There’s dealing with internet comments, and then there’s this. According to a statement from Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, Iran will be shutting off access to the world wide in around five months, as it flips the switch on a nationwide “intranet” that’ll act like one of the more strict corporate firewalls you may have come in contact with. The reason? It’s looking to provide its citizens access to “a clean internet,” which is loosely translated into “an internet sans freedom.” Instead of providing access to Google, Gmail and Hotmail, users will have to register for an Iran Mail ID — which “mandates authentic information pertaining to a person’s identity, including national ID, address and full name.” Evidently, it’s all to prevent access to the internet that exists today — one that “promotes crime, disunity, unhealthy moral content, and atheism” in Taghipour’s mind. Crazily enough, he’s right about all of that, but it’s a small price to pay for access to things like this, no?

Iran swapping internet for intranet in August, this post to vanish there soon after originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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