Currently many Iranians are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass Internet filtering modified by the local government. Thousands of famous and popular websites are blocked in the country and Iranian users cannot find any better method to open blocked websites than using VPN services.
“We have prepared the necessary facilities to offer VPN services to Iranian clients. These users can apply for this service in post offices and local officials will look into their cases. We will introduce certified sellers to Internet users in order to provide VPN services.” Mahdi Akhavan Bahabadi, head of the National Center of Cyberspace, announced on Sunday.
Utilizing black hat methods to circumvent governmental restrictions is a crime in Iran. However neither Iranian police nor judiciary service have not yet accused anybody of using VPN services but these organizations can take action against violators. “Using licensed VPNs will be deemed allowed in the country.” Akhavan Bahabadi continued.
“In fact some users need to encrypt their Internet connections by using VPNs but we see many clients are violating the terms and rules in country by misusing these services. Banks, financial institutions, security networks and many other organizations are looking for encrypted Internet connections and we are going to provide this service to them.” Bahabadi concluded.
According to the unofficial statistics, millions of people are using VPN and Proxy services to access social networking websites in the country. Twitter and Facebook are officially blocked by Iran’s Filtering Committee but many Iranians have opened accounts in these networks and they are still communicating by using these “Western backed” services.