Voice of America Site Forced Offline By 'Iranian Cyber Army'

angry tapir writes with this excerpt from TechWorld: "The pro-Iran hacktivist group that defaced the Baidu and Twitter Web sites a year ago has hit another target: the US Government's Voice of America news site. Voice of America was knocked offline temporarily after hackers were able to change the organization's DNS (Domain Name System) settings, redirecting Web traffic hitting Voice of America sites to another site controlled by the hackers."

Comments

Well, you got to feel pity for them

[SmallFurryCreature]

Here they are raging against the great satan intervening in Islamic countries all the time, to little effect and then voila, couple of weeks and their Muslim brothers put the entire region on fire and overthrow government after government. Some in Iran must be pissing their pants by now. The world is changing and so far NOT to the extreme. All those cries for democracy in Muslim nations, that just ain't right is it. No burning of US flags, no cries for battle against Zionists. Just cries for democracy. Crazy stuff AND it is working.

The changes of it all working out okay are... well lets face it, nobody knows what the fuck is going to happen, if you had created a scenario in which North Africa would be in one big movement to overthrow local leaders last year, people would have told you to stop being a hollywood fantast and get a grip on reality. Just look at the map, a ribbon of rebellion and the end is not in sight. If Libya also falls... well then even outrageous violence doesn't work anymore or for that matter giving at least some of the oil wealth to the general public (Gadafhi might (now) be completely insane, but he was not as corrupt as some of his counter parts and at least the west of the country generally benefitted a bit from the oil income)

So, lets give the Iran cyber army its last few twitches before this guy will be in front of the firing squad for his allegiance to a overthrown regime.

Re:Well, you got to feel pity for them

[mjwx]

So, lets give the Iran cyber army its last few twitches before this guy will be in front of the firing squad for his allegiance to a overthrown regime.

But this wont happen.

Iran will democatise in the next 5-10 years, due entirely to a large young population that Iran's theocratic government hasn't had to deal with for the last 20 years (most of Iran's youth was wiped out in the Iran-Iraq war) but it wont be a revolution.

Iran's government is perfectly designed to weather this kind of thing. First off, the Islamic council aren't dumb, not in the slightest. The protests in mid last year were met mainly with subterfuge and false flag operations (sound familiar). Secondly they've isolated the military and police in this. They use the Republican Guard which are primarily non-Iranian Arabs (Iran is mostly Persian in ethnicity) who are loyal to the government and not attached to the people. Thirdly the power structure is not centred around a single person (president mahmoud whatisname) he's just a puppet, a front man to keep the real rulers (Islamic Council) safe.

Actual change will take time, there is not enough pressure yet for the majority of Persians to feel the need for change. This pressure will build over time however if a violent revolution were to occur today, it would just cause most Persians to rally around the government for security, isolating the youth (making things worse). The Iranian government isn't a brutal dictator like Gadafi or an incompetent embezzling oaf like Mubarak. They are cold and calculating, much like the Soviets.

When Iran does finally democratise it will be very good for us, the western world for two reasons. 1. Persians have westernised quite easily, even in Iran today there is a growing middle class who like the same things we do (nice cars, houses, consumer electronics). 2. There are a metric crapload of Persians who left Iran after the Islamic revolution currently living in the US, Australia and Israel, mostly Baha'i, Zorrostrians and a few Jews. Compared to these religions the Persian Christians have been well treated but they were never a big group to begin with. Iran should be our biggest ally in the ME, but we screwed that one when we deposed the legitimately elected government and put that idiot Reza on the throne.

Re:Good!

[TubeSteak]

Funny. If anything, VoA has been criticized for not being American enough. The running gag is that throughout its existence, VoA hadn't even created an English language version of its broadcast.

That's because, as the GP accurately said, VoA is propaganda.
Even the US government considers it so and, as such, it is illegal to disseminate to a US audience.
Here's the relevant law: Smith-Mundt Act of 1946

There was an article in Foreign Policy magazine (a year or two ago) talking about how VoA turned down a US radio station that wanted to rebroadcast some of the VoA's foreign language programs.

I can't say for sure what, if any, law constricts the Dept of Defense, but they operate under the same "not for domestic consumption" policy.

Just one tiny problem

[SmallFurryCreature]

Everything you said has been said before to explain why North African countries won't rebel. And then they did.

New game, new rules. Why do you think western leaders allowed themselves to be photographed hugging the Libyan leader whatever his name is (see comment below) and indeed the British PM is on a weapon selling trip while the weapons sold in the previous trip are busy killing civilians? A bit embarrassing?

You also seem to have forgotten the violent repression of the earlier uprising in Iran. These are not the actions of a government willing to change. Neither are there continued attempts at making nukes. It was Libya that stopped, not Iran.

Really, LOOK at what is happening. Something has changed. Even if Iran stays the same for now, the Middle East has changed. The power balance is gone. If Egypt and Tunesia truly become democratic they would side far closer to Turkey then dictatorships. That is going to leave the remaining dictatorships far more isolated. Rewatch the fall of the Soviet Union. Once dominoes start falling,it is hard to stop.

I think all bets are off and considering Iran's reaction so far, they think the same thing. Why else block access to these events if they are sure their own people will stand behind the government?