Slashdot Mirror
Iran Cracks Down on Internet Sites
Dan Brickley writes "It appears that Iranian ISPs have been ordered to block a large number of popular Web sites, including weblogging, community, chat and email services. Web (particularly weblog) use has been increasing rapidly in Iran, with 64000+ weblogs published by Iranians via various sites. As of today, if the news is correct, the majority of these may be inaccessible to their authors, as will the email (eg. Yahoo) services they use to communicate with friends, colleagues and family worldwide. See stop.censoring.us and hoder.com for more details. The newly expanded blocks include PersianBlog, Blogger and the Google-hosted Orkut 'social networking' site, where Iranians come third after Brazil and USA, representing 7% of all users. How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?"
We could invade and liberate them. We're right next door. Then the Iranians could write about how happy they are on their blogs.
Complete control of information is required to stay in power. Lets hope that the people can get around this.
Some kind of open distributed web proxy might do the trick.
Sounds good, how about tor http://tor.freehaven.net/
if a single (or even multiple) tor proxies get blocked, it will just go through a different one.
it works nicely for me
hrmmm... I wonder if it would get through the "great firewall of China" just as easily
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
How can we tell them not to censor the web when we censor just about everything here at home. I mean, yes, the web is pretty well uncensored in the US, but TV isn't, and neither is radio. In fact, there's no free non-censored medium in America. You have to pay for Internet, Cable, Satellite TV, or Satellite Radio in order to have the right to free speech in a country who's first amendment to the constitution guarantees that right. How can we expect Iran to have free speech/expression if we don't really even support it?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Technical problems require technical solutions.
Political problems requre political solutions.
Don't use law to stop file sharing in america.
Don't use proxys to stop legal action in Iran.
THe problem is a political one and we need a political answer. The people of Iran need to make it heard that they want blogs and such. Only they can secure their own freedoms. The best thing that we as a free people can do is offer assistance in helping their government learn that free speach is good.
We could invade Iran (again) or we could train Iranians to hack but the reality of the issue is that beyond this, all we will do is put a band aid on a huge wound.
July 1999. The mullahs slapped them down. Hard.
Interestingly, Iran was the only middle eastern country to have spontaneous pro US demonstrations after 9/11/2001.
That's funny. The thing is, when we had a secular, nationalist named Mossadegh, we didn't have a problem. Bt of course, a democratically elected governmented could not be tolerated by your wonderful government. So the US stepped in and overthrew Mossadegh, replacing him with the Shah who began the start of a repressive regime that was quoted by Amnesty International as having the worse human rights record to date.
No wonder any Islamic movement could have gained any popularity. Anything strong and opposed to the Shah was and is still better. However, you imposed that decision on us in the first place. Moreover, your government supported the Iraqis in invading Iran, which strengthened Khomeini's hand while our brothers and sisters perished.
And after all that, you have the nerve to say that it's just our problem, and not yours?
Hey Dan, Michael, let me give you a little hint: You can't. Or, as Stalin once said of the Pope, "How many divisions does Slashdot have?"
The Islamofascist Mmullahs ruling Iran have made it quite clear they're immune to such chimeras as "international pressure." What are you going to do, impose sanction? Yeah, that worked so well with Saddam.
Given a regime where critics of the regime have to flee for their lives, and where they executed retarded rape victims for the "crime" of having sex, what makes you think any actions short of armed revolution will get their Internet access back? Who are they going to listen to? Kofi Annan? Get real.
There are only two things which might actually allow Iranians to get back their Internet freedoms:
1. A full-scale liberation invasion by U.S./coalition troops, a very difficult and probably quite bloody task, or
2. A "decapitation" strike that takes out the Islamist religious leadership, possibly some high level military assets, and probably as much of their illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure as we can locate.
The chances of either being undertaken right now are slim, and the chances of the majority of Slashdot digirati support such a move are close to zero.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
As a point of information, Iran was a democratic country up until the government decided to nationalise the oil industry. This was too much for the West to tolerate. The democratic leader Muhammad Mussadegh was overthrown by the CIA and replaced with a Western puppet dictator - the Shah.
These are essential facts for understanding why aggressive nationalism plays such an important role in Iranian affairs.
For those that often post of the US as a "totalitarian" state, please consider that we can post just about any damn thing we like anywhere on the internet. There is no government control of what you read or post. (There may be government monitoring, but that is a different story...)
Even in places like Iraq where some consider us a "dictator in residence" please note that anyone can run a blog any way they like, without censorship. Even if they are critical of the US in the region!
Please, before you post again about what a facist government the US the the terrible repressions US citizens suffer take a look at places like Iran with real repression. The US has some annoying laws that have been passed but we are a LONG ways from being a truly repressive place.
I know I'll just get flamed eight ways from Sunday for posting this, but it simply had to be said. In order to protect my own sanity (and free time) and encourage other posts I'll encourage other more silent people to come out of the shell and respond to any flamers I might get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
woman being battered" in a few of the middle eastern countries. Sure, I think its wrong, like anyone. But that's *my* belief, not necessarily theirs.
This whole worship of cultural relativism makes me sick. How can it be anything but unacceptable that people are beaten and horribly discriminated against just because they happen to be a female? My god people. The intellectual dishonesty is just amazing.
Oh, and woman aren't just "battered".
Iranians and international community expressed outrage at reported execution of the 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi on vague charges of un-Islamic behaviour.
However, informed sources revealed that Ms. Ateqeh was sentenced to death by the judge, a cleric, because during the "trial", she expressed outrage at the misogyny and injustice in the Islamic Republic and its Islam-based judicial system.
"The lower court judge was so incensed by her protestations that he personally put the noose around her neck after his decision had been upheld by the Supreme Court", the sources reported.
Plenty of pictures. They string her up using a standard construction crane and leave her their hanging for everyone to see.
Friday 27 August 2004 in the Germany-based internet newspaper Iran Emrooz, Dr. Hoseyn Baqer Zadeh, an Iranian human rights activist observed that the laws of the Islamic Republic are the "most inhuman, segregationist, insulting and discriminatory" against women.
i am really beginning to think some people's brains are just wired differently than mine. here is a subject matter everyone seems to agree on: censorship is wrong, and here we have an egregious example of it from the iranian government
and yet i scan the comments here and what do i see? anti-american sentiment
how does that work?
is the usa a friend of iran? does the censorship by the us government not look like a molehill in your mind compared to the mountain of that going on in iran?
i honestly cannot fathom how some people think: iran does something evil... therefore, let me criticize the usa
i'm not saying the usa doesn't deserve criticism, not at all: the usa does plenty wrong that needs to be examined and castigated
but what i am saying is that criticizing the usa in the context of what iran does is simple, pure lunacy. it's alternately hilarious and horrifying to me how some people can have so little understanding of concepts like: perspective, scale, context
people really have to stop obsessing about the usa. no, really, you look like a fool. a fair criticism of blindly pro-american people is that they are obsessed with the usa. but some of the posts here only prove to me that the same obsession lives in the heart of anti-american sentiment too, to the same level of monomaniacal stupidity
guess what pro-american and anti-american people: there is more to the world than the just usa. really. the world does not revolve around the usa. for real. there are other cultures and peoples and governments out there. no, really. the world does not orbit the united states. for true.
you'd think this simple painfully straightforward observation would be dumbfoundingly patently obvious and stating it would a cause for laughter and going "duh!" but then you read some of the comments in this thread. it's absolutely mystifying the obsessive one-dimensional idiocy of those talking about the usa in this thread. when the story is about the abuses of the iranian government?
utterly dumbfounding, this one-track obsession. please, some of you need to wake up. some of you need to ditch the fashionable propaganda of the times and try thinking for once
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why does the religion of peace need special instructions on how to act civilized?
You mean like 10 Commandments or something? Why do Christians need this?
Why is the religion of peace directly responsible for 28 out of the 30 violent conflicts raging in the world today?
Hmm, really? Please enumerate them. Christianity seems to have its hand in a lot of them too.
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of chattel slavery in the world today?
Really? Care to cite a source? BTW, the Southern Baptist Conference was pro-slavery throughout the civil war. There is NOTHING in the Bible condemning slavery - in many places slavery is condoned. Are you sure slavery is something inherent to a religion, or is it more likely poverty and economics?
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of terrorism in the 20th and 21st Centuries?
The same reason Christianity was responsible for it in the preceeding 18 centuries. Because. Now, if you would care to substantiate this allegation, I'm all ears. The IRA, FARC and ETA have killed a lot more people in those centuries than Islamic terrorists but they just haven't been getting the press coverage since 9\11...
Why are the practitioners of the religion of peace routinely slaughtering unarmed practitioners of every other religion wherever they can get away with it?
I think what you meant to say was "SOME practitioners". Again, this can equally and justifiably be said of Christianity as well. When the Army of God or Eric Rudolph kills abortion doctors or some blond-haired, blue-eyed boy next door blows up 168 people in a federal building, you don't seem to blame all Christians or all Americans do you?
Why does the religion of peace call for the murder of anyone who converts from the religion of peace to another religion?
Oh you mean like these guys? Yeah, your right...what kind of sick religion is THAT?
Why do so many of the believers of the religion of peace look forward to the opportunity to rape 72 virgins in heaven if they die while killing innocent women and children of other religions? Is it a god they worship, or just sex? If a god, then shouldnt heaven have more to do with him than their libidos?
Would you care to show where it says ALL muslims share this belief? Or have you been watching too much Fox News...The Church of the Creator thinks that the White Race was Gods true choosen people and can even quote the Bible to back it up...doesn't make it so and doesn't mean All Christians think that way. Don't mistake the beleifs a a sick minority with the whole religion.
Why do the leaders of the religion of peace routinely issue fatwas (death warrants) for anybody who questions their holy book of peace and their holy prophet of peace?
You mean like Christianity did for hundreds of years upto the begining of the 19th century...Catholic AND protestant? Think of about 5 centuries of Jews and witches being burned at the stake. Better yet, read up about the murder of Hypatia in Alexadria. You know its is bad, but again, if Jerry Falwell claims that 9\11 happened because America pissed of your God doesn't mean ALL Christians think like that...
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the sexual mutilation of millions of little girls and the savage oppression of women?
But sexual mutilation of infant boys is ok then? Christianity has not exactly been a beacon of equality for women either, save the last 40 years of so...
Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh, cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the religion of peace? And why dont the real practitioners of the religion of peace condemn the supposed hijackers of their religion? Why th
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Ok I am glad everyone all of a sudden cares this much about the bloggers in my country. But a few facts.
* I can't get to hoders website right now but I don't belive that anyone has verified the web blocking.
* While blogging is popular in Iran it's not the next great revolution. It's a way for people to talk, browse for porn and do all the other things most college students do in the US.
* The Iranian people are capable of figuring out a government for themselves. When theycouldn't take the Shah anymore they dealt with him.
* As the student demonstrations showed a few years ago the regime still has a lot of backers, eventually Iranians will figure out what they really want and how much they care about fighting for it.
In the meantime you can get a list of some english blogs written by iranians over at http://blogsbyiranians.com/
it appears to be down at the moment since I suspect it's hosted at hoders server but there is always the google cache if you want to look at it right now.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
>> Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh,
>> cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and
>> children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the
>> religion of peace?
> Why do anti-Muslim bigots keep clinging to this Urban myth? The
> "video" of which you allude was of about 30 people in the Occupied
> West Bank. Some of the videos shown on Fox later turned out to be
> library footage of Palestinians celebrating the 1993 peace accord,
> NOT a celebration of 9\11.
Wrong.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
Only on
using domestic violence as an example... you're a few decades out of date.
It USED TO BE in the US that the woman had to press charges against the man in order for the police to make an arrest. I know this not only from a law enforcement background, but from personal experience.
One of my next-door neighbors growing up was a terrible alcoholic and wife-beater (he was also a physician. What a disgrace to the profession... but I digress). I can't remember how many times we called the police, because we could hear him beating her (things breaking, screaming, thuds, etc). The guy used to beat the living tar out of his wife... bruises, black eyes, cuts... I've seen better-looking barfight victims. She, however, would never press charges, and the guy got off every. single. time. We could have "minded our own business," but we felt an obligation to do something. I was but a lad, so I couldn't understand the dynamics involved... Needless to say, all their kids, save one, are now in prison.
It took decades, but a sea change eventually took place. These days, Domestic Violence is a crime not only against the individual, but against the state. This allows the police to make an arrest whether the victim wants it or not.
Sometimes the situation is bad enough, or the people co-dependent enough, that they literally need help to get out of their situation. I'm well aware of how that sounds... so spare me the vituperation for being patronizing. That said, I don't think the Iranian people would resent being free... and any way we could assist them in that effort is arguably the right thing to do.
Of course, it goes without saying that we'd probably be ahead to first exhaust less-violent means of assistance.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Are you really that naive?
Guess who sold Saddam the helicopters and chemicals he used to gas the Kurds? Guess who visited Saddam after this incident and shook his hand? (Rumsfeld; google for it and you'll find a picture).
I'm sorry, but if any other country made the case they wanted to liberate the Iraqis, that would have been fine with me. But we were propping Saddam up while he was committing these atrocities, and treating him like gold. It wasn't until he invaded Kuwait that we turned on him. If anything, we should be paying Iraq reparations for having to put up with Saddam's rule.
As for Iran, it's our own fault that the current government is in place. They used to have a democratic government, but because they didn't bow to our wishes, we overthrew them and installed the Shah. He wasn't too popular, so they had a revolution, and of course the radical Muslims came into power.
There's a 16 year old girl being hung by a crane for speaking out against her government, her "judge" is the one putting the noose around her neck, and you're worried about cows being turned into burgers amd calling the difference "arbitrary".
All I can say is: wow.
Little bit of advice (if you don't want advice, then read no further):
It wouldn't hurt you to rethink your reasoning. I do it for most every issue every couple of years. Start fresh, look at a variety of sources, try to ignore the sources you're used to. If, when you're done, you come to all the same conclusions, then great. Usually I don't change my mind much, but I have, on occasion, changed my outlook quite drastically. What do you have to lose?
I think a country needs to "liberate" itself. The US had numerous bloody wars to get to the point to where its at. If enough people are against a topic in a country, they need to overthrow the powers that be themselves, that's all there is to it.
That would be great. Tell me. You're a poor peasant in a country that 80% poor and 20% rich. You and your 15 friends get together and build some rudimentary weapons (swords, etc). Now those four rich guys come by and they have two HUGE FRIGGIN TANKS.
Explain to me exactly what you'd do.
This ain't the 18th century. It is no longer difficult to retain power in a country with little popular support. The thought that every country should fix itself or it doesn't really want/deserve change is naive and heartless. Wow, and I'm the republican.
I'm the sr. sysadmin for Anonymizer and we have a contract with VOA to provide free proxy service to Iran.
/. with it...Rob hates me). Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences.
It's based off of PrivateSurfing (which you can try out for free at the Anonymizer homepage, sorry you can't surf
The systems that run the Iran proxies are dedicated and used quite heavily. Much more than any of the servers that we have for everything else. The loadav is pretty high, and we're working on upgrading them in the next few months to increase capacity.
Most of our customers are under NDA so I don't mention where I work much, but the VOA is one of our very few public contracts due to it's anti-censorship nature.
What a bunch of braindead wankers you all are (mostly, there are a few thinking humans evident in the postings). Too many of you are just soooo willing to send me to fight in wars all over bejesus for yet another regime change.
I, as a soldier, ain't buying. It is neither our right nor our responsibility to force our version of Halliburton "democracy" down ANYONE'S throat. Newsflash: Iraq was and remains a frickin' fiasco. It is a bust. It has made us up to be a joke.
Initially, no doubt the powers that be in the ME were all a quiver over our illegal and unjustfiable invasion of Iraq. Shortly thereafter, when it became obvious that we were and are powerless to actually control the country and are now well and FULLY bogged down, they began laughing. There is jack squat we can do ANYWHERE else. Forget, absolutely, about invading Iran. Iran would be harder by a long shot than Iraq. It is twice as large, twice as mountainous, has a larger and complete working military, and its citizens would NOT in any way welcome us as "liberators for Halliburton".
If N. Korea decided to make a big go for S. Korea, we're screwed. We do NOT have the teeth to deal with any other military goo-gaw. China makes a move on Taiwan? Nothing we can do short of abandoning Iraq to the inevitable chaos and violence that WILL control that country for the foreseeable future (OUR fault) and trying to throw a bunch of tired, overburdened troops into yet a bigger and worse conflict.
Get off your frickin' war wagons. I'm sick of this shit from a bunch of snotnosed ignorant punks who don't serve, never served, and never intend to serve. Shut the fuck up. I SERVED and I STILL serve and I'm tired of you wackjob idiots talking tough by throwing MY life around for nothing. Bite my camouflaged military ass you damn cowards and candyasses. YOU take up arms and invade every country that offends your wackjob Christian belief system or offends your desire to make capitalistic money off other people's resources and countries. YOU do it but leave the legitimate and honorable soldiers to do what they're supposed to do: protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic. That's our job, not overthrowing every dictator that annoys Exxon or Halliburton.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.