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Hi-tech helps Iranian monitoring
Iran is well known for filtering the net, but the government has moved to do the same for mobile phones.

Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls. ...

...The product allows authorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic.

But Nokia Siemens says the product is only being used, in Iran, for the monitoring of local telephone calls on fixed and mobile lines.

Rather than just block traffic, it is understood that the monitoring system can also interrogate data to see what information is being passed back and forth.

A spokesman described the system as "a standard architecture that the world's governments use for lawful intercept".

He added: "Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality." ...