Nokia Siemens Admits Limited Iranian Interceptability Over Their Hardware

The BBC has recently alleged that the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Siemens network currently set up in Iran allows authorities to intercept all communications,  “including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic,” to which Nokia Siemens explained that they have “provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran” as mandated by the 3GPP and ETSI, but even then, their network doesn’t allow international call monitoring or speech recognition. If you haven’t been watching #iranelection, twitter and other internet portals have become valuable outlets for live information (although some might stop at calling the event a twitter “revolution”), and they depend in no small part on the integrity of the infrastructure to get out. While Nokia Siemens has safely denied data interceptibility, they’ve also admitted that local calling, arguably one of the most useful services to Iranians right now, can be tapped. Tack voice monitoring onto the reported SMS blockage, and it makes for a rough ride for wireless communications in Iran.