Iran’s internet connectivity has been partially restored, but even behind the digital blackout, experts warn that the outlook for internet access in Iran remains bleak.
Internet monitoring experts at NetBlocks and Kentik said some traffic resumed on Tuesday, nearly 20 days after the Iranian government shut down the internet and international calls in an effort to quell large-scale anti-government protests. Thousands of demonstrators were killed in the crackdown.
Meanwhile, digital surveillance experts say the Iranian regime has made progress in its long-standing plan to “abolish” access to the international internet, warning that Iran is entering a “new era of digital isolation.”
“Every time the internet is shut down in Iran, it usually doesn’t go back to normal,” said Amir Rashidi, a cybersecurity expert and director of digital rights and security at the Mian Group, a nonprofit organization that supports human rights in Iran.
Some platforms did not recover after previous internet shutdowns. Instagram was blocked after the internet was shut down in 2022 amid widespread protests following the death of 22-year-old Martha Amini in police custody. Additionally, popular messaging app Telegram was banned following protests in 2018.
Now, Rashidi told CNN, the Iranian government is making progress toward more widely deploying technology that would allow only people with security clearances to access the international web.
Experts call this a “whitelist,” and it involves allowing a small number of users with mobile phone SIM cards and other permissions that allow unrestricted access to the outside internet. Others are effectively censored and forced to rely on the domestic internet, where the regime can track users and block unauthorized websites.
Rashidi explained that such whitelisting is a move away from the country’s long-standing tactic of blacklisting specific websites and apps and toward a policy that permanently keeps a wide range of Iranians in the dark.
Doug Madory, Kentik’s director of internet analysis, said internet traffic patterns have become very jagged since partial connectivity was restored on Tuesday. “Perhaps a new traffic filtering system has been installed and it can’t keep up,” he speculated.
NetBlocks noted on Wednesday that “despite the significant increase in internationally visible networks and data centers, most ordinary users still face strict filtering and intermittent service under the whitelist system.”
Rashidi cited Mian’s analysis of hacked emails that revealed some of Iran’s judiciary’s potential censorship plans and said of the expanding whitelist policy, “I believe they will quickly move towards enforcing that policy…The infrastructure exists.”
“I think the future is much bleaker,” Rashidi told CNN, adding that he expected the military to control and monitor the internet even more in the future.
Internet censorship has become a cat-and-mouse game in Iran, said Martha Alimardani, associate director of technology threats and opportunities at human rights watchdog Witness. The country is said to be one of the most sophisticated countries in the world when it comes to circumventing web regulations.
Chief among the circumvention tools is satellite internet, like Elon Musk’s Starlink, which the company is making free in Iran.
“What’s really becoming a game changer is the fact that we’re going to have connectivity that doesn’t depend on sovereignty,” Alimardani told CNN, noting that even former Iranian officials have speculated that the availability of satellite internet could make internet shutdowns an obsolete tool in the coming years. “The story of Starlink in Iran has been quite incredible.”
However, digital activists cited by Freedom House estimate that only about 50,000 Starlink devices have been smuggled into the country of about 92 million people. However, estimates vary.
The Iranian government is cracking down on satellite internet users and arresting those who smuggle devices into the country. Currently, possession of a Starlink device carries the risk of imprisonment, and there are reports of physical raids on houses and rooftops where satellite receivers have been found.
The administration is also working to jam Starlink signals using electronic warfare tools, but Alimardani said the administration is likely exaggerating some of these efforts as it seeks to prevent more people from purchasing satellite internet. She explained that the devices are already expensive, selling for about $2,000 on the black market, and that it is in the government’s interest to convince people that their investment will be wasted.
Rashidi of Mian Group added: “I believe that in the future, they (Iran’s government) will invest more in managing satellite internet.”
Apart from Starlink, the US government has long funded Iranian virtual private networks (VPNs) that make it appear as if internet users are coming online from another country. Last year, the Trump administration cut funding for efforts to provide evasion tools such as VPNs, following sharp cuts in U.S. foreign aid.
In any case, a VPN only works if some level of internet connection is available.
ProtonVPN, which offers free products to help bypass censorship, announced on January 8 that its user base in Iran was cut off due to a power outage.
The company also said that even when an internet connection exists, authoritarian governments like Iran go a step further and deploy sophisticated systems that can block VPN downloads and identify and cut off VPN web traffic.
“Sometimes the shutdown is lifted, but in that case there are very powerful features that are very difficult to bypass,” said Antonio Cesarano, lead product manager at Proton VPN.
“What we’ve observed over the past year or so is that people are preparing themselves… They probably have multiple VPNs, so they’re trying each one to see if it works,” Cesarano told CNN. “I really need to do whatever it takes to get back on the internet, get on with my life, and talk to my family overseas.”
Compared to some other authoritarian states, Iran is highly isolated, making it easy to implement large-scale internet censorship. There are no international credit card transactions to keep the economy running, and there are no foreign services like Netflix, Uber, or Amazon that are disrupted by international internet shutdowns. Rather, similar services are provided by domestic Iranian companies.
But shutting down the internet on a large scale remains costly.
“Naturally, there was a lot of push and pull because there are stakeholders within the administration itself who benefit economically from having this access, such as (companies) that profit from selling WiFi data packages for international internet, or different businesses that need different levels of connectivity for their employees,” Alimdani said.
“I don’t think people in the administration even know what direction they’re going to take,” she added.
The total shutdown was the longest power outage in Iranian history. This was nearly two weeks longer than the 2019 internet shutdown, which cost the country $1.5 billion, according to an estimate by the former head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
CNN’s Sean Lyngaas contributed to this report.
