Science and Technology

Al-Monitor – Heated debates during last week’s parliament meeting in Tehran are fueling concerns among millions of Iranians that the newly elected conservative lawmakers are prioritizing restrictions on social media over more urgent economic woes, which they had promised to address upon taking their seats. The session saw Iran’s young Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi cornered and grilled by powerful …

Radiofarda – The Microsoft Threat Protection Intelligence Team has identified a chain of attacks on its cloud service in a post published on June 18. According to Microsoft the group identified as HOLMIUM” has been performing espionage and destructive attacks targeting aerospace, defense, chemical, mining, and petrochemical-mining industries. Based on previous research by the Fireye the group has been linked to Iran and …

(AP) — Iran test fired cruise missiles in a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman and northern Indian Ocean, state media reported Thursday . The report by the official IRNA news agency said the missiles destroyed targets at a distance of 280 kilometers (170 miles). It said the tests took place during a naval drill by Iran’s navy in …

Al-Monitor – A top Iranian official lashed out against Instagram this week, saying the popular social media network for photos is responsible for “immorality.” The head of the Islamic Development Organization, Mohammad Qomi, said in the Iranian parliament Sunday that Instagram often takes up 60% to 70% of Iran’s internet bandwidth. He also claimed that 30% of cybercrime and 25% of “immorality” crimes and …

Radiofarda – Amid economic crisis and a sinking national currency, the Central Bank of Iran has issued a new directive limiting the amount of foreign currency people can keep or carry. From now on, every individual in Iran is allowed to keep or carry only up to ten thousand euros ($11,287), or its equivalent in hard currency, the CBI has …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Importantly, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has failed on several occasions accurately to detect Iran’s nuclear activities. For instance, in a November 2018 speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke a story stating that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material …

RFL/RE – Facebook says it has begun to label state-controlled media organizations such as Russia’s Sputnik, Iran’s Press TV, and China’s Xinhua News so that people know whether the content they read is coming from an entity that may be under the influence of a state. The social media company announced plans to create a state media label in October …

Radiofarda – The Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has suggested that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s tweets violate Twitter rules about glorifying violence. In a tweet on Friday Ajit Pai posed the question to Twitter and posted several examples of Khamenei’s tweets deemed as “glorifying violence” by him. The tweets quoted by the FCC Chairman are all about …

VOA – Cyberattacks have been flying fast and furious around the world during these days of global uncertainty because of the coronavirus. Countries accuse each other of engaging in cyber warfare, and each of the accused also claims to be a cyber victim. International organizations dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have also been targeted. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from …

Radiofarda -Hundreds of mostly unsecured Israeli websites were attacked by Iran-based hackers on Thursday morning, disabling the sites and replacing them with a message “threatening Israel” with “destruction”, local media reported. The websites of some municipalities and institutions, including the Lake Tiberias Conservation Organization, which is an essential water source to Israel, are among the hacked centers. “The countdown of …