Iran has been rolling out the National Information Network (essentially a whitelisted internet) since the Green Revolution [0] back in 2009-12.
Iran has a surprisingly robust domestic ecosystem of hyperscalers [1] and telco infra [6][7] built out over the past decade with limited outside involvement and a severe sanctions regime, and have even started exporting Iranian IT services to Uganda [2], Kenya [3], South Africa [4], Venezuela [5], Russia [8], and China [8].
Iran also uses a two-tier SIM card system - ideologically vetted individuals get a "white" SIM which gives full ingress/egress outside the NIN and others have a normal SIM that can be blacklisted from egressing outside the NIN.
Notice how Iranian websites have a page saying "Transferring to Website" - that's the gateway page for the NIN.
Starlink or any other sort of satellite internet, but these are relatively easy to jam and detect. There are ways to minimize that but obviously not available to civilians.
The issue is, if you control the Network DMZ, it's extremely difficult to bypass. In Xinjiang and Tibet (which has a similar setup) they used to use smuggled Kazakh, Nepali, and Indian SIM cards but that was cracked down.
A lot of the info from inside Iran that is not regime connected is coming from areas in Iranian Kurdistan where an Iraqi SIM could be smuggled or accessed somewhat easier than other areas.
P2P is only as safe as it's nodes. Iran has around 1 million IRGC, Army, and Foreign Shia Militia deployed in a country of around 90 million.
Mind you that organization has been severely degraded, but that only scares civilians even more as functionaries are much more trigger happy (rape [0], summary execution [1], torture [2] are already the norm).
Iran has been under export controls for dual use technology for decades. Getting the amount of GPUs needed to conduct bitcoin mining was nigh impossible.
Bitcoin and Crypto as a shadow financial system was enabled by Qatar and the UAE where there are dedicated deal desks that work on ExAmerica trades.
This is why the IRGC striking Qatar and the UAE was such a bad move. Even companies in the PRC try to follow American sanctions regimes because trade with Japan+SK+ASEAN is higher priority than trade with Russia or Iran.
Already been going on for over a decade - export controls on dual use technology like Xeon processors already began being enforced back in the Obama admin.
> until the launch takes place
It's already launched. Some companies had access to Mythos for months.
> fuelling the hype
This is true. Commercially available models from a year ago are already good enough from an offensive security perspective. Their big issue was noise, but that could be managed.
I was in the industry when key lengths for SSL were different between US domestic and US products for export. That’s one reason so much Open Source cryptography software expertise built up in Europe so quickly.
> A year ago the LLM's weren't good enough to find these security issues
I know of two F100s that already started using foundation models for SCA in tandem with other products back in 2024. It's noisy, but a false positive is less harmful than an undetected true positive depending on the environment.
> Are you aware of the deep seated bugs in critical software that were already uncovered with Mythos
This. 100% this.
A large portion of the industry is under NDA right now, but most of the F500 have already already deployed or started deploying foundational models for AppSec usecases all the way back in 2023.
Sev1 vulns have already been detected using "older" foundation models like Opus 4.x
Of course the noise is significant, but that's something you already faced with DAST, SAST, and other products, and is why most security teams are also pairing models with experienced security professionals to adjudicate and treat foundation model results as another threat intel feed.
It's a hivemind of a certain culture who are only taught there exist only 9 countries in the whole world: USA, Canada, South America, UK, Europe, Japan, China, Asia, Australia.
What do you mean that Africa is a continent of great diversity in cultures, languages and history? They all look poor and black to me.
The "people who'll levy the complaint you just did" and "people who'll pretend all of europe is the same when it suits them" is far too close to a circle for my liking.
Japan is exporting it's AI-enhanced crime prediction platform across LatAm after successfully deploying it in Tokyo [0]. Japan is doing similar work to analyze financial transactions [1]. South Korea has also deployed a similar surveillance platform called Dejaview [2]. Even Finland has been deploying surveillance camera fusion centers [3]
The brutal reality is everyone is doing this and there's nothing you can do about it. National Security trumps all other concerns (even the GDPR exempts governments who argue their data collection is done for National Security reasons), especially in a world as unstable as today.
Societies that are strongly collectivist in nature tend to align closer with expanded state powers and don't view it as an affront.
The techno-individualist subculture that is common on HN and Reddit is that - a subculture.
Techno-individualism cannot coexist with collectivist culture where the primacy of the state is held as sacrosanct and supreme.
And now that countries like Russia [0], Iran [1], and China [2] have been expanding hybrid warfare capabilities across the West - especially now that Europe is now expeiencing the largest conventional war since WW2 - we need to recognize that we are no long in a state of peace.
You need the carrot and the stick. There's a reason the QoL in urban areas in countries with significantly draconian enforcement like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea is significantly higher peer cities in North America and Western Europe.
Cleanliness and order as a cultural norm only arose because police in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea are very fine and enforcement happy.
Cyprus/UK [0] faced attempted strikes; the UK is running defensive sorties for the UAE [1], Qatar [2], and Iraq [3]; and British bases in Oman and the UAE were struck [4]. France has done similar actions as well [5]. The UK and France have mutual defense pacts across the Gulf as well which they need to maintain.
Additionally, Ukraine has now begun providing defensive capabilities to the Gulf States, which Iran argues makes it an active combatant [6]. By this precedent the UK and France are also active combatants against Iran.
The reality is, the Iran War and the Ukraine War are tied to the hip. If defending Ukraine against Russian drone strikes conducted by Iranian ground troops [7] and using Iranian technology [8] is critical to European security, then ending Iran's tactical support is critical as well.
Ironically, this is probably great news for Ukraine. Russia's geoint support for Iran [9] has made it easier for my peers still on the Hill to make a case to double down and enhance American support for Ukraine, as well as pulling Gulf States who were previously neutral to supporting Ukraine as well [10].
This is also why Ukraine is calling out Russian disinfo ops about the war [11]. Iran has doubled down on similar information warfare [12] and hybrid [13] operations in the UK and Mainland Europe
Frankly, we need to call a spade a spade - the Ukraine War and Iran War have merged into a single transnational war.
If you support Ukraine you cannot support Iran, and this is Ukraine's stance as well [14][15][16][17][18].
> There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict
What you are describing is compartmentalization - something which you posited is false [0]
If Qatar and UAE's dual use infrastructure is within the rights of Iran to strike despite both having dealings with both Iran and the US and if Ukraine can be treated as a combatant by Iran [1], then this precedent holds for all of Iran given how they have aided and abetted Russia in Ukraine.
With the precedent Iran set against Qatar, compartmentalization no longer holds. And Ukraine's stance is that Iran is a terror state and an enemy of Ukraine [2], so frankly if you stand with Ukraine you also have to stand against Iran.
> Surely that has to be the default position. They all have a right to defend themselves and a valid claim for reparations.
Iran has been providing Russia ballistic missiles [3], drones [4], artillery [5], boots on the ground [6], ammunition [7], and other support against Ukraine.
If Iran deserves reparations from the US, then Ukraine deserves reparations from Iran. Yet Iran has doubled down in opposing Ukraine [1].
Look, if you continue down that road to GCC countries engaging Iran, then you have a multiparty nuclear armed conflict with combatants stretching from Europe to the Chinese border.
At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will know why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
> At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will no why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
Name me one war of aggression that ended up being a long term win for the aggressor.
The first time I saw a graph describing relationships between various factions in the Middle East was probably in the late 90s. I remember being amused by it. It turns out that if you are a region full of conflicts, the ally of your ally is often your enemy.
On the other hand, it should have been obvious. Real-world relationships are not transitive.
There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict. At least if you are not some kind of a rationalist who values logical consistency over practical implications.
Also, another question: Do you think that World War III or something close to a global conflict will start as you mentioned that the Ukrainian-Russo War and the Iran War "have merged into a single transnational war"?
My stance is the same as Fiona Hill (former Senior Director for Europe and Russia in the US NSC and now a Defence Advisor for the Starmer administration) [0] as well as Zelensky [1].
Frankly, Canada does not have the power projection capabilities needed for West Asia.
That said, Canada is best served protecting the Arctic, North Atlantic, and the North Pacific, all of which now face increased pressure from Russia and China, and threaten much of North America, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia.
This is also the stance of the Government of Canada [0][1]
Civilian Nuclear Power is a dual use technology. The UK needs to subsidize it's civilian nuclear program if it wishes to also remain a nuclear power. The alternative is it de facto becomes the 51st state of America.
The UK needs to subsidize nuclear, as well as wind, solar, and everything in between.
There's a reason countries like the US, China, Japan, India, South Korea, and others are investing in this kind of domestic capacity and spending tens to hundreds of billions to do so.
Iran has been rolling out the National Information Network (essentially a whitelisted internet) since the Green Revolution [0] back in 2009-12. Iran has a surprisingly robust domestic ecosystem of hyperscalers [1] and telco infra [6][7] built out over the past decade with limited outside involvement and a severe sanctions regime, and have even started exporting Iranian IT services to Uganda [2], Kenya [3], South Africa [4], Venezuela [5], Russia [8], and China [8].
Iran also uses a two-tier SIM card system - ideologically vetted individuals get a "white" SIM which gives full ingress/egress outside the NIN and others have a normal SIM that can be blacklisted from egressing outside the NIN.
Notice how Iranian websites have a page saying "Transferring to Website" - that's the gateway page for the NIN.
[0] - https://citizenlab.ca/irans-national-information-network/
[1] - https://www.arvancloud.ir/fa
[2] - https://tvbrics.com/en/news/uganda-and-iran-to-boost-ict-co-...
[3] - https://mail.techreviewafrica.com/public/news/1361/kenya-and...
[4] - https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena_daily_news?news=64545
[5] - https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/08/06/752585/Iranian-fibe...
[6] - https://zmc.co.ir/
[7] - https://www.rayafiber.com/en/home
[8] - https://www.kharon.com/brief/iran-sanctions-maximum-pressure...
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