Perhaps throughout the history of the internet in Iran, until now, no topic has been discussed except for Telegram and the protection plan. In fact, these two have a serious common point, which is the effort to access extensive information of internet users.

In traditional Iranian methods, to combat what Iranian authorities refer to as damage and disruption in the virtual space, they resorted to filtering or disrupting the internet. This method only targeted a small portion of the content available on the internet; for example, a website or an application would be blocked. Despite the fact that the number of these websites and applications that were blocked seemed significant, it is still not a significant number compared to the amount of content that exists on the internet, which is considered the largest computer network in the world.

However, the level of these censorship is so high that it has put people’s lives under its control; in a way that without a filter, it is practically impossible to use the internet. Iran does not have the ability to continue this censorship method; because there is no end to this cat and mouse game and whenever they filter a tool, another one will eventually replace it, creating a hole in the high wall of censorship.

It is natural that a wall full of holes is not desirable for Iranian authorities, and they are trying to find a solution to replace the current method of blocking with several new projects. The writer of this note only focuses on examining one of them, which is controlling and monitoring user activities.

In fact, the efforts of the authorities of the Islamic Republic are more focused on monitoring and controlling rather than blocking. For example, the Golden Telegram project, which had the support of Iranian authorities at the highest level, showed that they are making new efforts to monitor and control internet content.

Telegram Gold was actually a client for the Telegram application that was developed using the original open-source code and APIs of Telegram. This app became very popular among Iranian users as the original version of Telegram was filtered by Iran. The developers of this app not only bypassed the filtering on Telegram by adding some attractive features and including proxies, but also attracted more users for themselves.

The author’s investigations show that Telegram’s golden proxies were located in the infrastructure of the telecommunications company, which is the main gateway for internet entry and exit in the country.

This may have been Iran’s first visible attempt to extensively monitor the conversations of Iranian citizens at the main gateway of communication with the outside world. One of the fundamental clauses of the protection plan also specifically addresses this issue. Article 8 of this plan states that a committee must oversee the implementation of Article 25 of the Constitution at the cyber border crossing.

Article 25 of the Constitution is about the method of listening to people’s conversations and correspondence, which states: “Inspection and non-delivery of letters, recording and disclosing telephone conversations, disclosure of telegraphic and telex communications, censorship, failure to communicate and deliver them, eavesdropping and any form of espionage is prohibited, except by law.”

In simple terms, according to the current law of your country, in order to wiretap, for example, a telephone line, you must obtain a wiretap order from a judge and provide sufficient documents and evidence, and then proceed with the wiretapping.

This is happening while Article 8 of the Protection Plan practically removes this power from the process of decision-making regarding the surveillance of people’s conversations and correspondence, and not only entrusts it to a military and security group, but by implementing it at the border crossing, which is the same as the infrastructure communications company, it practically turns the case-by-case execution into widespread surveillance of all Iranian users. This means that the same thing that Telegram Gold was doing will be done on a much larger scale.

This plan is in the process of transitioning Iranian authorities from traditional censorship and restrictions to widespread and unrestricted surveillance and espionage of all Iranian users.

This is only one piece of the puzzle of the national internet in Iran. If we put together other parts of this puzzle, such as separating domestic and foreign traffic, promoting the use of tools and domestic content, and handing over the infrastructure communication company from the government to a military and security group, we will see that this plan is solely designed for espionage and extensive control of Iranian users’ communications and interactions, and has no other purpose.