Internet in Iran disrupted ahead of elections, again

A little under two weeks ago, Iran, which already has a pretty guarded Internet, started blocking the Internet more, so that people who were using special connections to access e-mail and sites, like Google Docs were not able to access those generic sites, at all. According to reports, Internet services were once again blocked in Iran on Monday and many fear that it is government censorship that is taking place, just ahead of elections. This time it seems that all websites that utilize the Secure Socket Protocol are affected. Sites whose addresses begin with 'https' do not seem to open, according to a technology expert based in Tehran who wished to remain unnamed. The expert said, "The situation regarding accessing these websites is even worse than last week because the VPNs are not working."

Iran's internet access comes to a standstill again

Many Iranians use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to connect to websites that would otherwise be unaccessible through the wall that the government set up. Sites that are normally not accessible are news websites as well as social networks, like Facebook. The elections that are taking place are parliamentary elections and they will happen on the 2nd of March. This is the first time, since 2009 that Iran has had a national election. Internet in Iran has been firewalled, since the election in 2009 when many citizens used social networks to protest against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government was accused of fraud in the election and when they denied the accusation, large scale street protests took place. The protests were eventually brought to an end by the security service after eight months.

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