
H: But first, maybe there are the signal

436
00:40:06,030 --> 00:40:10,290
angels in the back. Is he waving or not,
are there any questions from the internet?

437
00:40:10,290 --> 00:40:13,730
Signal angel: No, nothing.
H: Okay, thank you. There is someone

438
00:40:13,730 --> 00:40:15,770
standing at microphone 3. What's your
question?

439
00:40:15,770 --> 00:40:21,541
Microphone 3: Hi. Thanks for your last
statement, really. Thanks a lot. My

440
00:40:21,541 --> 00:40:27,820
question would be about Instagram and
Telegram. I don't know if I missed that

441
00:40:27,820 --> 00:40:32,060
part, but does it mean that then the
Iranian government has relationships with

442
00:40:32,060 --> 00:40:36,250
them? Because you mentioned that they
help. I mean, they show these things, so

443
00:40:36,250 --> 00:40:41,720
you've been blocked and this is because of
this. So why this happens? And why is it

444
00:40:41,720 --> 00:40:46,840
only these two particular platforms? I
understood that Twitter and Facebook don't

445
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,190
cooperate. If you could say more about 
that, thanks.

446
00:40:50,190 --> 00:40:54,360
MA: yeah, that's a really great question,
and something that's been really

447
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,380
interesting. So, I think, I mentioned that
this new government the moderate Rouhani

448
00:40:58,380 --> 00:41:03,850
administration has kind of, at least in
terms of how its positioned the words it

449
00:41:03,850 --> 00:41:09,640
says, has been a bit more open to internet
freedoms and things like that. And so I think

450
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,770
one of the achievements of that government
is stopping the censorship of Instagram

451
00:41:13,770 --> 00:41:16,050
and Telegram.
Because there's lots of hardline elements

452
00:41:16,050 --> 00:41:20,780
in the establishment that have wanted this
to get censored. And it's kind of like

453
00:41:20,780 --> 00:41:24,540
come to deliberation to censor it over the
years. There have been some rumors that

454
00:41:24,540 --> 00:41:32,411
Telegram has been working with... with the
Iranian government. Although, I think that

455
00:41:32,411 --> 00:41:35,771
might be rumors, because the Ministry of
ICT every so often says that they have a

456
00:41:35,771 --> 00:41:42,170
direct relationship and then Telegram
comes and refutes it. So, yeah, that's up

457
00:41:42,170 --> 00:41:47,040
in the realm of rumours, however. But I
think it's mainly the work of this

458
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:51,490
moderate administration that's been able
to prevent the censorship. If that answers

459
00:41:51,490 --> 00:41:53,030
your question.
M3: So they are in connection

460
00:41:53,030 --> 00:41:58,210
with Instagram?
MA: No, there are as far as I know they're

461
00:41:58,210 --> 00:42:02,100
not working with Instagram. Instagram is
owned by Facebook, so Facebook is

462
00:42:02,100 --> 00:42:06,830
censored. But, I mean there could be many
different reasons but these are all

463
00:42:06,830 --> 00:42:11,980
conjecture. Instagram is just kind of more
for entertainment, so they have less of a

464
00:42:11,980 --> 00:42:18,780
reason to block it, but also the work of
this moderate administration to kind of

465
00:42:18,780 --> 00:42:22,480
keep Instagram going. Although, for a
short while during the elections they were

466
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,230
blocking Instagram live, because it was
being used for like protests and

467
00:42:27,230 --> 00:42:35,130
gatherings and things like that.
H: Microphone number 1 please.

468
00:42:35,130 --> 00:42:37,750
Microphone 1: Mahsa I just wanted to thank
you for you for your talk, and also

469
00:42:37,750 --> 00:42:40,920
appearing persevering through all the
adversity. Not only of nation state

470
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,270
actors but of also people inside the
community that might.

471
00:42:43,270 --> 00:42:45,230
H: Come a little bit closer to the
microphone please.

472
00:42:45,230 --> 00:42:47,830
M3: Sure. I just wanted to say
thank you for persevering through all the

473
00:42:47,830 --> 00:42:51,700
adversity that has come your way, and for
being here today to give this talk. It's

474
00:42:51,700 --> 00:42:58,550
important and vital and your voice is
valued. The question about Iran in a

475
00:42:58,550 --> 00:43:03,640
geopolitical landscape as its exerting
itself more in Yemen, Lebanon, perhaps

476
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:07,320
other places. Do you see that the
technology that's being pioneered by the

477
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:13,250
state apparatuses, the state bodies inside
of, inside of Tehran and Iran, will have a

478
00:43:13,250 --> 00:43:19,410
trickle-down effect into other countries,
that may replicate the oppressive

479
00:43:19,410 --> 00:43:24,980
structures in which that Iran has placed?
Do you see it being a model, as Iran

480
00:43:24,980 --> 00:43:28,850
geopolitically exerts this muscle? Well,
do you see that some of these the

481
00:43:28,850 --> 00:43:33,080
technical sophistication and other things
will be picked up by other actors in the

482
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:36,800
region?
A: Yeah, that's a good question. I think

483
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:41,100
Iran would like to have the technical
sophistication that would be replicated

484
00:43:41,100 --> 00:43:47,460
elsewhere. And I guess in some ways the
capabilities are some that you're on cyber

485
00:43:47,460 --> 00:43:52,690
Iran cyber army which is kind of very hard
to associate directly with the government,

486
00:43:52,690 --> 00:43:56,990
because sometimes the affiliations are
very loose. They have certain

487
00:43:56,990 --> 00:44:01,520
capabilities, but in terms of the
technology, I think, for censorship and

488
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:06,580
surveillance, I think Iran more models
itself on the technology coming out of

489
00:44:06,580 --> 00:44:11,520
China and Russia. Because they have had
more effective and more sophisticated

490
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,430
platforms and means of doing it. So, I
think it's a little bit the other way

491
00:44:15,430 --> 00:44:20,210
around.
H: Microphone number 1 please.

492
00:44:20,210 --> 00:44:26,330
Microphone 1: Thank you for your talk.
You, if I'm not wrong, you mentioned some

493
00:44:26,330 --> 00:44:35,650
government supporters being arrested. Is
this correct? Do you see any kind of clash

494
00:44:35,650 --> 00:44:41,740
between the Revolutionary Guard or the
religious power and the government?

495
00:44:41,740 --> 00:44:46,900
MA: Yeah, absolutely. I mean after the
nuclear negotiations the foreign minister

496
00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:52,060
Javad Zarif, who is like kind a little
bit westernized, he speaks perfect

497
00:44:52,060 --> 00:44:57,950
English. And he had, he has a huge fan
base in Iran because he established the

498
00:44:57,950 --> 00:45:02,380
nuclear deal. He had like almost physical
confrontations in Parliament with the

499
00:45:02,380 --> 00:45:08,470
hardline elements. So, yeah there
definitely is that, and the reason why

500
00:45:08,470 --> 00:45:12,521
some of the Telegram administrators, who
are actually supporters of Rouhani, were

501
00:45:12,521 --> 00:45:16,990
arrested is because of this kind of clash
between hardline elements like the

502
00:45:16,990 --> 00:45:22,310
Revolutionary Guards and the more moderate
administration. So, there is this kind of,

503
00:45:22,310 --> 00:45:24,970
yeah, differentiation and nuance that
happens.

504
00:45:24,970 --> 00:45:30,140
H: I guess we're moving to the last
question at microphone number 3 please.

505
00:45:30,140 --> 00:45:33,100
M3: Oh hey. I just want to ask a question.

506
00:45:33,100 --> 00:45:36,291
What can we... First of all
thank you for your great talk, it was very

507
00:45:36,291 --> 00:45:42,170
well researched and great information and
for your very brave proclamation. What can

508
00:45:42,170 --> 00:45:46,510
we in the room do, other than fund your
work? Can we put pressure on the companies

509
00:45:46,510 --> 00:45:52,440
that, you know, work inside of Iran? Can
we put pressure on the governments of the

510
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:57,940
nations we're citizens in? What's the next
step for people who are listening and want

511
00:45:57,940 --> 00:46:01,990
to do something? Thank you.
MA: Yeah, I mean especially if you're not

512
00:46:01,990 --> 00:46:06,430
American, I think, *laughs*, Iranian
government would be more open to hearing

513
00:46:06,430 --> 00:46:10,360
kind of the non-western perspective. But I
think the reason why I think it's so

514
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:14,640
important to be here in Europe, is because
Europe is actively engaging in dialogue

515
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:18,830
with Iran. So, if there's way to put
pressure through the different companies

516
00:46:18,830 --> 00:46:23,610
that are going into Iran, like I mentioned
there's you know the British Vodafone and

517
00:46:23,610 --> 00:46:28,061
like Frances Orange that are going in. If
they can make certain demands for, you

518
00:46:28,061 --> 00:46:33,680
know, human rights standards and things
like that. That would be, that would also

519
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:38,380
be really great. I mean campaigning and
putting pressure different ways through

520
00:46:38,380 --> 00:46:45,300
social media is always helpful. The main
thing that I think we could perhaps have

521
00:46:45,300 --> 00:46:50,650
effect on is, hopefully a company like
Telegram is listening and they can make

522
00:46:50,650 --> 00:46:56,630
the security and privacy of Iranians one
of them one of their bigger priorities. So

523
00:46:56,630 --> 00:47:03,170
that's really the place that I think can
have the most change, because we can have

524
00:47:03,170 --> 00:47:08,460
more, we can have easier dialogue with
like Facebook, Telegram and all these

525
00:47:08,460 --> 00:47:13,060
different platforms to ensure that privacy
and security is upheld.

526
00:47:13,060 --> 00:47:18,140
H: Mahsa Alimardani, thank you very much
for the talk. And please give her a warm

527
00:47:18,140 --> 00:47:19,819
round of applause.

528
00:47:19,819 --> 00:47:26,238
*Applause*

529
00:47:26,238 --> 00:47:47,141
*Music*