Iran’s Blackout Shows New, Automated Censorship Power (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: For this week's show I was trying to think of what we could kind of discuss and the only thing that I'd seen on my social media was one story, the Iran protest. Yeah, me too. It's all over like my socials, my feeds. So that's kind of the only thing that I see that is kind of trending that is kind of worth us talking about. I mean, what are we on the eighth day of an internet blackout?

[00:00:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're about to enter the eighth day. And this is something I wanted to look into. You know, in the past, this isn't the first time Iran's shut down their internet, but in the past we've been able to get messages in and out, be it intermittently, but I know some of our colleagues have been able to, but for me it's been complete silence, not being able to talk to some of my family I have in Iran. So I really wanted to dive into this and figure out why the shutdown is happening, the, you know, the tech behind it. So let's watch that. I'm sure there'll be a lot to discuss on the back of it. Iran is experiencing one of the most severe internet shutdowns we've ever seen. Independent monitoring groups like NetBlock show that Iran's connectivity dropped significantly on January 8th, effectively cutting some 90 million people off from the outside world.

[00:01:15] Speaker 3: In Iran, we've seen that internet connectivity has been disrupted and service is really highly limited. There's a baseline of connectivity around 1% of ordinary levels that we've tracked before.

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: What is that 1%?

[00:01:30] Speaker 3: We understand that authorities have reserved an amount of connectivity for their own uses. This might be to track what's happening externally, outside the country, or to publish posts and online content to tell their version of events to the outside world.

[00:01:49] Speaker 2: This isn't the first time that Iran has shut down their internet, but experts say this time around is a lot more sophisticated.

[00:01:56] Speaker 3: So it's amongst the most severe internet disruptions we've tracked around the world. If we look at 2019, we see that, you know, the capability is there, the ability to switch off networks. But we saw that this was quite a manual process. It was basically a central authority picking up the phone, instructing individual operators to switch off service. And then fast forward to 2025, during the Israel-Iran war, and you now see near total automation of the process. So this is the gateway, really automating the process of switching off the network. And it's almost an instantaneous process at that point.

[00:02:34] Speaker 2: Toker says in the past, many Iranians were able to get around these restrictions using software like VPNs or even driving to the borders to connect to neighboring countries' cell towers. He added that those methods no longer work reliably as government censorship has evolved and monitoring has become increasingly dangerous. So some people have placed their hope in satellite internet terminals like Elon Musk's Starlink, which can bypass local telecom networks. But even when satellite signals are available, accessing from the ground still remains the biggest challenge.

[00:03:08] Speaker 4: Using a Starlink itself is not a difficult thing to do. It's just you have a satellite, you're putting it, you connect some cable and push some buttons and that's it. The problem is you need to have that device in a country like Iran. This is not something that you can go to the market and easily purchase. We're talking about authoritarian country. In this context, even purchasing this kind of technology is a big challenge, is a huge challenge. There is market, black market, but again, it's difficult. Plus, it's very expensive. So you can imagine how much money a family or a group of people need to pay for the device and also to pay for the subscription.

[00:03:56] Speaker 2: On January 13th, Starlink began extending free access for users in Iran. And experts tell CNN that they believe there may be some 50,000 Starlink receivers in the country. But using Starlink can be incredibly risky as terminals can be detected and users can be identified if protection methods fail. Experts also say there's evidence to show that Iran is disrupting the satellite connection itself. It's something that we've never seen this regime do in the past.

[00:04:23] Speaker 3: There have been clear attempts to jam connectivity, Starlink terminals. And we've also seen this during the Ukraine, Russia's war in Ukraine. So it very much looks like a transplant of the same type of jamming technology. It looks at the same level of sophistication, possibly indicating information sharing between Russia and Iran.

[00:04:44] Speaker 2: One hopeful technology that could help the people of Iran circumvent government restrictions is direct-to-sell, which means users could bypass the hardware terminals on the ground and connect their mobiles directly to the satellites.

[00:04:57] Speaker 3: Direct-to-sell satellite technology is a very compelling technology. This is the great idea, the dream of internet freedom, that you could beam internet into a country. People's phones would light up and they'll be able to communicate and restore democracy in that country. Now, it's not quite there yet. This needs a new generation of satellites. These satellites are much bigger than the previous generation of Starlink satellites. Nevertheless, some of them are in orbit and have been trialed, are in use. But I think it's fairly clear that these satellites aren't in the right orbit right now to supply that to Iran. So switching it on is not necessarily a capability that exists right now.

[00:05:43] Speaker 2: It is worth mentioning that none of these options replace a fully functioning internet. And they all carry serious risk. We don't know when or if internet access will be restored in Iran. But as the country remains dark, one thing is clear. Silence is being imposed at a time when people are trying to be heard.

[00:06:04] Speaker 5: You guys mentioned at the top that this blackout is now into its eighth day. And we heard from one of the experts there that he said it's one of the most severe that he's seen. You said you have family there for people like you, people around the world that are trying to get in touch with family and check on their well-being. It must be quite scary. Is there any indication of how long it could go on for?

[00:06:23] Speaker 2: That's the problem. We don't really know. And Iranian media, closely affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, so take it how you will, said yesterday that it could take up to two weeks until they reach a decision if they'll restore internet based on the relevant authorities. So who knows what that means? Who knows how long it could take? But Iranian media is saying two weeks, potentially.

[00:06:47] Speaker 1: I had no idea about what he said, that Starlink could be jammed like that, because I had obviously done a lot of research. I remember, yeah. For that piece I did in December, I had no idea that that was even possible. Do we know any more about that?

[00:07:01] Speaker 2: Well, this is what we spent most of our time talking about, because obviously it requires a lot of sophistication to be able to do this. And it's not like what they're doing with their mobile networks, where they can just flip a switch and turn everything off. They have to kind of geolocate and jam in specific locations or neighbourhoods. So, you know, seeing that they're doing this, we know now that there's this level of sophistication. And people, anytime you turn on a Starlink terminal in Iran, you're risking your life because it's contraband, it's illegal. So, you know, that's something to watch as well. And people on the inside have to be careful with.

[00:07:36] Speaker 5: I definitely know the least about Starlink, the three of us. But that was the first time I was hearing of that direct to sell. Tell me, I mean, as somebody that doesn't know much about that, give me an explanation.

[00:07:48] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, Alp said it, you know, brilliantly. He's like, this is the dream when it comes to mobile connection. We're a couple of years away from it. He mentioned there's some satellites in orbit that have the capabilities, but it's mainly for like SOS signals in case someone's hiking and they're in trouble, and it will send them an SMS. It's really difficult to use this technology where it is right now to be able to, let's say, upload protest videos from inside Iran. So, you know, some experts say this could take five, six more years until we have enough of these specific type of satellites in the sky to actually use for, you know, what we use our mobile networks for.

[00:08:27] Speaker 5: Very, very concise explanation.

[00:08:30] Speaker 2: One to watch over the next couple of days and weeks.