Translation: Translated by Samuel Bakhtiyari

Author: Patrick Howell O’Neill / Daily Dot

While the Iranian government annually spends a heavy amount on censorship and controlling the virtual space, Iranian citizens also bear the same cost to escape censorship. There is a hidden market in Iran with millions of dollars in financial circulation. Security institutions try to control the virtual space by using control tools. Independent users are also seeking to obtain software that can help them fight against this oppression.

It can be confidently said that government censorship is a catalyst for the expansion of the use of anti-censorship software in Iran. In some cases, the government itself profits from this market. Contemplating this issue alone causes great concern for many Iranian citizens, who are thirsty for information and use VPNs or anti-censorship software.

The use of filter breakers and anti-censorship software in Iran is so widespread that every Iranian citizen can easily bypass the complex censorship system. Many popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter are filtered in Iran, yet close to 20 million Iranians use these sites. One simple solution is to purchase a VPN. Many Iranian users are able to access banned virtual spaces in this country by purchasing a VPN.

Despite the ban on VPN in Iran, buying a VPN account is a simple task. According to information released by the Iranian government, out of every 10 Iranians, 7 use VPN. Additionally, according to Google search engine, the term “buying VPN” in Persian has been searched nearly 2 million times on this site.

Despite severe warnings from Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) regarding the buying and selling of VPNs, it is still easy to purchase VPN systems in Iran through government electronic payment gateways such as NetPay, Iran Charge, and World Pay. Buying and selling through these gateways requires having a bank account and an electronic payment card. This means that personal information of VPN users can easily fall into the hands of security authorities. These are the issues that constantly worry Iranian activists.

According to independent Iranian media, many VPN service providers have connections with government institutions and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hadi Nili, an Iranian journalist, from BBC Persian says: “Not only are some government and security institutions providers of the internet, but in some cases, these institutions also use VPN to remain anonymous.”

Nariman, who is close to activists in the field of virtual space, also says: “The government has successfully managed to control or restrict 75% of internet activities. According to him, many VPN providers also have extensive connections with security institutions, otherwise they would have been released from prison by now.”

According to Nareman Ghareeb, Hotspot Shield, Psiphon 3, and F-Secure are among the most popular software among Iranians.

The software Tor, which is famous in Western countries, is only used by 7.5% of Iranian users. From a technical standpoint, Tor software is very efficient and secure. However, among Iranians, it has few supporters. The size of Tor software is larger compared to other similar software, and due to the slow internet speed in Iran, users tend to gravitate towards other software. One of the other issues with using Tor in Iran is the lack of awareness among Iranian users about its capabilities. Additionally, many Iranian users complain about the slow speed and technical errors of Tor.

The minimum advantage of Tor software compared to other similar software is the protection of users’ personal information. While in other software, users’ personal information is easily accessible.

After the controversial 2009 elections in Iran, a flood of reports and images of post-election events spread to the free world. This rapid flow of information was a warning to the security system to think about controlling the virtual space. In 2011, security institutions began to spend exorbitant amounts of money to investigate any information in the virtual space. But controlling a country with at least 18 million online users is not an easy task.

With the increase in virtual space control, the tendency towards using Tor software in Iran has increased. The efficiency of Tor software has raised concerns among security institutions, and in late January 2011, no one had access to Tor software. But after 8 months, Tor software was developed. According to the managers of the company that produces this software, even some Iranians were willing to buy the exclusive codes of this software at the cost of imprisonment. Of course, the government was not idle either, as more than 75% of users of this software in Iran were identified.

In early 2014, this software had only 50,000 Iranian users.

Nowadays, most Iranian users are exposed to using unreliable VPNs. The risk of using VPNs provided by government or security institutions causes concern for Iranian users. Despite President Rouhani’s opposition to censorship and filtering on the internet, other religious leaders ruling over Iran consider the internet as a tool in the hands of their enemies.