Iran cuts 95% of Internet traffic

Thu Nov 21 19:06:53 UTC 2019

--- eric.kuhnke at gmail.com wrote:
From: Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke at gmail.com>

The vast majority of Iranian ISPs' international transit 
connectivity is through AS12880 DCI , which is a government 
run telecom authority. Google "AS12880 DCI Iran" for more 
info. DCI is also responsible for layer 2 transport and 
DWDM services for smaller downstream ISPs, on other
international terrestrial fiber links, which are opaque to 
us NANOG list people from the perspective of global v4/v6 
routing table/prefix announcement analysis.
---------------------------------------------

Quoting a journalist, so....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/21/irans-digital-shutdown-other-regimes-will-be-watching-closely

First quote out of order from the article:

"Internet penetration and complexity has vastly grown in Iran 
over the past decade, but the country’s users still connect 
to the global network through just two gateways. Both are 
controlled by the regime, and can be blocked when it chooses."

<There's the problem. My company alone has more than two...>

"Access to the internet is gradually being restored in Iran 
after an unprecedented five-day shutdown that cut its population 
off from the rest of the world and suppressed news of the 
deadliest unrest since the country’s 1979 revolution."

"The internet-freedom group Access Now recorded 75 internet
outages in 2016, which more than doubled to 196 last year."

"Iranians were cut off from the global internet, but 
internally, networks appeared to be functioning relatively 
normally."

"the Iranian government has been working to develop the 
so-called “halal net”, a closed-off version of the internet 
similar to China’s “great firewall”. Iran has been 
pressuring businesses to shift their operations inside the 
country on to what it calls the National Information Network, 
which now boasts its own banking platforms, industrial 
services and messaging apps – ones that activists believe 
are closely surveilled by authorities."

<RFC 1984>

"The Trump sanctions have actually made it easier for Iran 
to seal its citizens off from the global internet ... Many 
Iranian tech firms have been left with no option but to use 
the Islamic Republic’s internal network and infrastructure 
instead."  (reordered quote)

"The last time Iran attempted to choke off access, during 
unrest in January 2018, it was forced to open connections 
again after just 30 minutes, Rashidi says.

“It was a disaster,” he says. “Nothing was working: all 
the government offices, hospitals, financial services 
were gone ... they’ve discovered a lot of things do need 
access to the outside world”

This time, it appears to have gone more smoothly: two 
sources able to monitor internet traffic inside Iran 
confirmed to the Guardian there was no significant 
disruption, indicating hospitals, financial software 
and even ride-sharing apps were still able to function, 
even as Iranians were unable to connect to websites 
such as Google."

"Other authoritarian governments are pursuing a similar 
path. This month, Russia implemented a new law requiring 
ISPs to install equipment better able to identify the 
source of web traffic, as part of a strategy to one day 
be able to completely re-route the Russian internet 
through state-controlled data points."

<RFC 1984>  :)

“Regimes around the world will be watching very closely 
both the public response and the response of the 
international community,” he says. “If it turns out 
this is feasible to implement, they will see there is 
no political cost.”

scott