No more Virtual Private Networks in Oman? TSA floats VPN ban for individuals. Meanwhile, Blue City plans the sell out...

It had to happen.

Tired of not being able to use (or at least recharge) skype? Want to watch streamed TV from the USA? Like the idea of surfing the net anon from Newark instead of Ruwi with a visible Internet address?

In the past, the answer was a VPN.

Virtual Private Network. Cheap ones were quickly blocked, but several commercial ones specifically advertised the ability to defeat Oman's filters.

VPN. A quirk of the internet protocol that allowed you to to establish an encrypted "pipe" to the servers of the civilised world (USA, Denmark, UK, Canada...) free of Omantel internet censors, snoops, etc. Want to go to Big Tits Unlimited?

In Oman a VPN was essential if the thumbnails of Google were too limiting.


This is just a Ramadan sensitive example. Try googling "censored big tits" yourself!


Well, no more, according to the Omani Telecom Authority [TSA], via Global Voices Online's Mohammed Al Modawwin

Oman: VPN Ban Soon
posted by Mohammed Al Modawwin on Sep 03, 2010

categories: Feature, Oman, law, regulation
In the latest episode of internet censorship in Oman, the Telecom Regulation Authority of Oman has announced its plans to completely ban the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and would require companies to acquire the TRA's permission before they can use them. The new regulation has not been passed yet and has been posted by the TRA online for public consultation.

The use of VPN by consumers has increased over the years as it is the only way for internet users in Oman to use VoIP services - which have been banned in Oman for a number of years now. Some VPN protocols such as PPTP are already completely blocked in Oman and providers of other VPN solutions are increasingly discovered by the ISP and are blocked on individual basis.

The use of VPN in the past has been a gray area in the country as the law does not permit the any unauthorized use of encryption, but the new draft regulations will explicitly make the use of VPN officially illegal for the private use of individuals.

Companies on the other hand will be able to use VPN upon completing a special form to be adopted by the TRA and acquiring its approval. Upon submitting the VPN use form the company would have to provide the following details:

Details of the user of the VPN. (Not clear if they are asking for details of individual users, or the company).
Explanation of the purpose for which the VPN will be used.
Details of the IP address of the source and destination of the communication.
Article 3 of the regulation specifies that the TRA may reject any application without providing reasons for its rejection.

The regulations are now up for public consultation, but it is unlikely for this to result in a change in the core ban specified in it as as the prohibition of VPN is in accordance with Oman's general policy against the use of encryption and the majority of the uses of VPN by private users in Oman are uses which are banned anyway by other regulations such as VoIP or merely avoiding the censorship of ISPs.

Well, quite.

OmanHel has been blocking Skype for years, because they, ah, don't like losing millions of dollars in international phone calls.

They have also been blocking "http://www.superbigtits.com" for ages too, because, ummm, obviously, no one in Oman is allowed to look at digital images of really big mammary glands from Sp. Homo Sapiens, etc etc etc.

All this was easily avoidable. If you had the IT skills (or access to same) of a nintendo trained 11 years old. I've posted on this before.

But all this big titted cheap phone call encrypted enabling glory is now to be illegal.

And even worse, very effectively blocked by the filters [One of the reasons for my recent quiescence dear readers].

Great. You will soon be breaking the law if you surf in a way that the Omani authorities can't read along side you.

And, to think, we laughed at UAE banning text messages from Blackberries. LOL... WEEP.

So that's OK then.


Meanwhile, in other news,

Lavishly recompensed Blue City magnate & property development expert par excellence (and super-talented marketing talent spotter) Anees Al Zedjali has apparently come up with a cunning plan for his new UAE masters to repay some of the vast foreign debt (ie theirs):

Sell the fantastic land His Majesty graciously sold them (well, actually, mainly sold to HH Minister of Culture & Heritage, via Cyclone and BCC1) at a huge discount.

Wow. What a business genius.




At least according to someone who shuld know and is willing to talk to the press Suketu Sanghvi, senior manager at Essdar (Essdar, 35-percent owned by the ruler of Dubai Sh. Maktoum's investment company Dubai Holding, which bought Blue City's $655.5 million Class A debt via a tender offer earlier in June as part of investment in its Gulf-focused distressed debt fund.) :

...
"Transactions in the distressed and special situations space go through cycles in each country and as such volumes of such transactions may significantly rise in some parts of the world and may drop in other parts " Suketu Sanghvi, senior managing director of structuring and investments at Essdar told Reuters.

"...people who have good understanding of local and regional markets on legal and financial implications of enforcement, work outs, restructuring and refinancing can take some wise investment decisions in the space."

Essdar, which has an asset management and corporate finance advisory business, was presented with a restructuring plan by Blue City's borrower and the firm is in the process of reviewing the plan, Sanghvi said.

"We are in discussions with the note holders what to do with it (restructuring plan). The plan provides for the sale of a significant part of the land," he said.

An hour from Oman's capital Muscat, Blue City was touted as Oman's biggest real estate project but it stalled amid dismal sales and clashes between shareholders.

So, thats alright then.

Let's let the UAE build Oman's new Emerald city for 200,000 people. Maybe they at least will take the project seriously, having put their own borrowed cash into it...

ATM Scammers in Oman, Naughty Syrians, Oman telcom probably bugged by German Intelligence

A few nice stories.

Criminals Scamming ATMs in Oman
First a report has been issued by the British Embassy in Oman yesterday that some pretty sophisticated devices are being used by criminals to scam your ATM card details, after which they clone your card and can empty your account. Here’s a picture of a ‘plate’ used on top of the real ATM keyboard to record your pin. Watch out!

Please be aware of ATM card frauds using skimming devices in ATMs in Muscat. These are of course also found in the UK and many other places. Please find attached a picture of one part of the device. The other element is a plastic card reader added to the machine’s card slot.

Syrians Very Naughty Boys
Remember that mysterious surgical bombing of Syria by Israeli jets last year? And the denials from all sides? The Economist had a great article last week, describing how the Americans have finally released information detailing their evidence that the installation taken out by the Israelis was actually a North Korean designed reactor specifically for producing weapons grade plutonium. It just shows how big brother is watching. The Economist: Oh what a tangled web they weave

The shadowy half-life of Syria's supposedly non-existent nuclear reactor.
“TOTALLY undocumented and untrue”, thundered Syria this week at a meeting in Geneva of the signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). “A fantasy”, fumed Syria's man at the United Nations last week. Since America released photographs taken inside and outside the building that was later bombed without explanation by Israeli jets in early September last year, it has been Syria's denials that have strained credulity. However it is still unclear where exactly the tangled web of intrigue surrounding the discovery that Syria was secretly building a nuclear reactor, in an otherwise deserted canyon east of the Euphrates river, will now lead.

Ironically, the most damning pictures were taken shortly after the Israeli raid. Syria's frantic efforts to destroy what was left of the building, remove tell-tale components and bulldoze earth over the site briefly laid bare its purpose to any passing satellite: construction of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor that lacked the power lines and other paraphernalia to hook up to an electricity grid and was ill-suited to research. It was, however, ideal for making plutonium for bombs—and could have produced enough for one or two within a year once it was fuelled up and operating, said the CIA's director, Michael Hayden, this week.


Just as damningly—says the Bush administration—Syria had turned to North Korea to help realise its nuclear ambitions. The almost-completed reactor was a clone of the one North Korea built for itself at Yongbyon, and whose plutonium extracted from the reactor's spent fuel-rods was used.

Germans Bugging Oman for Years?
On a related big brother story, remember how Siemens were busted bribing Telecom Officials around the world to win contracts, including it seems likely, Oman. (That’s in addition to the widely reported – outside Oman naturally - Ericsson bribe of the then Omani Telecommunications Minister see earlier post).

It is reported that Siemens installed sophisticated communication intercept wiretapping equipment for the Oman Government [Hi guys!], and therefore the German Intelligence Agency (the BND) have probably been reading all our emails and texts ever since. Business Week report

The scope of the Siemens affair is staggering and centers on a current estimated €1.3 billion ($2.1 billion) in dubious payments—mostly in bribes to secure business for the company. Indeed, the company is believed to have paid bribes around the world often amounting to between 5 and 10 percent of a deal's value, and in some cases as much as 30 percent.

The Germans had fallen behind in terms of technical innovation and, as a bookkeeper in one division put it, many were convinced bribes were the only way the company could score big contracts abroad. In some divisions, executives became convinced that without bribes it would be impossible to get contracts in many countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, the Arab world and large swaths of Africa, Iran and other states.
…
Close Ties with Foreign Intelligence Service
The current SPIEGEL report also details Siemens' allegedly close working relationship with the German foreign intelligence service, the BND. Because the company manufactured virtually every type of high tech product, it served as the BND's virtual house supplier for technology—providing wiretap-proof mobile phones as well as reconnaissance tools. The relationship is said to have been extremely important to the BND because it was interested in getting hold of the access codes to wiretapping systems Siemens had sold to countries all around the world, including Russia, Egypt and Oman.