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The State of Iran's Ongoing Netwar
An anonymous reader writes "Following disputed elections in Iran, opposition groups and activists have turned conventional protests into a major threat to the ruling government. The low-intensity protest movement is rapidly becoming the first true netwar of the 21st century. Opposition protesters have shown that within a few hours or less, the information technologies that are the mainstay of modern society can become its weapons, as well.
This article examines the current situation in Iran and the part played by new media technologies and strategies, showing how far the theory and practice of netwar has advanced since the concept first emerged in the late nineties."
TFA was one of the best written, well thought out blogs I've ever had the pleasure to read. Indeed JournalSquared should be invited to be an admin here at /.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Call the White House. Tell Obama to meddle. Get your friends to call as well.
I the 1st net war of the 21st century was between Russia and Georgia. If you recall Russia executed ddos attacks on Georgia to stop communications during their invasion.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Anyone that writes a story about this that doesn't mention Fark specifically needs to do a bit more research on the subject. Tats(uma) obviously gets quite a bit of credit, but he wasn't the only person there keeping up with the tweets. Fark (and oddly, 4chan) became major filters for finding the real data for the first several days. I'm amazed at the people who still don't know there's effectively a civil war going on in Iran, since CNN and other mainstream media didn't really start reporting on it until yesterday.
The other bit is, because mainstream media has to hedge their bets - they have something to lose, where sites like Fark aren't even media sites, so they have nothing to lose - CNN and such has to worry about whether the dissidents will be successful. Because if they aren't, then you've pissed off the people still in power. Media blockout is one thing, but there was reliable reports of many deaths long before MSM was reporting there being only a single death.
BTW, Iranians still need proxies for their twitter updates. If you have the ability...
Also, one of the ways people have been trying to make it more difficult for the Iranian police to track down dissidents is by changing their twitter location and timezone to that of Tehran. Feel free to do that too.
But yeah, twitter is the only thing able to make it out right now, considering.
I think meddling would probably be the worst thing to do. What is Obama going to do? March troops in? Bomb Tehran? Drop propaganda? I think just about any direct US involvement can only work to the regime's favor at this point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Offtopic?
Threads on Fark have reached over 20K posts. People are setting up proxy servers to allow outgoing Twitter messages (bypassing Iranian firewall filters), with several people giving out do-it-yourself proxy kits. There is an active Go Green campaign and protests planned in many cities. Posting of relevant Twitter messages to keep everyone informed.
Somewhat on the forefront of the Netwar I would think.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Belief Circle Clash in progress.
Last year's bunch of guys in Guy Fawkes masks taking on the Cult of Scientology was just the warmup. This year, the sport of nerds is geopolitics.
This week, we had Twitter replace CNN for live coverage of breaking news, Fark replacing the talking heads for analysis, Anonymous being linked to from The Pirate^WPersian Bay for ways to distribute images of preconfigured proxy servers, and to distribute video, and, the rest of /b/ actually helping by selectively flipping the DDOS switch on and off on Iranian government websites.
It's like Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End come to life.
This is actually quite simple:
Nothing
Seriously, stay out of it. The Iranian government is already accusing the US of interfering in internal issues, and has lodged an official complaint through diplomatic channels. This is mostly propaganda, but honestly the best thing we can do for them is to stay out of it.
In fact, if you see your local politician wanting to do something, tell them to shut up. You're not friends to the people of Iran, and speaking up with your opinion is something they don't want to hear.
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DO NOT USE HIS ACTUAL DOMAIN.
http://blog.austinheap.com.nyud.net:8080/
He's been getting DDoS'd from IRAN and other sources long before people posted his web page on slashdot.
This site also has a bit cleaner information. http://iran.sharearchy.com.nyud.net:8080
I imagine the worst problem right now (and I've seen it first hand), is people that think they're helping but don't forward the ports, so they e-mail people the IP and it takes time to verify that what they setup is/was useless.
against an irate populace is something that is one of the main pillars of our constitution.
The Declaration of Independance and the Right to Bear Arms were both very much about this. Basically, the Bill of Rights as a whole was meant to shore up the rights of the populace to defend itself against an abusive government.
It is very interesting to see that the Internet has changed the battlefield enough to level it in certain areas. Really since the mechanization of warfare, no populace could really effectively stand up to the military might of a state.
You're not friends to the people of Iran, and speaking up with your opinion is something they don't want to hear.
We don't need to speak our opinions, we just have to help the Iranian people voice theirs.
Iran is a considerably different place than Iraq was under Hussein. Under Hussein, Iraq was effectively a one-man dictatorship. Iran's governing structures are considerably more complex. Khamenei is the effective ruler of Iran, but there's considerable interplay with other high-level bodies, in particular the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts. There's a lot more jostling and scheming for influence than we are often aware. While, on the face of it, this may look like the beginnings of a revolution, I'm wagering it's more likely a coupe by former president Rafsanjani, who has close ties with Mousavi, and who is likely looking to unseat Khamenei and install himself as the Supreme Leader.
This is the saddest part of all of this. There are plenty of reasons for the Iranian people, or at least the middle and upper classes, to loathe Ahmadinejad, but if these proto-revolutionaries think they're fighting to take back Iran from the Ayatollahs, they're sadly mistaken. Mousavi is very much a loyal servant of the current regime, with many connections with the Guardian Council, certainly more than Ahmadinejad.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Besides, if you want real democracy in the Middle East this is the best thing you could possibly hope for; thousands of Iranians marching in the streets demanding to be heard. The Iranian people, it would seem, actually want this to happen for themselves, as opposed to someone else doing it for them. The US should keep lines of communication open when they have jurisdiction over them, say to the world 'We sure hope the rightfully elected leader will come out on top', and stay the hell out of it.
Great idea ... because arming opposition groups has never turned out badly for the United States in the past.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
You must have missed the part where several Grand Ayatollahs have come out against the election results, and only 1 is backing it. And where part of the demands of the dissidents is that Khamenei - who first blessed, then condemned, then blessed again the results - be removed. In fact, there is substantial talk about the fact that Khamenei clearly does not have Allah's voice if he is changing his position; once he blessed it, he really should have stuck with that. The double reversal greatly harms his reputation, both inside and outside of Iran.
I even tossed together a wiki page about the stances of the various Marjas. And L-rd have mercy, I'd love to have help editing it. There's a lot of things to try to filter, and most of those official pages are in languages I unfortunately cannot read.
This isn't a simple "nothing will change" situation anymore. Even Mousavi is likely to be temporary now, considering he was only allowed to run because Khamenei approved him.
Everyone who thinks they are helping by siding with the Iranian opposition has a very poor understanding of Iranian politics. It doesn't matter whether it's from the government or whether it's from regular Western citizens, helping the opposition figures does not help the United States in any way. It just puts a different face on the same anti-Western government.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
This statement started off as a paragraph or two in the early threads...
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Very worrying report: Supreme Leader Khameini has called for Friday Prayers where he will be present. There are fears that the IRG is going to have a massive presence and that this might be a trap, but on the other hand not attending makes the reformists enemies of Islam and worthy of the death penalty. There are also reports that other Reformist candidate Karoubi and his entire party leadership were arrested.
Nothing much has happened in the last hours aside of that. There are reports of clerics and ayatollahs meeting in the holy Shiite city of Qom in order to plan to overthrow Khameini as supreme leader, as well as a more and more pro-dissenters stance from the army, but we have nothing substantiated so far. I will yet update this tomorrow, adding further information about various other groups operating in Iran right now and relevant to this revolution.
I really am trying to cram the most relevant information and speculation only. Everything is updated as events unfold, especially the timeline and what will happen in the future. If you want to link this, here is the website, updated as the situation changes:
https://sites.google.com/site/tatsumairanupdate/
All twitter posts about the army being involved are false as I am writing this Warning, new twitter feeds are most likely government members trying to spread misinformation, ignore them! Also, there is a handful of good twitter feeds, but please do not publicize their usernames, they are in enough danger as it is and they don't need more publiclity. Those in the know will c/p their entries. Major timeline overhaul, including what has unfolded in the last few hours.
Suppression of Dissent - The Players
Currently, there are either two or three groups who are suppressing the students on the ground that you'll read about throughout this thread:
1. The Basij
2. Ansar Hizbullah (which I will refer to as Ansar)
3. Lebanese Hizbullah (Unconfirmed but highly probable. Der Spiegel, based on a Voice of America report, says that 5,000 Hizbullah fighters are currently in Iran masquerading as riot police, confirming the independent reports. Many different independent reports and video point that way. Even in the last hours other independent twitter feeds have declared witnessing thugs beating on people while shouting in Arabic; I will refer to them as Hizbullah)
- The Basij are your regular paramilitary organization. They are the armed hand of the clerics. The Basij are a legal group, officially a student union, and are legally under direct orders of the Revolutionary Guard. Their main raison d'Ãtre is to quell dissent. They are the ones who go and crack skulls, force people to participate in pro-regime demonstrations, and generally try to stop any demonstrations from even starting. They are located throughout the country, in every mosque, every university, every social club you can think of. They function in a way very similar to the brownshirts.
They were the ones who first started the crackdown after the election, but it wasn't enough. While they are violent and repressive, they are still Persian and attacking fellow citizens. A beating is one thing, mass killings another.
- Another group was working with them, whose members are even more extreme, is Ansar. There is a lot of cross-membership between the Basij and Ansar, though not all are members of the other group and vice-versa. The vast majority of Ansar are Persians (either Basij or ex-military), though a lot of Arab recruits come from Lebanon and train with them under supervision of the Revolutionary Guard. They are not functioning under a legal umbrella, they are considered a vigilante group, but they pledge loyalty directly to the Supreme Leader and most people believe that they are under his control. They are currently helping the Basij to control the riots, but due to the fact that they are Persians and i
Posting of relevant Twitter messages to keep everyone informed.
It's been said before, but if this ends up working, we can't say twitter is completely useless anymore.
May I still be allowed to say that "Twitter is almost, usually, completely useless?"
At the very least I'd like to be allowed to still throw my shoes at the TV every time I hear some new show/news report based on it.
that email address is getting flooded. join #irantech on freenode and ask for the current one.
Austin is on there right now.
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