Iran Internet Filtering with the help of Western firms

www.opennet.net
The use of social media and internet has been at the centre of international reporting on Iran. As many foreign reporters were octracized or forced to stay in their hotel their newsrooms resorted to the Iranian blogosphere. May articles have been published on the battle of the Internet, describing the cat and mouse "game"between the regime and its opponents.
To understand better how the regime controls the web and the blogosphere I advise you to read the report just published by the OpenNet Initiative, a joint venture of four prestigious universities (Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford and Toronto).
Amon the many interesting details provided by the report there is one short reference to the role played by some Western firms in helping the Iranian authorities to monitor communications and therefore to spy on and intercept messages by dissidents or protesters.
The formulation of the report is cautious but it raises an important issue: "In 2008, two European companies reportedly sold a sophisticated electronic surveillance system capable of monitoring Internet use that could be utilized for tracking and monitoring the activities of human rights organizations and political dissidents. TCI (the state-controlled Telecommunications Company of Iran) is said to have received the equipment from Nokia Siemens networks, a joint venture between the Finnish cell phone maker and the German company Siemens".
The Committee to protect bloggers (www.committeetoprotectbloggers.org) has more on that issue.