Iran's "Second Internet" Rivals Censorship Of China's "Great Firewall"

Iran is unveiling a nationwide "Halal Intranet" this spring that will try to seal the nation off from the corrupting influences of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. But can it work?

In whatever form it will take, other governments will be eagerly watching. Initiatives to envision a successor technology to the Internet such as Stanford's Clean Slate program have been eagerly followed by two separate groups. Nation-states such as China and North Korea believe that a successor technology to the Internet--such as a nationwide intranet--would be easier to monitor, and international organizations such as the United Nations suspect the Internet has fundamentally dangerous native technology flaws and could be bought down by malicious hackers. Either way, if Iran pulls off their “Halal Internet,” it will have profound international consequences.