Iran Slows Internet Access Before Student Protests

RiffRafff writes "Iran is at it again, pre-emptively slowing or cutting Internet access before anticipated student protests." From the article: "Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital, Tehran. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration. The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch."

Comments

Proxification?

[skuzzlebutt]

Anyone hosting tor ports to assist? I considered, but I'm nervous about having some /b/onehead abuse my address.

Re:Proxification?

[techno-vampire]

And how do you think this is going to help in the slightest? If all Internet traffic in and out of Iran is being slowed down, running through a proxy outside of Iran won't help because traffic to and from it will be affected just as much as everything else.

Re:Proxification?

[Loomismeister]

Um... living in the US is fantastic and we enjoy more freedom than most of the world.

Re:Hub and spoke control

[grcumb]

How long before the Iranian government lays all new fiber to a central military facility and then disable the now-current fiber links? The idea being total central control to turn off the internet connection entirely or by segments from one physical location.

What makes you think they don't route everything through a central location already?

Here's an analysis of the outage immediately following the presidential election. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Re:Let's do it right this time.

[Tezcat]

If the regime controls the media well enough, any problems or threats can be described as American-sponsered.

And if any change does occur, it'd not stop sympathetic conspiracists from blaming the downfall of an Islamic state on whoever they damn well wish: The US, the UK, or a sinister cabal of Zionists.

Of course, this is discounting the major problem the anti-government Iranian students are facing; that those they oppose were revolutionary students once, ruthless ones at that, and know a few of the tricks.

Re:How long can they make it last?

[bram]

The problem is that it doesn't matter how it looks.

Do have Comcast in Iran?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, that would explain everything.

What's their downside?

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

The same thing happens when China "cracks down." The media whines and opines for a while, but at the end of the day the rest of the world is powerless to stop these boneheads from abusing their own people. I feel for those affected, but at some point the people inside the Matrix need to do more to help themselves. Having the people outside complain really doesn't do a whole lot to make it better.

So if I'm a thug government, I know I can pretty much do what I want, especially if I have something the world wants (cheap labor/oil/etc).

Re:Let's do it right this time.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Your sentimentalism sickens me.

Yeah, emotions. Why can't we all be robots?!!!!!!!!

How can your anti-globalization sentiment outweigh the fact that Iran is a highly oppressive, human rights abusing theocracy?

Read the post again. I want what the people want. They don't want a 14-th century theocracy and they don't want a bunch of greedy American meddlers entrenching themselves into the political infrastructure, exploiting the people, and cheapening a proud culture.

As the song goes, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". The Iranians are trying to prevent that vicious cycle, unlike the apathetic Americans who encourage it.

there's a guy named sun yat-sen

[circletimessquare]

he was an exile, an expatriot. he gathered financial support and philosophical encouragement from ideas outside china. he spent a lot of time in hawaii, finding inspiration in things like lincoln's gettysburg address. then he went home to china, and helped overthrow the backwards qing dynasty. he is revered by both the mainland communists and the nationalists on taiwan as the father of modern china

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen

my point?

national borders are artificial constructs, and the seeds of revolution often come from outside a country, not from within it. ideology is ideology ideology: if it works in one country, it can work in another. its not like you go over the border of china or iran and suddenly you are in a magical land where human nature is fundamentally different. no: human beings are human beings. an idea that inspires someone in rio de janiero can just as easily inspire someone in hamburg. you give far too much power to something as flimsy as a tribal, arbitrary dividing line

my point is: there is very much we can do to help an angry and energized rich iranian expat community to give birth to the iranian sun yat-sen

its not just people outside the country whining and complaining. that's not all they are doing, you can be sure of that. and the iranian government knows this: they jail relatives of iranian expats they perceive as being active in fighting the illegitimate iranian military dictatorship (the ayatollah is only a pawn now):

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/05/2044243

the iranian government certainly recognizes what you do not: its not the cia, or mi-6 that is there most potent foreign enemy. it is the iranian diaspora: raising funds, keeping alive hope, influencing opinion at home

the iranian regime has heard of sun yat-sen, and they are on guard against the iranian one

you'e a pessimist, and you are ignorant

[circletimessquare]

but don't take my word for it: allow an actual iranian to complain about ill-informed american armchair analysts who spout stupidity based on crap assumptions like yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/opinion/19shane.html

...

For instance, some American analysts assert that the demonstrations are taking place only in the sections of Tehran -- in the north, around the university and Azadi Square -- where the educated and well-off reside. Of course, those neighborhoods were home to the well-to-do ... 30 years ago. The notion that these areas represent "the nice part of town" will come as a surprise to their residents, who endure the noise, congestion and pollution of living in the center of a megalopolis.

People who haven't visited a city in decades are bound to give out bad directions. But their descriptions of where the protests are taking place, and why, also draw on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran.

This false geography imagines South Tehran and the countryside as home only to the poor, those natural allies of political Islam, while North Tehran embodies unbridled gharbzadegi (translated as "Weststruckness" or "Westernitis") and is populated by people addicted to the Internet and vacations in Paris. It is as if political Islam withers north of Vanak Square and the only residents to be found are "liberals" who voted for the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

We must not assume that the engagement of members of society with their religion is uniform or that religious devotion equals automatic loyalty to a particular brand of politics. To do so is certainly to deny Iran's poor the capacity to think for themselves, to deny that the politics of the past four years may have made their lives worse -- and plays right into Mr. Ahmadinejad's dubious claim to be the most authentic representative of the 1979 revolution. Mr. Moussavi was, let's not forget, a favored son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a member of Iran's original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in the revolution and the framework of the Islamic Republic.

But the United States seems able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution. In the "how did we lose Iran?" assessments after the overthrow of the shah, many American intelligence agents and policy makers decided that their great mistake was to spend too much time canoodling with the royal family and intellectual elites of the capital. Commentators now are worried that, by siding with the opposition today, the United States will once again fall into the trap of backing the losing side.

But the fact is, Tehran is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago. It has become more like the rest of the country. Internal migration, not just to Tehran but to other major cities, has accelerated, driven in part by the growth of universities in places like Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad and Shiraz, and now nearly 70 percent of Iranians live in cities. The much vaunted rural vote represents not a decisive bloc for Mr. Ahmadinejad but a minimum, one that was easily swamped by the increased turnout of city dwellers, who normally sit elections out.

And, of course, Iran in 2009 -- better yet, Iran on June 12, 2009 -- is not the same as Iran in 1979. Just as Tehran's neighborhoods cannot be fixed in time, the cultural lives of Iranians have greatly changed in the past 30 years. The postrevolutionary period has seen the expansion of education, the entry of women into the work force in large numbers, and changing patterns of marriage and even of divorce. These have all shaped Iranian society. The pseudo-sociology peddled by so many in the West would easily dissolve with a week's visit. ...

Re:It's called manufacturing consent

[m.ducharme]

Wait, what's the story again?

We're at war with Iran, we've always been at war with Iran. We've never been at war with Iraq.

Re:The Grotesquely Ugly Truth

[wmac]

Comment: A large percentage of the people support the government

Answer: Yes, 15%-18%. In every single poll on the internet I have seen almost the same number. And no, they (people) won't kill each other for it. People in Iran do not have gun and it is illegal to have it. Besides Iranian society is considered an educated community (3.5 million are in universities from which 60% are women).

Comment: The Iranians created this horrible society. It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

Answer: No they didn't. US did a coup in Iran 40-50 years ago and overthrow their national democratic government and returned the dictator "Shah" to power. people were forced to act more aggressive to put the Shah away. An aggressive act of revolution caused more aggressive opinions.

Then a war was exposed to Iran by Iraq (Sadam) which killed almost 1million Iranians. The war was supported by most Arab countries + Europeans + USA. Arabs paid Iraq by oil and cash (around 200 billion) and Europeans and US gave them weapons etc (including chemicals for illegal chemical warfare). 50,000 Iranians are effected by chemicals provided by Europeans to Sadam.

The same Sadam used those weapons against same Arab countries a few years later.

About your comment on Nukes I should say, USA is the only country which has both built and used nukes. US has started around 50 wars in recent history. Iran has never started any war in last150 years or more.

You want to condemn the 7000 years old culture of Iran which has the oldest history of Human rights and has been one of the cultural roots of the human being and then support your own culture and people which have started almost 50 wars (in which more than 10 million are killed) ??? have you looked at the mirror recently???

Re:The Grotesquely Ugly Truth

[couchslug]

People judge Islam by current practice, not ancient times.

Ancient times, it bears repeating, are over, past, kaput, done, no longer applicable.

There are zero Muslim countries where one has the freedoms we expect in the secular West. Not even Turkey, praise be to Kemal Ataturk for trying, qualifies.

I've seen the best Islam can do with an unlimited budget while deployed there (before GWoT) on a friendly basis. KSA, Turkey (limited budget but more Euro influence) Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi are all places no freedom-loving person would go unless deployed or making fat contractor money. The locals are friendly (bring social skills and a smile), but Islam sucks. Imagine the US taken over by Evangelical Christians of the Fred Phelps variety. If you are like them they like you. If not...