Ars Technica Banned In Iran

The popular tech website was apparently blocked after an article discussing Stuxnet. The block by the Iranian government was started after the 27th of September when a second article featuring the Stuxnet malware was being discussed.

Stuxnet, is a powerful worm that allegedly raided Iran’s nuclear power plants and was only recently discovered by a security firm in Belarus. Due to its complexity, there were high suspicions that the creators of the worm had major backing by a powerful country.

Traffic slowly trickled down to a crawl before Ars finally confirmed an absolute ban. The reasons however were not specified:

The point of the ban isn’t clear, but it definitely highlights how easy it is for governments to start cracking down on whatever sites they like once they have the proper tools in place and have centralized all Internet links leaving/entering the country. And, as the traffic logs show, it can be surprisingly effective at discouraging casual users from viewing unwanted content.

Looks like Iran wants in on some of that banhammer action!

Source:
Ars Technica