Science and Technology

calcalistech – An Iranian cyber espionage group known as Charming Kitten is believed to be behind a campaign targeting academic researchers, human rights activists, media outlets and political advisors focusing on Iran, according to a report published earlier this week by Israel-based threat intelligence company ClearSky Cyber Security. The group has also set up a news outlet called The British …

Al-Monitor – Government officials and investors all agree that Iran needs to improve its business climate to attract the needed investment for job creation. One of the phenomena that can help ease the process of doing business is the country’s customs organization. 

Al-Montior — The world has seen great advances in medicine in recent centuries, leading to the discovery and manufacture of numerous types of drugs to cure diseases. Yet many around the world still prefer to use plants and natural products to improve their health, mainly to avoid side effects caused by chemical drugs. As a result, the production of medicinal …

CHRI – On November 21, 2017, the users of an Iranian transportation app known as Snapp received a notification that they would no longer be able to use the app unless they deleted the Waze navigation app from their phone. The ban on Waze, ordered by Iran’s Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, is a major violation of personal privacy rights …

CHRI – A senior official representing Iran’s top internet regulation body has threatened to take action against social media applications that refuse to comply with the country’s strict censorship rules.  “Foreign messaging networks should comply with the polices of the Islamic Republic of Iran and should not publish immoral material,” said Abolhassan Firouzabadi, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Cyberspace Council (SCC), on November 14, 2017. “If …

commentarymagazine – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has now been in office for more than four years. Yet he hasn’t fulfilled any of the major domestic-reform pledges that got him elected in 2013 and re-elected earlier this year. Those pledges won him the decisive backing of urban, secular-minded, middle class Iranians–and plaudits in the West. Yet Iranians are no more free …

Al-Monitor – Fatemeh sits in the driver’s seat of the car with a PlayStation 4 on her lap. “Happy Birthday,” she shouts at her husband as he hops in the car. Mohamaad is ecstatic and asks if his wife got him games, too. She answers, “No, I don’t know what games you want, but you can go to the Play …

CHRI – Unsophisticated Malware Exposes Mac Vulnerabilities Hackers working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) targeted journalists based abroad with a malware campaign launched on November 6, 2017. An investigation by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) showed that the malware, targeting Mac computer users, was sent in a ZIP file claiming to include an “article about women’s …

RFL/RE – A senior Iranian official on Monday expressed concern that foreign powers may interfere in the country’s elections through social media. Social media tools, such as the messaging application Telegram could control and analyze the behavior of a society and estimate the election results with 97% accuracy, the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, Gholam Reza Jalali said in a …

AL-Monitor – Blue Whale is an online Russian game consisting of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators over a 50-day period, with the final challenge requiring players to commit suicide. On Oct. 21, two teenage girls sought to commit suicide in the central Iranian city of Esfahan. A 15-year-old died, and a 16-year-old suffered serious injuries. The next day, Esfahan’s police chief confirmed …