Nokia Siemens and Iran, USA uses exact same technology to monitor its citizens
I have been watching developments closely on this non issue around Nokia’s involvement in supplying Nokia Siemens switching for mobile communications equipment to Iran.
I think Nokia’s behavior in the whole sordid issue has been exemplary given that the so called monitoring equipment (intercept) is supplied by every Mobile switch manufacturer at every installation on the planet.
U.S. Government Has Same Wireless Monitoring Ability as Iran (businessWeek)
Now that we have the usual rent a mob who know zero about the technology starting a fucking dumb campaign with an anti Nokia twist I feel I have to comment.
“It’s hard to tell whether the problem is ignorance or hypocrisy, but Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are making fools of themselves with their war on Nokia Siemens for supplying the Iranian government with equipment that lets authorities monitor wireless phone calls and data transmissions”
This monitoring (Calea) has been in existence since 1994 in the USA and if the equipment was supplied by USA firms it would have the exact same monitoring tools onboard.
An excellent release from Nokia hopefully will put paid to this rent a mob.
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17 comments...What do you think?
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I agree, the functions of the equipment are to be expected to be present to comply with the current global market and situation.
One may argue that they should not have made the deal with a repressive regime in the first place, but how else would there be any reliable and consistent communication for the people of this regime created without such a system.
The pressure on Siemens and Nokia is sparked by the Iranian use of the ability, but the real question is probably something that has to go even further in the international society.
How much freedom are we willing to sacrifice for our own protection?
To blame Siemens and Nokia is to blame the producer of any item that can be used for bad purpose, and I could use a baseball bat to kill someone, but does that make the producer responsible? No, it does not. It is not the gun or the bullet that kills, it’s the person pulling the trigger.
Pat:
In international diplomacy I am a great fan of keeping the door ajar if not wide open. It helps us monitor what goes on on the other side of the door. Prior examples of excluding countries from having access to “western” technologies have shown that such denial only leads to the “deprived” nations creating their own indigenous technologies. In one fell swoop, we not only enable them, we also give them a sense of national pride which makes it harder to re-open any negotiations.
Besides living in the UK, where I fear my bowel movements are monitored by some listening device planted in my septic tank, means we can hardly worry about other countries surveilling their citizens. :-/
would they prefer iranians to not have access to mobile phone services? idiots.
Morning Pat,
Firstly: These thoughts are my own and not of my employed NSN, etc etc.
The issues here are: 1) the “dual usage” of telecommunications equipment, and 2) should NSN, as a company have sold *any* mobile phone network equipment to the Iranian company.
Firstly, I see no difference between using a mobile phone switch and using PGP – both have export restrictions (http://is.gd/1jMzx). Both can be used for “good” and for “bad”. Both have certain requirements by certain governments for the “keys of the castle”.
India recently wanted RIM to allow them to monitor the “encrypted” data traffic, that is supposed to be private. http://is.gd/1jMvU
What happened? RIM caved in.
The same Iranian network that is being monitored (like Vodafone in Ireland, like Verizon in US) is the same network that is being used by people inside Iran to get news to the outside world. The same network that is carrying their encrypted traffic to outside news companies. The same network that is sending video to youtube.
I think it is better to supply that pipe, and allow the people to protect their messages themselves, than to not supply it and leave them suffer with no outside help.
Anyway, my personal opinion is: if people really want change, they should be lobbying for the removal of LIE (Legal Interception Equipment) requirement from communications networks. Period.
ALL governments have legal requirements for LIE. Granted, they also have tight regulations for the use of this monitoring.
As a good explanation on how LIE requests are supposed to work, I’d suggest having a read of this good post: http://twurl.nl/klpbmm
In Ireland, this is how legal interception requests are also supposed to work.
Aside from the complete incorrect information in alot of the articles, you know as well as I do, the requirement to monitor ALL traffic in real-time is something that is not possible with a network of any large size.
Mobile phone network equipment has 3 basic functions: receive requests for calls, make a decision on where it is to route the call, and then process that request, in real-time.
It is designed for those 3 functions, not real-time monitoring also.
Hence, the “requirement” for seperate monitoring equipment.
Nokia Siemens Networks does not have any Deep Packet Inspection equipment. Period.
We do however have standard equipment that most operators the world over have. As do Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Nortel. For an explanation of Legal Interception functions, wikipedia does a decent job of explaining: http://is.gd/1jN6N
You’ll find the full blog post by Ben Roome of NSN here: http://blogs.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news/2009/06/22/provision-of-lawful-intercept-capability-in-iran/ and you’ll find the full official press release by NSN
here:
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm
bernard
Mincing words as usual – why don’t you tell us what you REALLY think, Pat?
Personally, I think this should be used to make people in western (read: assumed to be “free”) countries conscious of how they are being monitored in their own backyard. The rampant surveillance culture of the UK is downright egregious. But while Britain is the most demonstrably reckless with government authority to snoop, it is not alone with all their CCTV cameras and assumed rights to invade individuals’ privacy. It’s time people in “liberated” countries took more notice of this.
I do not know enough about this situation to give an in depth opinion, but would like to say that there is a very fine line when it comes to technology being used by oppressive regimes. This post reminded me of this
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
This is an extreme example but it does highlight the moral implications of certain commercial decisions
As the comments above indicate, Pat, the situation isn’t that simple. A number of the complicating factors are discussed in detail in two posts at http://www.csrlaw.org, which raises above all the same dual use concern that Fiscal Student and Bernhard mention.
rent-a-mobi surely?
I like Turtles
You’re right in the need of this system for regular Police function. But the problem begins when NSN provides a system that could goes far above and beyond what a normal Police force requires. What police force in the world requires such a spec for 70 million people nation? They did indeed have a choice to carefully design their offer, and they well knew what they were getting into. But they choose to go ahead with it anyway.
And now, consumers in Iran and else where are responding to these reckless business practices. I this the public is teaching the companies that choose to work with regimes of this sort a lesson in citizenship.
Loved your article..
Ignorance made them think like this..
so simple… Monitoring is server side not client side..
so what ever phone you would have the switch will monitor the calls/SMS/MMS/GPRS/Location…
moreover, what so ever the vendor was either NSN/Ericsson/Moto/Haw.. they would need to follow the Iranian government by suppling lawful intercept functionality on the switch..
If you are afraid on your privacy dont use technology.. even my comment can be tracked from which IP address posted then i will be caught
the fact that the us, eu or other democratic countries may use the same technology does not make it OK for nokia to sell it to an oppressive regime whose intent is clearly to use it to maintain its status. In a democratic country you can write in an sms or say on the phone that your president is an ass, your government is evil, you can organise protests and so on without this amounting to you being detained or imprisoned or even questioned. In Iran a paranoid authority is rounding up people for yelling “God is great” from their rooftops. So imagine how they would use a monitoring technology. Definitely not for the protection or safety of the population. There may be abuse of hte monitoring system in western countries as well but it doesn’t even come close to the situation in Iran.
In another article somebody mentioned that this technology is absolutely neccessary for the functioning of the network. Is this true?
I think whoever has written this article is making a fool of himself/herself. Because USA’s goal was never to stop the monitoring equipment, but to stop Iran’s progress in communication technologies. USA wants to increase the risk for doing business with Iran. If America can make companies embarrassed when they are doing business with Iran then Iran will have a hard time to modernize its infra structure. Actually Iran has been one of the top spenders on communication infrastructure in recent years and USA wants to stop that. The whole reason for that is Iran should be stopped from becoming a modern technological country. Though mullahs are not fools either and they have been heavily investing in education and research so much so that Iran today has the world’s fastest growth rate in science and technology.