Iran has been known as one of the leading countries in the region when it comes to high-tech. From the early days, the Iranian people were known for their wits and capability. From the basics of algebra, through the maritime navigation tool sextant and up to the first gas laser, the Helium–neon laser (HeNe), was invented by Iranian engineer and scientist Ali Javan. But that was in the past. Nowadays the Iranian regime puts all its efforts in utilizing high-tech into a weapon, a means to damage others and control the local population.
When you come to look at it, it seems that nothing is further away than high-tech in the Ayatollah regime, the later dragging Iran into medieval thinking, standing against progress, at least as it is conceived by the free Western world. But over the years, the regime has refreshed the rows, allowing younger cadets enter the court of the supreme leadership. Many of those have studied in Europe, some in the US and all came with new ideas, new technologies and innovations.
This could have been an opportunity to make good on many “old-school” solutions, that have brought on a long row of disasters on the Iranian people. The regime allowed the IRGC to abuse water resources, divert rivers and in some place put dams, drying out whole provinces. The regime sold electricity to the neighboring Iraq, channeling most of the money into private pockets in bank accounts in Iraq and in the UAE, away from the eyes of the Iranian finance ministry. Electricity shortages are as common as the sand storms are growing in numbers and intensity, and instead of using the technological capability, the inventive minds and the ever broadening academic resources to cope the poverty, water shortage and blackouts in the cold winter and the hot summers, instead of dealing with the disastrous environmental state of the country, where many species have died out, fishery has been almost eliminated and the air is thicker than a pea soup, the regime uses high-tech as a leverage to keep the population at as much low-tech as possible.
Electricity outages have become critical, and blackouts have sparked frustration among citizens, who are left without heating in sub-zero temperatures. All the while IRGC is mining cryptocurrency, mainly Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency mining, particularly Bitcoin, is an energy-intensive process that requires vast amounts of electricity to power specialized computer rigs. The regime could have regulated the usage in order to optimize power consumption on certain hours of the day, days of the week.
One of the main reasons that the regime pushes into the minds of the population is the ideological isolation the West is forcing on Iran, in order to abuse Iranian fossil energy resources. The West, according to the regime, claims that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, take over neighboring countries and spread the Shiite ideology by force, including financing, training and promoting terror organizations world-wide.
The fact that these allegations are true, doesn’t make them the reason for the disastrous state of things in Iran. Iran under the fundamentalistic regime has 12 times more students and 15 times more academic institutions than the pre-revolutionary government. On the other hand, they have more than twice the population, more than four times young population of the age of 18-25 (students) and more than half of the academic institutions are focused on religious studies, even if some are not outspoken on the subject.
Technical universities in Iran are world-famous, or at least have been up until the beginning of the millennium. Iranian scientists have been visiting professors all over the Western world and some parts of Asia, many have taken part in scientific breakthroughs. This has changed quite a bit after Western intelligence services discovered Iran’s nuclear weapons program. At that time, it was quite clear that at least some of the knowledge for that program was based on the insight of visiting Iranian academics and joint studies. From that point on, the Iranian nuclear weapons program was referred to as “possible military dimensions” (PMD) to allow IAEA to proceed in monitoring the nuclear program, without losing the cooperation of Tehran. Let’s not forget the facts, while nowadays Iran is not allowing any more monitoring of its nuclear program and has breached several treaties and agreements, including the NPT.
Iran is suffering from sanctions for these breaches, but not only. Iran’s financing and promoting terror all over the world, for assassinating regime enemies and for their missile development and sales, including supply to war zones and inciting conflicts in the area. This could have been avoided, if only the regime would give up on these foul aspirations. One major option was to join China in an effort to build a full-scale Thorium reactor. China is a major economical and even strategic ally of Iran and Beijing has offered the ayatollahs to join in as early as 2015. China has launched the building of the first small-scale Thorium reactor in the desert, a solution that could have made the change Iran has longed for. These are reactors that have the lowest melt-down probability, produce less long-lasting actinides and can not be misused for a nuclear weapons program. Iran denied the offer without giving a good reason.
In fact, whenever Iran takes part in hi-end technology ventures with other countries, the main goal is to promote her own military capabilities, or so it seems. It is quite possible that the reason for that is that the science ministry and the education and research institutes are handled mostly by former IRGC officers and officials.
However, Iran is well invested in computer science studies and has developed high capabilities not only in cyber security, but also in cyber-attack, with emphasis on CNA and CNE.
Over the last five years Iran has taken a major step in AI technologies, a tool that could have helped overcome many problems in the lives of the Iranian population. It could help in the distribution of energy, in the improvement of water resource management and even be utilized for environmental regulations. Instead, the regime invests all of its own AI capabilities and recruits outside groups to run campaigns on their own population. AI and cyber capabilities were harnessed even more intensely to influence public opinion shortly after the Hamas attack and the Gaza war, thousands of kilometers away. The campaigns were targeting Western countries like Canada and the UK, but also Australia and the US. According to a comprehensive report by Microsoft, Iran’s cyber teams utilized misleading details on claimed attacks through state media, and re-used old materials as new. They used over 14 attack teams to disrupt genuine information flow, partly run by the ministry of information, some by the IRGC, all in a combined effort.
When the regime really wants to, high-tech is put to work, and very soon they broadened the attacks:
On November 20, the Iran-run cyber persona “Homeland Justice,” warned of major forthcoming attacks on Albania before amplifying destructive cyberattacks by MOIS groups in late December against Albania’s Parliament, national airline, and telecommunication providers.
On November 21, Cotton Sandstorm-run cyber persona “Al-Toufan” targeted Bahraini government and financial organizations for normalizing ties with Israel.
By November 22, IRGC-affiliated groups began targeting Israeli-made programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in the United States, and possibly Ireland, including taking one offline at a water authority in Pennsylvania on November 25 (Figure 6). PLCs are industrial computers adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, and robotic devices.
In early December, a persona that MTAC assesses is Iran-sponsored, “Cyber Toufan Al-Aksa,” claimed to leak data from a pair of American companies for financially backing Israel and providing equipment for its military.
It makes you wonder, what Iran could have achieved if the focus was right, or at least suiting the needs of the Iranian people. On the other hand, since when does the Iranian regime take interest it what the people need and how to ensure their future. The Iranian regime live by the motto “l’etat c’est moi”. If the regime doesn’t survive, there is no sense in living. That is why all these hi-tech capabilities go to waste, and will, for the near future.
