DUBAI — Millions of Iranians    have suffered serious disruption recently in accessing email    and Internet social networking sites, raising concerns    authorities are stepping up censorship of opposition supporters    ahead of parliamentary elections next month.  
    Iranians have grappled with increased obstacles to using the    Internet since opposition supporters used social networking    sites to organize widespread protests after the disputed 2009    re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  
    The country is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on    March 2, the first time Iranians will go to the polls since    President Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election. The government    denied any fraud in the vote, which ignited street protests    that were crushed violently by security services after eight    months.  
    The new Internet blockade affected the most common form of    secure connections from Friday, according to outside experts    and Iranian bloggers. Traffic was said to have returned to    normal on Monday. "I haven't been able to open pages for days    but now it's working again, although slowly," said Hamid Reza,    a 20-year-old student in Tehran, who was reluctant to give his    surname.  
    The cut-off appeared to target all encrypted international    websites outside Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer    protocol, which display addresses beginning with https,    according to Earl Zmijewski of Renesys, a U.S. company that    tracks Internet traffic worldwide.  
    Google, which uses SSL for its Gmail service, reported that    traffic from Iran to its email system fell precipitously.  
    Iran's Ministry of Communications and Technology denied knowing    of the disruption, saying the origin was elsewhere.  
    "The government is testing different tools," said Hamed    Behravan, who reports on Iranian technology issues for the U.S.    government-funded Voice of America. "They might have wanted to    see the public reaction."  
    NATIONAL INTERNET SYSTEM?  
    Many Iranians are concerned the government may be preparing to    unveil its much documented national internet system,    effectively giving the authorities total control over what    content Iranian users will be able to access.  
    The authorities say it is designed to speed up the system and    filter out sites that are regarded as "unclean."  
    "The Internet is an uninvited guest which has entered our    country," said Mohammad Reza Aghamiri, a member of the Iranian    government's Internet filtering committee, "and because of its    numerous problems, severe supervision is required."  
    He told the daily Arman that Internet search engines like    Google were a threat to the country.  
    "We have never considered Google as appropriate to serve    Iranian users, because Google is at the service of the CIA," he    said. "It has adopted a vivid hostile stance against us."  
    Opposition supporters believe Iranian authorities were    targeting their attempts to hold a rally calling on the    government to release leaders of the opposition Green movement,    Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.  
    The two leaders were placed under house arrest on February 14    last year after they urged their supporters to join a rally in    support of uprisings across the Arab world.  
    Iranian authorities have vowed to quell any public protest    against the protracted house arrest of Mousavi and Karoubi.  
    "It could just be a coincidence but my guess is that the system    was looking to block communication between opposition    supporters," said an Iranian analyst who did not want to be    named.  
    The disruption has riled some Iranian members of parliament and    they have vowed to look for those responsible.  
    An MP, Ahmad Tavakoli, told the semi-official Mehr News Agency    that the issue was creating widespread discontent that could    "cost the establishment dearly."  
    "This filtering leads people to break the law, and using    proxies makes the blocking of sites and signals ineffective,    because using proxies becomes widespread," he said.  
    Authoritarian Arab governments under popular pressure have    sought to shut down Internet service to make it harder for    opponents to mobilize protests, but with little success.  
    Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters.     Click for restrictions.  
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Iran's Internet severely disrupted as elections loom