Iran takes steps to turn down Internet use

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York today for the U.N. General Assembly. And over the weekend, Iran’s government announced it was turning off Google. Officials also said plans are moving ahead to place the country’s web users on a walled off intranet — as opposed to the global Internet the rest of us use.

There are two competing theories behind the move. One: censorship; the other: protecting against cyber attacks.

“I think the Iranians are mostly worried about cyber-security at this point,” says Darrell West director of Governance Studies and The Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.