Slashdot Mirror
From Slaying Dragons To Dictators
tcd004 writes "In a weekend, programmer Austin Heap transformed from an apathetic MMO player to a world class regime-slayer. When word for Iran's rigged election broke over Twitter, Heap decided to dedicate himself to building a better proxy system for people behind Iran's firewall. Heap's creation, Haystack, conceals someone's real online destinations inside a stream of innocuous traffic. You may be browsing an opposition Web site, but to the censors it will appear you are visiting, say, weather.com. Heap tends to hide users in content that is popular in Tehran, sometimes the regime's own government mouthpieces."
As opposed to the laughably juvenile attempts by Iranian intelligence agencies to spam twitter with pro-Iranian-government messages?
Also, please include citations when you make accusations like that. I pulled up a bunch of articles on the Iranian twitspam with no problem but found it harder to dig up reports of US Agencies doing the same (though I wouldn't be shocked if they had, this seems to go both ways).
I hate moral dictatorship. It doesn't matter if it's coming from a Muslim government, the Church of Rome, or politicians. Ya know... it's my life. If I want to be an asshole that looks at porn, doesn't go to church, and keeps to himself, I have that right. Stop trying to force me to adopt your moral beliefs.
So this HAYSTACK program. Would it work in the US and EU? It appears the answer is "no" since it was specifically designed for Iraq.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's oversimplifying the case a bit, I think.
In Iran, the state has draconian control over the press as well as any "companies" which act as communication feeds. Not so in the US, where communications companies are (for the most part) autonomous and protected like a sacred cow (thanks to the First Amendment).
I think a better analogy would be blocking porn (child or otherwise) in Iran. I don't live there, and I don't directly know anyone who does, but the known/published government actions and policies are VERY strict, so I would expect there would be a LOT less ability to access porn of *any* kind in Iran.
In contrast, in the US, there is very little to no active efforts to filter anything, but rather to detect actual access to illegal porn and prosecute at the individual lawbreaker level. However, even that is a spotty and half-hearted effort at best.
In Iran, you have to register your website with the government, and they can and do block access country-wide to popular internet sites as they deem unfit (YouTube, for example).
As a result, while it is not impossible to get access to internet content deemed verboten by the state there, the bar has been significantly raised to do so. Thus, any claims to circumvent it without some really revolutionary technology to back them up have to be taken with a grain of salt. That said, I am glad the guy made the effort, and happy for what little freedom it may provide to someone in Iran looking for hope outside their dismal state of being there, but I also don't want people to get snookered into a false hope that this is something far more than what it claims. Over there, people are jailed/murdered by the state for violating their insanely draconian laws.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."