Slashdot Mirror
The Technology Keeping Information Flowing in Iran
Death Metal writes "Iranians seeking to share videos and other eyewitness accounts of the demonstrations that have roiled their country since disputed elections two weeks ago are using an Internet encryption program originally developed by and for the US Navy. Designed a decade ago to secure Internet communications between US ships at sea, The Onion Router, or TOR, has become one of the most important proxies in Iran for gaining access to Web sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook." A related story was submitted anonymously about the efforts of hactivists to keep the information flowing inside the data-locked nation.
Repair does not include telling that country what to do or supporting one candidate or even governmental structure over another. If you want to help them, leave them alone. If we care about reparations, we should give Nicaragua the money they won in the world court.
If we decide that as a moral authority we only do business with democracies who we view as legitimate, then we'd better stop buying oil from half of OPEC, we'd better stop trading with China, and so on. Somehow I doubt this will happen.
And I'm sorry, but until you have the same standard of living as the average Joe in one of our colonial conquests, you are probably still benefiting from those activities. If our economy is built on cheap energy, and it's cheap because we have killed hundreds of thousands of arabs and persians for the last century, supported every dictator who obeyed our orders in the region, and overthrown democracies for non-compliance, at what point and how will justice be served?