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Iran has restricted access to Google’s search engine and to its email service, Gmail.

A firewall already prevents Iranians from accessing many Western sites.

The latest move coincides with protests throughout the Muslim world – including some in Tehran – against an anti-Islamic film posted on Google’s video-sharing site YouTube.

A government deputy minister announced the upcoming ban on Sunday on state television.

“Google and Gmail will be filtered nationwide, and will remain filtered until further notice,” said an adviser to Iran’s public prosecutor’s office Abdul Samad Khoramabadi.

Iran has restricted access to Google’s search engine and to its email service, Gmail

Iran has restricted access to Google’s search engine and to its email service, Gmail

The announcement was also sent out as a text message on mobile phones.

The unsecured version of the search engine, which is much easier to eavesdrop on, remains accessible.

“Google search website is accessible, but is not functioning properly. Google services which need a secure SSL [Secure Sockets Layer] connection are out of reach in Iran,” said one user.

“Any attempt to get access to those services leads the user to a never-ending waiting phase, where nothing comes up.”

Users can only access Gmail accounts by using virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow web surfing behind heavily encrypted firewalls.

Many Iranians already use VPNs to bypass the government’s restrictions on other blocked Western websites, said Mahmood Tajali Mehr, an Iranian telecommunications consultant living in Germany.

“This is just a move by the Iranian government towards a so-called nationwide intranet, to control all the traffic from the outside, and authorities are saying they will implement it in about three years.

“But every school child knows how to bypass restrictions by using VPNs, it’s very common in Iran.”

It is not the first time Iranian authorities have cut access to Google services.

Both Google Search and Gmail were restricted in February, ahead of parliamentary elections in March.

Mahmood Tajali Mehr said that he did not think the services were going to stay restricted for long.

“This is just a propaganda tool to demonstrate that Iran is doing something against the US, but it is unlikely to last longer than a few days.

“The current trouble with the anti-Islamic film is helping the government with this propaganda.

“The state is saying that the people are asking to block these services because of the film, but there haven’t been such protests as in Pakistan and elsewhere, only small organized protests, so my personal feeling is that it has nothing to do with the film.

“Especially keeping in mind that YouTube has been blocked for some time already.”

Google’s YouTube site has been censored since mid-2009, following protests and allegations of vote fraud after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The websites of several Western media organizations are also blocked in the country, and a number of other web services, including Facebook and Twitter, are often censored.

In March, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered officials to set up a body tasked with defining policy and co-ordinating decisions regarding the internet, called the Supreme Council of Virtual Space.

 

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Google users searching for the term “Zerg Rush” had a big surprise; the colored letters “O” turn into aliens that devour the page – and the users could click on the little “aliens” to kill them.

The hidden “Easter Egg” is a reference to the space strategy game Starcraft, where using a “Zerg Rush” with the game’s “Zergling” creatures is often a winning strategy.

Google has a long tradition of hidden “Easter Eggs” – as well as its famous Google Doodles.

Even by Google’s standards, though, this joke is particularly geeky.

The “Zerg” is one of the races in a strategy game, Starcraft – and experienced players often rely on the “Zerg rush” to win games.

The verb “to Zerg” is now often used in other online games, meaning to overwhelm an enemy through sheer force of numbers.

The game Starcraft was released in 1998, but is still played today.

If you search for “Zerg Rush” on Google, the colored letters “O” turn into aliens that devour the page

If you search for “Zerg Rush” on Google, the colored letters “O” turn into aliens that devour the page

Maker Blizzard entertainment says: “In the distant future, the newly formed Terran Dominion faces the arrival of two hostile alien races: the savage Zerg and the enigmatic Protoss. Gather resources and expand your forces to lead them to victory. The only allies are enemies. The only choice is war.”

You have to search from the Google home page to make the “trick” work, and it may not work in mobile browsers or some desktop browsers.

The gamer joke is similar to an earlier Google “Easter Egg”.

Entering “do a barrel roll” as a Google search prompted computer screens to do a 360-degree turn.

Google told ABC News: “Today’s fun query, <<do a barrel roll>>, was created by a Google software engineer with the primary goal of entertaining users – while showcasing the power of CSS3, a presentation feature of modern browsers.”

The phrase quickly became a trending topic on Twitter as users urged their followers to try it for themselves.

The feature can also be used if one searches the phrase “Z or R twice”, Google’s homage to the Nintendo 64 video game Star Fox.

The barrel roll maneuver in the popular 1990s game could be completed by toggling the Z or R buttons twice.

 

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