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Man Attacked In Ohio For Providing Iran Proxies
David Hume writes "electronicmaji is reporting on the Daily Kos that the individual known as ProtesterHelp (also to be found on twitter) was attacked in Ohio for providing network security for Twitterers in Iran, setting up private networks to provide secure proxies, calling for media networks to remove the Iranians Twitterers' information from their broadcast, and providing counter-intelligence services (including Basiji and Army Locations) within the Twitter community. ProtesterHelp was allegedly attacked by a group of men while walking to class in Ohio. The men, who appeared to ProtesterHelp to be either Iranian or Lebanese, drove up beside him and threw rocks at him while shouting, 'Mousavi Fraud.' ProtesterHelp further reported that his personal information has been leaked, and is currently being spread both online and inside of Iran amongst the government." Relatedly, Wired is also reporting that Google and Facebook have rushed out support for Persian. This move has allowed many pro-democracy groups to connect and translate their message to a broader audience.
Well, not that I mean to be insensitive, but when you're messing with that kind of stuff, you want to be as anonymous as humanly possible.
Like, purchasing hosting somewhere else in the world, with a one-time VISA/MasterCard cash card that you bought at a corner store with cash. You know? Uploading everything from your laptop while you're chilling at a coffee shop well distanced from your home.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but man, I would not be dealing with this kinda scenario where people are getting killed in the night and shit, unless I was doing it ultra un-traceable style. Because I would absolutely anticipate this kind of harsh backlash from the same crazy fuckers that are doing the same thing in Iran.
I actually considered setting up an anonymous web-form -> twitter gateway, but it was just not worth the hassle to set that kind of thing up with the kind of anonymity I would require to be OK with doing that. :P
if only they allowed concealed carry on campuses, we'd have a few less rock throwers in this country.
Yeah, they should lift the ban on concealing rocks.
. . .provided the fact he has a gun, and knows how to use it of course
Oh. Never mind.
No. This stops now.
I don't have any money, but I am glad to provide a proxy or whatever if anyone is so crazed that they will attack people across international lines just to silence their speech. I don't have family and I'm not afraid of whatever they think they can do. Such people are scum and not worth fearing.
I need help. I don't know the specific systems, steps and processes necessary to support these people. What do I do or where do I go to find out what to do?
I'd be inclined to suspect, pending further information, that the guys who pulled this are your basic freelance nationalists, rather than actual agents. A few guys in a car, throwing rocks to no apparent effect, isn't exactly 007 stuff. A "car accident" (or heck, a standard homicide, those are common enough, just nick the guy's wallet so it looks apolitical) would have been much more professional.
For a start Irans shia form of islam means that it will never be seen as a force representing the majority of the muslim world and whilst to an outsider iranians may seem extremely religious they are n't, just look at the youth who are leading this thing.
Islam as the reason for the way things are in Iran is a red herring, the people at the top are basically filthy rich and use the argument of "Gods will" against anyone who they sea as a threat to them, hence the use of the word "devine" by the ayatolla to describe the result.
Yes, Islam is a religion of peace, but that didn't stop some Muslims from flying planes into the WTC, nor does it stop them from strapping on bombs and blowing people up.
Christianity is a religion of peace, but that doesn't stop some from murdering abortion activists. Every group has its extremist nutjobs.
Free Martian Whores!
If they tried to hide the reasons for doing it, it would completely defeat the purpose.
Attacks like this are never just, or even primarily, to silence the one guy hit. They're to scare all the rest of the people thinking about doing the same thing.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Is no way to scare people into silence. A suspicious suicide or burglary would still work better.
Quack, quack.
Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that, apparently, a foreign government identified an American Citizen and had operatives attack that individual? On US Soil? I wonder if there will be hit squads next, or teams of operatives attempting to sabotage servers where proxies are being hosted... This is exactly why free speech is so critical - so that I can, for example, post a comment on Slashdot without worrying about thugs attacking me for it. Flames and trolls are one thing, angry guys throwing rocks at my car? Quite another.
Seriously? Do you really think that the Iranian Govt/Hezbollah tracked down a Twitter user just to have a couple goons throw rocks at him? I find that hard to believe. If they really felt threatened enough to track him down and send people out to him, he'd be dead. At worst, this was the act of a couple mentally challenged Iranian/Lebanese ex-patriots who have bought into the BS that the Supreme Leader and his cronies have been spouting and decided to try to go scare this guy. And I'd be more likely to believe that these guys don't really even care about what's going on but stumbled on his real identity and drunkenly though it'd be "cool to go throw rocks at him and make him thing he's in big danger".
Nothing to see here
Google et. al. can support pro-democracy movements... when they aren't in important emerging markets like China.
I think it really is for the best for the US president to keep saying nothing.
That being said have got to see if I can set up a proxy to help. At this point I think the credit must go to the Iranian people the best thing we can do is simply helo give them a way to speak.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No. I had Iranian friends and roommates in grad school starting in the early 2000's. According to them, this is the most blatant the vote rigging has ever been. The guys fresh out of Iran before the last election (not the current one) told me point blank that Ahmadinajan was going to win for domestic economy reasons.
The problem with U.S. support is NOT that the Iranian regime will crack down harder. The problem is that the US government is so unpopular there, that if we support them openly, many influential people will abandon the movement. It happened back in the early 90s with Bush Sr., and it could happen again.
If by the "the US" you mean "the US government", I'll just ask one question: who is supposed to protect people on US soil from being attacked by agents of foreign governments?
I mean, last I looked, even those generally opposed to government doing anything else think that's the governments job.
So, yeah, anytime that happens, its a failure of the US government. Possibly a failure that couldn't be effectively avoided without greater harms (e.g., to freedom), so one that must be an accepted risk, but a failure nonetheless. And unless you acknowledge the failure, you'll never get to the point of considering whether its a failure of the type that must be accepted, or whether it reveals a problem that can and should be addressed.
(Even if they aren't agents of foreign governments, it is a government, if not necessarily a federal government, responsibility to effectively address violent crime.)
I would argue that a country is not a monolithic entity as you seem to imply. A country is made up of citizens, and the rights of the citizens to voice their opinions, I would argue, is a fundamental human right.
When we invade countries for no reason, I agree with you. But when we facilitate communication among disenfranchised citizenry, I'd say we're not meddling at all. We open the door for the individual humans in Iran trying to get to a representative democracy. They either walk through it, or don't.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Rights are not something that exist in nature. They exist only because a large number of people believe they should, and are willing to assert their belief strongly enough to ensure the continued existence of those rights.
In the USA and some other countries, rights are spelled out in a constitutional document, which makes many people believe that they are permanent and unenfringeable. But even in countries with the most democratic political systems, a strong body of people in power are able to erode those rights.
In countries that do not have democratic political systems or constitutional guarantees of equality, people do not have any rights other than what the government decides to give them. In many countries, for example, we support gender equality. In an Islamic theocracy like Iran, however, women are not given equal rights. We may believe they should have these rights, but they do not actually have them.
Whether we like it or not, might is right, whether that might comes from an authoritarian system with a small number of people deciding everything, or a democratic system that is influenced by a larger number of people.
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Probably not. Iran had a real reform movement before the US invasion of Iraq, which was largely derailed, with the aid of the propaganda boost given to the hardline elements by the belligerence of the US in the region (and the invective direct at Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil" in particular) during the last administration.
The "Democracy in Iraq" hasn't been considered much of a showpiece for emulation outside of the same group of people in the West who were cheerleaders for the war in the first place.
The problem isn't that Khamenei will try to crack down harder if the US takes sides, the problem is that the US taking sides, rather than merely supporting, generally, an end to violence and fair results, validates Khamenei's propaganda that the West, particularly the US and Britain, are behind the reform movement and that it is not a genuine, broad-based, organic domestic opposition. This could well undermine support for the opposition.
Its not a mistake that the people in the US most vigorously wanting the President to take sides are the same people that openly expressed that either Iranian candidate winning would result in Iran continuing to be an "enemy" of the United States, and even in many cases that it was better if Ahmadinejad won, since that way we'd have a clear and unmistakeable enemy rather than a "reformer" that it might seem we could work with.
I think its pretty insulting to the Iranian opposition, especially given the "spirit" they have demonstrated thus far, to suggest that their morale will crack if they aren't given an explicit and direct endorsement by a foreign leader, particularly the leader of a country that has pointed to their nation as an enemy for decades.
France is not the US, or the UK, so the political dynamic with respect to Iran is different. Franco-Iranian relations have been far more friendly than those of the US or UK with Iran, which means that individual instances of French criticism of Iranian government action don't feed into easy government propaganda narratives about manipulation by longstanding enemies.
If you'd care to compare the number of Christian abortion activists to the number of Muslim car bombers I think you'll find a difference in the number of attacks.
While it's true that all groups have "extremist nutjobs" it's only a partial story. There ARE differences in scope and frequency. Large differences.
I think that's a bit glib. At least a significant portion of the Blackwater people, at least the ones actually on the ground, are just former soldiers who traded up to an employer who would give them better body armor.
Now if you're explicitly talking about someone who is willing to fight for anyone who pays enough money, no questions asked, then of course they don't deserve any sympathy. But I don't think there are really that many people like that.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
I'm not sure that Presidential interference would be particularly productive. In fact, it's almost certainly counter-productive.
The main opposition in Iran is doing it's very very hardest to portray itself as again the President, but not against the Supreme Leader or the Islamic Republic itself. All their rivals need is some proof that they're really no-good collaborators with an invasive foreign power, and suddenly the opposition's more moderate supporters back the flip off.
The Western world needs to do it's absolute best to keep the common people or Iran safe and free, but it can't interfere. This is one of those things that'll need to sort itself. If the best thing we can do is keep avenues of communication open to prevent people being locked down and suppressed, that's what needs to be done.
Much kudos, incidentally, goes to Google Translate and Facebook for both rushing out Persian language versions of their respective sites.
On the contrary, my argument says that you have to keep asserting your rights en masse or they'll gradually disappear.
Look at the constant Slashdot stories about warrantless searches, unlawful search & seizure, oppression of free speech, and other denials of rights that are codified, but not respected by those in power. If it weren't for citizens fighting to protect these rights, and bring such infringements to court, they would disappear.
The Constitution is not a magic wand. It won't ensure the perpetual existence of your rights if you don't defend them.
But in countries that don't have such documents, those rights simply don't exist, and they won't until the people are able to convince the government to grant them.
If a supreme ruler can ensure that those selected for the police, the courts, and the army share his beliefs, and maintain the right balance of fear and contentment among the people, it doesn't really matter what rights the powerless believe they have. If that balance is destabilized, however, as may currently be happening in Iran, that's when things change.
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fring is being used a lot in this too. the servers are in tel aviv.
"go figure"
I can easily understand plenty of Israelis supporting this effort. There's probably little that Israel wants more than a progressive government in Iran that will stop threatening to nuke them.
I just can't stand blanket contempt for any group, self-selecting or not, without regard for the fact that not all people within that group have the same circumstances.
Yes I agree that the use of mercenaries systematically creates bad results. But I hate the idea of assuming that all people who sign into a bad system signed into it for bad reasons.
You could say that I hate misdirected hate. Any form of contempt should be focused as tight as a laser beam, both to avoid any damage to bystanders and to maximize its potential for incinerating the target.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.