It's way more centralized.

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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gambutin 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is there a reasonable workaround for this?

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alephnerd 6 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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gambutin 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s interesting. Could they somehow do peer-to-peer anonymously until the packages reach the border?

	▲	alephnerd 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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). That makes covert P2P much harder. [0] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security... [1] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorit... [2] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/0673/2026/en/

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newsclues 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How does internet shutdown affect bitcoin mining in Iran?

	▲	alephnerd 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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.