Mixed Blocks of Iranian Access

Donate for the Cryptome archive of files from June 1996 to the present

27 March 2013

Mixed Blocks of Iranian Access

A2 sends:

On http://cryptome.org/2013/03/oracle-ir-block.htm it is stated that "[b]locking Oracle and Java updates makes Iranian online users the most vulnerable target to Java exploits."

To verify that myself, I browsed the web from two Iranian IP addresses in different networks.

Indeed, visiting www.oracle.com in a webbrowser yields the embargo message. However, I am able to obtain Java from www.java.com (which is owned by Oracle since their 2009 acquisition of Sun), and when installed on Mac OS X, it successfully fetches updates from http://javadl-esd.oracle.com. I

I have not seen evidence for the suggestion that Iranian users of Oracle Java cannot update their Java. I have not tested on OS's other than Mac OS X.

For fun, here are some other observations of browsing the web from two Iranian IP address (the https:// often yielded a timeout or ssl_error_rx_record_too_long error, but have been accessible at least once during my half hour experiment):

http://cryptome.org = blocked

https://cryptome.org/ = (no SSL version available)

http://www.cia.gov/ = blocked

https://www.cia.gov/ = OK

http://www.sis.gov.uk (MI6) = blocked

https://www.sis.gov.uk = OK

http://www.mi5.gov.uk (MI5) = blocked

https://www.mi5.gov.uk = OK

http://www.asis.gov.au = blocked

https://www.asis.gov.au = (no SSL version available)

http://www.aivd.nl = redirects to https:// https://www.aivd.nl = OK

http://www.nzsis.govt.nz = OK