Offhand, I don't know of another despotic regime which has gone this far in creating a national Intranet.
Iran Kicks Off Its Internal Internet With Government Email
It’s no secret that Iranian authorities don’t trust or like the Internet.
This week, the Islamic Republic inaugurated the national email. A government assigned email address linked to your social security number that makes it easy to trace users and monitor their communication.
The minister of telecommunication and information technology, Mohamad Hassan Nami, even said on Tuesday that every Iranian “must” register for a nation email address upon entering elementary school. He added that official communication between government and citizens would eventually be redirected through the national email service.
Obtaining your own personal government-run email address, according to the minister, is as mandatory as having a Zip code.
Iranians can obtain their national emails through the state-run postal service. One must register online and fill out a lengthy form handing over personal information—date of birth, social security, home address, telephone number and so on.
Eventually there will also be a national Internet service, or what the government call “halal Internet’, which acts as a nation-wide intranet and could effectively cut Iran off from the world wide web if authorities deem fit.
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