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As Elections Approach, Iran Uses "Far More Advanced" Internet Censorship (dailydot.com)
Patrick O'Neill writes: Election time in Iran means increased censorship for the country's tens of millions of Internet users. But this months parliamentary election, experts say, comes with a new level of aggressive censorship from a government notorious for authoritarianism in cyberspace. "What's happening [right now] is far more advanced than anything we've seen before," said Karl Kathuria, CEO of Psiphon Inc., the company behind the widely popular encryption and circumvention tool Psiphon. "It's a lot more concentrated attempt to stop these services from working."
It helps the iranians remember whom to elect. I really look forward to these votes, the deal with the western world has enabled more liberal candidates to be accredited.
Hey, these Iraqis are awesome. I know! Let's give them weapons and money and pretend they're not a dictatorship for a little while! And then we get moody, we'll just claim they have built weapons of mass destruction, for which we and the Germans delivered components. Also lets ignore other countries sources that that is not reliable intel and start an illegal war against UN recommendations. Let's then burn the place down, kill tens of thousands of innocent people there, abduct some to other countries and then torture some more, claiming they are just not humans. But doing that would make us look like a bully, and citizens of the world will again vote us most dangerous country in the world, asking us to stop burn the world down. But hey, there is another country called Iran that we can make our buddies in the media make look evil. (And let's just forget we took their democracy once.)
Iranians were in open revolt in 2009
If Obama were a Islamic Manchurian candidate, what more could he have done for radical Islam?
He's allowed ISIS to grow.
He gave nukes and $150 billion to the Iranian mullahs - after leaving them in power in 2009. And leaving the mullahs in power wasn't based on non-interference principles. Just ask Muammar Gaddaffi about that...
Hey, these guys sound real awesome. I know! Let's give them $150 billion dollars in order to pretend they're not building nukes for a little while! And then when they break the agreement, we'll just pretend they didn't. Let's also pay them a nice bribe of another billion to return our soldiers they took hostage. But doing that would make our President look incompetent, so we'll still do it but just have our buddies in the media completely ignore the story.
Lets remember that only one country has ever actually used Nuclear weapons against any target, and was probably not even necessary to end that war.
Let us keep in mind that the US has been killing innocent people by way of drone strikes for more than a decade now. It can easily be argued that the US is the worlds largest exporter of terror weapons. In fact, our terrorist activities dwarf any in the history of mankind. We have become so adept at it that we can detonate bombs from 5000 miles away with accuracy measured in centimeters. We can do that without even risking our own people at all. If the terrorists could do that, The US would be short a few hundred politicians, and the white house would have been target #1.
The thing you have to remember about terrorism is that it takes two sides to fight. As long as we keep bombing them, we keep the cycle of hate going, and they keep bombing us. That sounds suspiciously like the definition of insanity.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Why the hell doesn't the UN condemn these countries? In 1948, the UN general assembly voted in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document supports freedom of speech and thought, of which Iran's actions are totally contrary to. Why is the UN silent on these matters? The UN has no right to condemn anyone for human rights violations if it is willing to turn its back on its own 1948 declaration.
New and better circumvention tools are on the way, but even they can't through an ISP that cuts you off entirely. I hope wireless mesh can get around that problem eventually.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Iran can really do this by altering IPv4 within their borders. Define public addresses as private, private addresses as public, and then use that in all their internet communications. Of course, they have to redo their routers. Maybe get Huawei to do it for them
Do that, and they effectively have an intranet, and foreign packets would go haywire trying to come in.
Oh, great. Now I suddenly want to support the terrorists to help get rid of politicians.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
How do you think a country like Iran (or NK for that matter) would use drones or atomics compared to the US?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Depose the Libyan government or fail to depose the Syrian government. It doesn't seem to work well either way, does it?
You are President Truman. You have lost nearly 300,000 servicemen and women, plus many more civilians. You have just helped to defeat a very nasty Germany. The Japanese have defended the near islands (Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima) to nearly the last man. Those fights were nasty The home islands have been mobilized down to even school children with pitchforks. An unbeaten Japan means you will have to deal with them for years in the future. The American people are damn tired of war. To invade Japan, your military leaders tell you, will take anywhere from nearly all you have lost so far to upwards of 1 million, they cannot be precise. The Russians are establishing their asses in Eastern Europe, Stalin likes to make trouble. They have kicked Japanese butt in Manchuria but have no fleet to assail the home islands.
You have some nukes which may or may not work, and which may or may not cause Japan to capitulate. And you only have 2 or 3 of them. What do you do Mr. President? You must act one way or another. To leave an unbowed Japan means to declare defeat and tell Americans they've wasted all those lives in the Pacific. And you have to tell them there will be a low grade military conflict for the next 10 years which could lead to another war just as bad as the current one.
The U.S. made the correct decision. Attempting to re-write history with all the accumulated facts it took 50 years to uncover and then accuse the U.S. of being negligent in not knowing all them at the time (and I'd dispute that "current" analysis) is just disingenuous.
The U.S was attacked by Muslim nutjobs who declared war on the U.S. The U.S. tries to minimize civilian casualties. To leave the Muslim nutjobs unfought means to hand them the tools to attack the U.S. mainland, which they have pledged to do time and again. You are President Bush or Obama, you must act or watch Americans die at the hands of Muslim nutjobs claiming it would be wrong to fight back. What do you do Mr. President?
The Muslim nutjobs didn't need any reason, and indeed had none, to attack the U.S. They did it because it is a means to political power in attracting recruits. If the West didn't exist, they would need to invent it. Religion is beside the point for them other than it is a very convenient recruiting tool.
Instead of censoring the internet, we use superdelegates to fix elections, and let people say whatever they like. After all the opinion of the people are irrelevant so why not?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Everyone knows that when you want to manipulate elections, you make large anonymous campaign contributions. And to manipulate public sentiment, have a couple guys own all the news media, and you can each do favors for each other. This way everything is legit.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Hey, these Egyptians are awesome, lets help their military conduct a coup against their elected Government, so we can continue to sell them weapons used to repress the population, despite that being against the laws of the US.
My Father had spent the previous 6 years or so fighting some Germans in France, North Africa and Italy, but was told in about June 1945 he would be sent to Japan.
I can tell you, he thought Truman made the right choice.
By Western standards, Iran is a deeply flawed democracy.
Yet there is much more antagonism directed against Iran than a great many countries which are not democracies at all.
And if anything the censorship is proof that the elections are already on their way to bringing change.
While we're remembering, let's remember that the use of nuclear weapons ended a war started by Germany and Japan that had killed tens of millions, and the use of those weapons probably saved Japanese lives.