Iran Blocks Ars Technica
The popular news and tech site Ars Technica recently discovered that their Iranian readers can no longer access their site. After publishing a story on the Stuxnet worm that infiltrated Iranian power plant systems, AT found that their traffic from Iran dropped to zero the day immediately following their Stuxnet post.
Recent Herdict data validates this—both inaccessibility reports from the past week on Ars Technica have come from Iran (the other is China). See Herdict’s Iran profile for more information on other blocked websites.
It should be noted that the editors at Ars Technica mention that they do not know the exact reason for the blocking of the site. However, in opinionated AT fashion, they eagerly cast this situation into a pool of other examples of government censorship that goes unexplained to the domestic public, not just the international community.
About the Author: Qichen Zhang
Qichen is an undergraduate studying Social Studies at Harvard College. Besides Herdict, she blogs for the Berkman Center's OpenNet Initiative and Blogging Common. She can be reached at qzhang@fas.harvard.edu.
