Funded by Open Tech Fund (see: https://www.opentech.fund/fellows/melinda-cohoon/), Digital Iran Reloaded takes on new concerns: internet access in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The funding period begins February 2024, and ends in January 2025.
Digital Iran focuses on gamers as a framework to study internet access in the IRI, which will lead to a comprehensive analysis of VPNs and internet tiering. Gamers use VPNs, a way to cloak their location, to help them circumvent the censorship system in Iran, like internet tiering, bandwidth throttling, and internet filtering. These gamers, like scholars, are among the first group to be targeted by the IRI during internet censorship crackdowns. For example, the IRI explicitly blocked the online PC game DOTA 2 in late September 2022 to prevent communication during the protests. Other online games were also blocked like XBOX games and Clash of Clans to also mitigate communication (Rashidi 2022). Not only were games blocked, but so were platforms like Discord which are essential for gamers to communicate with others in their community. While protests galvanized the IRI to put further restrictions on internet access, from throttling to shutdowns, the IRI’s modus operandi has been and continues to be internet tiering. In the IRI’s “Seventh Development Plan,” the IRI is considering reducing international bandwidth and encouraging users to use local services with its fiber optics rollout as part of the censorship system and tiering rollout. According to Khabar Online, in March, the Cyber Police assisted in the purging of websites and social media, specifically identifying influential users, scholars, gamers, etc. to monitor and clean cyberspace (“More than 5 thousand criminal contents were removed from cyberspace” 2023).
Since internet access conditions are continually threatened in Iran, analyzing the right to internet access from multiple angles is necessary to providing a here-and-now solution to internet user needs in the IRI from the unique perspective of gaming communities. VPNs and internet tiering are issues that dovetail one another with the current internet crisis in Iran, wherein VPNs must be legally applied for and at the same time, internet segregation based on status will determine the level of access for each individual citizen. For gamers, a simple application cannot be used to play online games. Rather, gamers must have advanced knowledge to configure their DNS, requiring manually updating the proxy settings. Because of this lack of simplicity, and therefore gamers’ ability to gain access to suppressed games and communication technologies, Iranian gamers are among the first to be targeted by the IRI.
The gamers’ circumvention techniques include using one Iranian VPN to log on to the internet, and another source to connect to censored games via router. Some gamers set up routers with VPNs by routing traffic from internal IP addresses to a VPN endpoint in another country as routers can have VPN integration. Another is to use a VPN phone hotspot for their PC. Some gamers in Iran use GearUP Game Booster for lag or one for SM Tunneling. Others use Shecan DNS and Electro DNS. Usually, gamers wait until later at night to play games so that there will be lower ping. Because of access variability types, I will look at micro-individual-level variables that help gamers to determine access fluidity and connection. In other words, I will look at the main concern of gamers: how ping impacts speed and quality of internet access and its connection to security. To do so, I will conduct semi-structured interviews through Signal. During the interview process, I will have the opportunity to clarify: (1) the extent to which Iranian gamers trust certain circumvention tools over others, and if their preferred methods have security risks or offer better access; and (2) how Iranian internet tiering, in connection with bandwidth and whitelisting, impacts gamers’ use of circumvention tools. As a secondary tool of analysis, I will disseminate a survey through secure channels, with the guidance and training of Miaan, to collect quantitative data from approximately 200 anonymous Iranian gamers. Surveys will provide a broader context for estimating the association between Iranian gamers’ use of circumvention tools and their demographic characteristics, computing system, audience, technology, and religion in relation to trust and security. My third mode of analysis will be to test ping, and the difference between commercial VPNs and the ones disseminated by the IRI. To accomplish this third mode of analysis, I will work closely with Miaan and OONI to obtain Iranian internet access and receive the necessary technical training to accomplish this imperative task.
Through interviews and survey data collection, my objective is to answer:
- How do Iranian gamers perceive the risks of gaming and circumventing IRI censorship? What motivates or impacts their choice of circumvention tools?
This will assist in understanding how pervasive internet restrictions impact internet access for gamers. And given that games are sources of high scrutiny and censorship, how gamer methods may be useful or have security issues, which will help the developer community in assessing and creating better workaround methods to internet censorship for even the everyday user.
- With pervasive internet restrictions, how do gamers maintain their level of access to video games? Given that games are sources of high scrutiny and censorship, how do gaming access methods differ from typical website access? What level of internet tiering does each individual experience in this study? In other words, what specific technologies and tools do gamers use and do to gain access to games and communication technologies when they are the first to be targeted? How do these choices change over time if a workaround solution becomes deprecated?
- As layered filtering rolls out, how do Iranian gamers mitigate or workaround less access? Specifically, how do these gamers avoid domestic applications and services with high privacy and security concerns?
- Comparing what’s available with Paskoocheh to what gamers use, how do gamers perceive the security benefits and risks associated with gamer specific VPNs and workaround methods to internet access?
- How have Iranian gamers navigated Iranian censorship infrastructure, the rollout of internet tiering, and protocol whitelisting of IP addresses?
My project will highlight the perspective of gamers and other highly sophisticated technology users. This will elucidate issues such as internet connectivity and how the so-called “protection bill” is enforcing tiering and mitigating protests in Iran. Comprehensively studying anti-censorship resources like VPNs will thus reveal how anti-censorship resources can be improved by tech activists. By measuring the effect of legal and illegal VPNs on gaming in addition to internet tiering, I will show how the National Information Network’s attempt to accelerate disruption and limit internet access has forced gamers and everyday users to mobilize in creative ways to gain access to the internet. Because games require a level of sophistication for access, gamers accessing the internet for the purpose of gaming will not only provide a unique perspective on internet access, but a pathway for everyday users to have more secure access. The continuous practice of changing circumvention methods by gamers will additionally shed light on access issues and improve current practices among everyday users, even as particular VPNs become deprecated or have security breaches. Because the Revolutionary Courts are cracking down on information passed between users in Iran deeming it as an “insult to Islam,” it is imperative to understand how the internet infrastructure and VPNs have altered the lives of users. Therefore, the urgency of this project stems from the need to improve access methodologies through the perspective of users, and to do so, necessitates a deeper understanding of accessibility issues that even the most sophisticated users face.
In addition to the qualitative analysis, I will complete a technical analysis of circumvention tools to provide a more nuanced understanding of user needs in the IRI. The technical analysis will be based on the acquired circumvention tools on the ground and the tools commonly supported by the human rights community like the Miaan Group and what has been made available through Paskoocheh.com. In addition to focusing on widely used VPNs and other resources, the analysis will elucidate the sense of security gamers experience using their VPNs and whether their practices deliver increased security or not. Through careful analysis and testing of usage risks, I will then provide a view on whether there is a false sense of protection against censorship and surveillance in the IRI. Since Iran’s whitelisting restricts citizen IPs to access the internet, I will also be collecting data on internet slowing wherein gamers report if and when their connection is blackholed or dropped for increments of 60 seconds or longer. So, in addition to looking at VPNs, I will be comparing other censorship strategies and tactics that gamers use to methods available on Paskoocheh and the Geneva (Genetic Evasion) algorithm censorship evasion strategy that may be less well-known among participants (censorship.ai 2020). I propose to look at VPNs and other circumvention strategies that gamers use. While investigating their user experience, I will ask gamers if they have or are willing to employ other methods of circumvention with guidance from Miaan. Geneva, however, is not a method to employ as it does not provide any encryption nor security of users. I will simply consider it with informed opinions of developers, Miaan, and gamer communities as whitelisting becomes a strengthened phenomenon across Iran. Their feedback on what they find useful will provide nuance to the usability study aspect of the research. Therefore, Miaan will provide security, training, and research guidance. In addition, I will reach out to more technical collaborators recommended by the OTF and Miaan, including but not limited to OONI, ASL19, and professionals at the University of Michigan.
Across these modes of data analysis, I will elucidate the impact of legal VPNs and Iran’s Computer and Video Games Foundation. This will provide nuance on surveillance and censorship infrastructure applied to internet access by the IRI. The primary goal of the project is therefore to clarify the gaps between commonly used censorship circumvention tools in Iran so that the project will produce a solution for better assisting high-risk internet users in Iran, while also highlighting issues of internet access implemented by the IRI.
Taken together, the interviews and participant-observation data, survey data, and the technical analysis of tools will allow me to triangulate knowledge from multiple sources to produce generalizable information about the security practices and needs of internet users in Iran. This will culminate into the following main outputs:
- An article for Miaan that synthesizes information from the research for general readers published on the FilterWatch site.
- A longer comprehensive report for Miaan and OTF that analyzes both censorship and anti-censorship methods, and explains the infrastructure decisions on internet tiering and VPN (legal and illegal) in Iran by sharing information from gamers.
Disseminating the comprehensive report will contribute to information access that is novel and didactic, with aims of global internet access and freedom. Specifically, the research will have implications for at-risk communities in places like China and Russia where sophisticated internet programs also use suppressive methods of filternet, throttling, and shutdowns. By providing information to at-risk communities, the project’s dissemination will have a life beyond the OTF funding period.