<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<section class="body grid-18 row clearfix">
<section class="content-wrapper columns grid-13 css-debug"
data-breakpoint="{"desktop": "grid-13",
"tablet": "grid-12"}">
<section class="row">
<article class="article grid-18 columns"
data-id="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet"
data-anchor-id="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet"
data-ad-config="{"networkId":"23219321","siteId":"iac.tdb-tdb.us.dw","zone":"world/content","targeting":
{"template": "article","kw":
["central_intelligence_agency","iran","american_military","cybersecurity"],"orderinlist":
"1","section":
"world","pid":"1090603308"}}"
data-type="article" data-index="1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html</a><br>
<div style="min-height: 1px;" class="social-wrapper
shown-opaque">
<ul style="position: absolute; margin-top: 80px; top:
0px;" class="social css-debug">
<li class=""><a class="social-share-button
social-share-button-google hidden" target="_blank"
aria-hidden="true"
href="https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Farticles%2F2015%2F11%2F01%2Fmeet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html%3Fvia%3Ddesktop%26social%3Dgoogleplus"
data-page-name=""db - Article - Meet the U.S.
Defense Firm Supplying Irans Internet""
data-web-analytics="{"eventName":"sharetool-click","eventProperties":{"socialAction":"google","socialNetwork":"google","shareButtonName":"google","shareToolPosition":"article-left","articleTitle":"Meet
the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s
Internet","articleUrl":"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet.html","pageName":"Meet
the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s
Internet","pagePath":"/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/11/01/meet-the-u-s-defense-firm-supplying-iran-s-internet","wrapName":"",
"templateName":"article",
"sectionTaxanomy":"","contentType":"house",
"authorsIds":"/etc/authors/s/shane-harris"}}"><span
class="social-share-image"></span><span
class="visuallyhidden"></span></a><br>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="row">
<section class="article-body grid-16 columns last-child">
<section class="content article-main-content">
<header class="content-header">
<h3 class="section" itemprop="articleSection"><small>Disconnect</small></h3>
<div class="publish-date-time"><span class="date">11.01.15</span><span
class="date">12:01 AM ET</span></div>
<h1 class="title multiline" itemprop="name"><big><big><big>Meet
the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s
Internet</big></big></big></h1>
</header>
<div class="dek char-limit multiline">A company that
works for American spies and generals has quietly
started providing Internet service to the Islamic
Republic. What’s going on here?</div>
<section class="content-body article-body-content">
<p>Nestled in a <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/01/what-jane-jacobs-got-wrong-about-cities.html">suburban
Washington, D.C.</a>, office park, across the
street from a shopping mall, a technology company
that counts the <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/27/the-u-s-war-casualties-the-pentagon-doesn-t-want-you-to-see.html">U.S.
Defense Department</a> as its biggest customer
is charting out a new frontier: providing Internet
service to Iran.</p>
<p>But GTT Communications Inc.—headquartered in
McLean, Virginia, just a 15-minute drive from the
headquarters of the CIA and hired by various
unnamed U.S. intelligence agencies and satellite
operators—hasn’t exactly been touting its new
venture.</p>
<p>The company has issued no press release about its
deal with an undersea cable network that sells
Internet services to Iran and other Persian Gulf.
(One of the cables comes ashore at the city of
Bushehr, home to a nuclear plant that’s been the
subject of intense debate about its role in Iran’s
nuclear program.)</p>
<p>Instead, the partnership was <a
href="http://twitter.com/GBI_Network/status/598225813419360256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
target="_blank">announced</a> in a single tweet
last May; both parties have been largely silent
about the deal since then. When contacted by The
Daily Beast for details about the deal with the
Doha-based submarine cable operator, Gulf Bridge
International, a GTT spokesperson said the
agreement wouldn’t be finalized for a few more
weeks.</p>
<p>And yet technical data shows that GTT was
providing Internet service to Iran for months.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic has been off limits to most
U.S. companies for years. A complex <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/14/nuke-deal-helps-qasem-soleimani-the-top-iranian-general-with-american-blood-on-his-hands.html">sanctions</a>
<a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/14/nuke-deal-helps-qasem-soleimani-the-top-iranian-general-with-american-blood-on-his-hands.html">regime</a>,
meant in part to isolate the regime in Tehran and
obstruct its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon,
bars the sale of good and services by many
American companies, including through
intermediaries.</p>
<p>But last year, the Treasury Department, which
administers the sanctions program, issued new
rules (<a
href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran_gld1.pdf"
target="_blank">PDF</a>) authorizing the sale of
“consumer-grade Intemet connectivity services.”
That created an opening for GTT, as well as any
other American companies that want to cash in on
the Iranian market for Internet service, which is
booming thanks in large part to a surge of new
mobile phone users in the country.</p>
<p>The company began providing bandwidth to Iran’s
state-owned telecom company, TIC, via one of Gulf
Bridge’s submarines cables on June 10, Doug
Madory, the director of analysis at Dyn, a
research company that monitors Internet
connectivity, told The Daily Beast. Notably, that
was nearly a month before the U.S., Iran, and
other world powers announced an <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/02/it-ll-be-a-miracle-if-this-iran-nuke-deal-really-gets-done.html">agreement</a>
to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange
for lifting some sanctions.</p>
<p>Only Iranian officials would know the exact
percentage of Iran’s Internet traffic that was
flowing to and from GTT, said Madory, who first <a
target="_blank"
href="http://research.dyn.com/2015/09/iran-latest-nation-to-host-critical-global-internet-infrastruture/#%21prettyPhoto">noted</a>
the company’s presence in Iran last month. But, he
said, the Iranian Internet is effectively composed
of about 5,000 network routes, and at its peak in
August, “GTT was handling anywhere from some to
all of the international traffic” to more than
1,800 of those routes, or about 16.6 percent of
the total.</p>
<p>So GTT was not some small-time provider.</p>
<p>Asked for more details about its work in Iran,
the GTT spokesperson, Ann Rote, said that she
would be able to provide specifics after the
partnership was finalized.</p>
<p>But, Rote said, the company’s work violated no
sanctions, and was in line with “U.S. policy to
facilitate the flow of information to and from
Iran.”</p>
<blockquote id="quote-0" class="blockquote" style="">
<div class="centerer">
<div class="safe-area">
<div style="font-size: 20px;" class="content">When
contacted by The Daily Beast for details
about the Iran deal, a GTT spokesperson said
the agreement wouldn’t be finalized for a
few more weeks. And yet technical data shows
that GTT was providing Internet service to
Iran for months.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>“GTT does not conduct any business in Iran or
with the Government of Iran,” Rote said. “Any
Internet traffic coming from Iran and transiting
GTT’s global IP [Internet protocol] network is
coming indirectly from customers of wholesale or
carrier partners in the Middle East region.”</p>
<p>Technically, she’s right. GTT’s customer is Gulf
Bridge International, the undersea cable provider.
But the technical data strongly suggest that GTT
knew—or should have known—that it was providing
service to the state telecom of Iran. And that’s a
crucial question, because while U.S. companies are
allowed to sell Internet service to Iran, they may
not do so if they have “knowledge or reason to
know that such services … are intended for the
Government of Iran,” according to Treasury
Department rules. State-owned companies are also
covered by that prohibition, two lawyers who are
expert in the sanctions rules told The Daily
Beast.</p>
<p>In October, GTT was “transiting” 521 Iranian
routes, Madory said, meaning that at some level
GTT was responsible for “propagating these routes
to the greater Internet.” Effectively, GTT was
advertising that route for traffic destined to
particular Internet addresses in Iran<br>
</p>
<p>But on October 5, the service abruptly stopped,
apparently after one of Gulf Bridge
International’s cables was cut. The service has
not been restored, Madory said. Up until that
point, it had been going strong for nearly four
months.<br>
<br>
GTT’s service to Iran raises questions about why
an American Internet company with close ties to
the U.S. government and intelligence community
would be selling off bandwidth to a country that
is still a major strategic adversary of the United
States.</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</div>
</article>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<p>Despite the nuclear deal, Iran is providing the bulk of ground
forces to crush Syrian rebels opposed to Bashar al-Assad, and is
part of an emerging power axis with Russia, which has <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/29/u-s-to-putin-welcome-to-the-isis-quagmire.html">launched</a>
airstrikes to keep the Syrian dictator in power and to keep
Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East.</p>
<p>But Iran is expanding economically—and digitally—as well. And
that presents an opportunity for American technology companies.</p>
<p>Since August 2014, when the Iran’s national telecom regulator
began awarding licenses for 3G and 4G mobile phone service,
subscriptions have surged, to about 20.5 million people last
month, Amy Cameron, a senior analyst with BMI Research, told The
Daily Beast. That’s about 27 percent of the country’s population,
the majority of which is under 30 and, presumably, eager to
embrace new technologies and the access to information that comes
with them.</p>
<p>The surge in mobile phone service is a big business, and Iran
needs more Internet addresses and access for all those new
devices, Cameron said. In addition to acquiring new service
routes—like the ones GTT provides—the government has also been
buying up Internet addresses that use the so-called <a
href="http://research.dyn.com/2015/04/ipv4-address-market-takes-off"
target="_blank">“version 4”</a> protocol, a vital, and
increasingly scarce, component of the world’s Internet
infrastructure. And Iran plans to auction more wireless broadband
spectrum, which should in turn attract more investment in mobile
networks.</p>
<p>“All of these developments point towards Iran making concerted
efforts to open its Internet market,” Cameron said. Of course,
there are limits to that openness: Iran’s primary telecom company
is owned by the military, and the Tehran government monitors
communications for prohibited content.</p>
All of which makes its affiliation with a telecom company in
suburban Washington even more unusual.<br>
<br>
<div align="center">--30--<br>
</div>
</body>
</html>