Nokia Siemens helps Iran monitor calls and messages

BBC:

As protests continue in Iran, details are emerging of the technology used to monitor its citizens.

Iran is well known for filtering the net, but the government has moved to do the same for mobile phones.

Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls.

It told the BBC that it sold a product called the Monitoring Centre to Iran Telecom in the second half of 2008.

Nokia Siemens, a joint venture between the Finnish and German companies, supplied the system to Iran through its Intelligent Solutions business, which was sold in March 2009 to Perusa Partners Fund 1LP, a German investment firm.

The product allows authorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic.

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Nokia Siemens markets the Monitoring Centre product to 150 countries around the world where it does business. The firm says it does not supply the system to China or to Burma.

The phone monitoring system sits side-by-side with the extensive net filtering system Iran has constructed in recent years.

Traffic in and out of Iran is largely controlled by Iran Telecom. On 13 June, the day after presidential elections, data traffic come to an almost complete halt, according to analysis by network security firm Arbor Networks.

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I think Iran belongs in the pariah state category for this kind of technology. In the ranks of rogues I would put Iran ahead of China at this point. At this point though it Iran is not having much success at sealing its message traffic at the borders and it continues to suffer a poor image as a result. In fact by shutting off the outside media, Iran is not getting its story out very effectively, while the demonstrators are getting their message out unfiltered,