Nokia and Siemens must be very proud of themselves, basking in the glory of their own greed. It has been revealed that both companies supplied technology to Iran’s oppressive regime that allows the government to engage in deep packet inspection. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the technology allows the Iranian government to censor the Internet, including the ability to monitor users and even alter outgoing messages for the purposes of disinformation.
Users in the country report the Internet having slowed to less than a tenth of normal speeds. Deep packet inspection delays the transmission of online data unless it is offset by a huge increase in processing power, according to Internet experts.
Iran is “now drilling into what the population is trying to say,” said Bradley Anstis, director of technical strategy with Marshal8e6 Inc., an Internet security company in Orange, Calif. He and other experts interviewed have examined Internet traffic flows in and out of Iran that show characteristics of content inspection, among other measures. “This looks like a step beyond what any other country is doing, including China.”
Nokia and Siemens: two companies willing to sell their souls.
Update: Apparently after Shacknews ran the story we originally referenced below, they were contacted by Apogee Software and Deep Silver who confirmed there was a “situation at 3D Realms”, but wanted to assure everyone that the Duke Nukem franchise would live on in the form of a trilogy being developed specifically for the PSP and Nintendo DS platforms.
Thank The Maker for that! Our tears have been dried!
Unfortunately, “Forever”-itself, was being developed internally at 3D Realms and will most likely never see the light of day (surprise!), but you will still be able to “get some” when when the first game in the trilogy, Critical Mass, is released this September. Developer Frontline Studios is still hard at work combining gun-wielding pigs with strippers and wise-cracks for that one.
Even with this new news, we think our coworkers observation still stands: “What a mammoth cluster-fudge this entire, decade spanning ordeal has been.”
Original post: It seems it’s a sad day for gamers who enjoy the rare combination of gun-weilding pigs, strippers, and smart-but-crude cracks. Shacknews is reporting that the studio behind Duke Nukem Forever, 3D Realms has been closed due to funding issues and all of its employees already dismissed. It’s a surprisingly sudden and quiet end to anyone who has followed the company and the franchise. I think the reaction of one of the other writers here captured all our feelings best, “What a mammoth cluster-fudge this entire, decade spanning ordeal has been.”
It’s obvious when embargoes are lifted in the game industry, as nearly every video game site under the sun suddenly posts the same derivative article at approximately the same time. Embargoes are a scourge, a powerplay by the Publisher’s PR arm handling a video game, which serves no positive purpose for anyone involved. It dillutes the media for gaming sites and compresses the exposure of a game into a single day.
I mean, how many BioShock 2 previews do we need posted on a single day? You’d think a publisher would want the exposure spread out over time, keeping the brand in your head up till the day of release, but no. PR teams think it best that previews all hit on the same day. Worse, the various sites are more than willing to play along, willingly giving up whatever power they may have had. [The whole industry is so controlled by publishers that there is essentially no choice. No access = no info = no audience. Only totalitarian governments have more of a stranglehold over the media that covers them. If any of our readers have a solution as to how principled journalists and site owners can change the state of things and still remain financially viable, please let us know and we'll share your thoughts with the rest of our audience. -Ed.]
Let’s take a gander at which sites played the embargo game today, offering up essentially the same content as everyone else:
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