How did Iran shut down the internet (and why Musk’s offer is useless)

There is a precise reason why authoritarian governments, at times when they are faced with protests and riots, increasingly decide to block access to the internet. As Isik Mater, digital rights activist and director of the NetBlocks observatory, explained, referring to the Iranian case, “the internet is one of the main tools that the Iranian authorities have in their hands when riots break out. Since there are no private and independent broadcasters in Iran, the network is the only place where protesters can make their voices heard ”.

The network, the web, messaging platforms and social networks become the tools for organizing the protest, documenting what is happening and spreading it all over the world. And it is precisely for this reason that in recent years internet blackouts have occurred in a large number of countries: Myanmar, Uganda, Colombia, Ecuador, Turkey, Russia, Sudan, Indonesia and more. According to an AccessNow report, dozens and dozens of nations have blocked, in whole or in part, citizens’ access to the network in 2021 alone.

In short, what was an exception a few years ago is becoming the norm. And now it is Iran’s turn again, which had already faced the internet blockade in 2019. Following the revolt caused by the killing of Mahsa Amini, the authorities of the Theocratic Republic have in fact cut off access to numerous digital platforms throughout the nation, affecting most of the nation’s 80 million inhabitants.

Major email services are blocked. The same goes for messaging platforms like Signal or Whatsapp and for social networks like Instagram, one of the few still active in the country (access to Facebook and Twitter has only been possible for years using VPNs). In short, for the Iranian authorities it is sufficient to order internet service providers to block the flow of data from certain digital services (the same method used by the Great Firewall of China).

The Tehran government, however, has gone even further: for years it has in fact heavily invested in the creation of an infrastructure (known as Halal Net) essentially composed of the so-called “kill switches”. These are real switches that reduce control of the entire network to a few access points, allowing a single authority to limit or prevent access to the entire internet.

However, the operation is more complex than one might think. Already in 2019, it had taken Iran over 24 hours to put the internet blocking into effect. “Cutting off internet access isn’t as simple as flipping a switch,” Slate explained at the time. “Instead, it involves isolating connections by acting on a limited number of transit points within a country, thereby blocking traffic at those points or instructing external routers, which transfer traffic from international servers in the country in question, that that traffic can no longer be delivered to the intended recipients “.

The operation takes time and is subject to errors and countermeasures, for this reason it is sometimes possible to bypass the block. Furthermore, disconnecting an entire country from the internet is all the more difficult as there are numerous internet service providers with international connections in the country (and in Iran there are at least six of them).

As noted, Elon Musk tried to remedy the blocking of the internet in Iran by activating the satellite network technology of his Starlinks and making it available in Iran. Exploiting Musk’s system, however, is much more complex than one might think: ground-based receivers are in fact required to obtain the satellite signal. “While it is possible to smuggle Starlink hardware into the country, getting a significant amount of these systems would be an incredible feat,” explains The Intercept, “especially now that the Iranian government has been informed of the intentions via Twitter.”

The same plan was successful in Ukraine because the government welcomed the opportunity offered by Musk with open arms. The Iranian case is instead the opposite: not only does the government have every interest in hindering the arrival of Starlink receivers in the country, but it would also be easily able to identify the points where these are being used, endangering users (reason for which Musk was also accused of being just advertising).

So what? Desperate demands are coming from Iranian activists to international tech giants to “do everything” to keep the network active. On GitHub you can even find projects for the creation of a clandestine infrastructure: a feat that is almost impossible to complete due to the necessary technical skills and potential risks. However, the fact that solutions of this type are being designed gives a measure of how crucial it is for protesters and activists to keep the internet connection up: “Our concern”, they explained to the BBC, “is that the world will forget Iran. as soon as the regime has completed the shutdown of the internet, as is actually already happening ”.