VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > VOIP Tech Chat > Iran cuts off internet, thus perhaps VoIP as well.

Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without access to email and social networks.

A source inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email are no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption.

But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.

"The interesting thing is that when asked, they deny the fact that all these services are all blocked," an Iranian contacted by CNET said. This individual asked to remain unidentified.

However, the Iranian noted that the regime has cut off the Internet during protests and that the buzz on the streets is that anti-government protests are planned for Saturday.

Last month the country's information minister told the Islamic Republic News Agency that a firewalled national Internet would soon become operational. There was no word on when the government might plan to throw the switch on what essentially would be a vast "intranet," but it could happen any day. And that prospect has cyber activists in Iran concerned. It would give the government a hand up in its cyber cat-and-mouse battle with opponents....

Iran has cut off access to the Internet

But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.

Iran Shut Down Gmail , Google , Yahoo and sites using “Https” Protocol
Base on reports received from Iran , governments has blocked access to the major sites plus websites using certain “Https” protocol .

At the same time nobody can even use banking websites in Iran because all of them using “Https” to encode the sensetive data .

Most of Internet providers companies applied this restriction on their users from yesterday . We received reports from many major cities including but not limited to Mash’had , Rasht , Tehran , Bushehr , Karaj , Shiraz and Isfahan .

Gmail , Google(all the associated services) and Yahoo are affected by this limitation . Also BMI.ir , BPI.ir and Parsian-Bank.com serving online banking services can not be used at this situation . Online gateways are affected too .

People estimate this condition will be continue until Esfand(next month in Persian calender) after the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Those with moderate technical abilities should be able to bypass this.

VPN connections will of course not work without access to the internet, unless used only locally on a LAN.

It's a shame that Charles Cooper, an executive editor at CNET News, doesn't know that.

The Iranian government has blocked access to Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Facebook. That is not the same as cutting off access to the Internet.

All they need is an SSH server sitting outside of Iran, an ssh client connected to the SSH server configured to enable a SOCKS proxy, and FoxyProxy add-on installed in Firefox to use the SOCKS proxy. Heck, if the want to proxy ALL traffic, FoxyProxy isn't even needed.

Those with moderate technical abilities should be able to bypass this.

After all, the CNET folks are supposed to know their stuff.

I agree. We all know that most Iranians do have an SSH server sitting outside of Iran. The same is also the case for most Americans, they do have an SSH server sitting outside of the US.

If I lived in a country that had ambitions to do this, I certainly would have some contingency plan. Blocking internet traffic wasn't some spur of the moment idea.