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Iranian App Helps Users Avoid Morality Police (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Young people in Iran are using a new app called Gershad (a contraction of 'Gashte Ershad', or 'guidance patrol'), to avoid the 'morality police' by sharing the location of checkpoints with other users. At checkpoints strict Islamic dress and behavior codes are enforced, and their ad hoc nature can make them difficult to avoid. Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said of Gershad, "This is an innovative idea and I believe it will lead to many other creative apps which will address the gap between society and government in Iran."
What Iran really needs is a revolution to overthrow those theocratic motherfuckers.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
With our wonderful influx of immigrants who don't wish to assimilate with our western culture, you can expect this here soon... just as Sharia law has already wormed it's way in Seattle and other liberal havens. And you can thank LIBERALS for this when it happens. The irony.
The head nutjobs are saying "This is an innovative idea and I believe it will lead to not only arrests for having the app on your phone, but by poisoning the data we can catch even more infidels".
I am sure that there are apps that use crowd sourcing to avoid police checkpoints already.
But just wait till the state,forces service providers to install a back door that can use this app to track down trouble makers, and hold them without trial for the good of the country. No country would do that right? Oh wait they do.
Weeeeeellllll... no, not really.
At least not yet. Let's wait where the next elections take us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wonder if it can be extended to avoid bad moderators? They are kin I think.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
and their 'honeypot'
Spoken like someone who's never traveled beyond the county line.
Yeah, because this place will be so much better with Slashdot, Google, Facebook, Comcast, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, etc, running the government...
Fascism is for the historically ignorant.
TFTFY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
...would be setting up rapid ambushes on those checkpoints.
The Morality Police will give up quick on their bullshit if they start getting shot with no witnesses every time they set up a checkpoint.
Marg bar dictator - marg bar Khomenei.
It's like VPN's to go around the "great firewall" or satellite dishes, yes it's kind of illegal, but meehhh...
It's a nice to have add on if the government decide to arrest someone, and meanwhile it gives the reactionary class the feeling that "everything is ok", while letting the educated class breath just a tiny little bit and not completely freak out.
Tor: App that helps americans avoid morality police
Good people go to bed earlier.
Don't the Iranian powers that be have something to say about this? When people began writing apps to publicize checkpoints here in the U.S., our morality police threw a hissy fit.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
They're simply enforcing Iran's version of political correctness. As stalwart adherents of PC here in the west, we should welcome such diversity in the behavioral expectations forced on people for the sake of the insecure and easily offended.
No, what Iran needs is for our Right Wing politicians to stop meddling in their politics. They were well on their way to modernizing until we decided they were just a little too 'commie' for our tastes and disposed their democratically elected gov't.
I can help you with that point of confusion. The person that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government was the Iranian Prime Minister. He dissolved parliament, was ruling by decree, faked an election, and caused the legitimate head of state (the Shah) to flee. The US and UK assisted in restoring Iran's legitimate head of state to power. It's history, I suggest you look into it.
As to being "too commie", most of the world has rejected that. It sucks as a form of government and delivers substandard results, usually with great loss of life and enormous oppression. Communist regimes were pretty much environmental horror shows with poisonous legacies that will last for decades or longer.
I'm willing to go so far as to agree that Obama is currently the greatest American president currently in power. He isn't a great American president. The true miracle is that things haven't turned out worse given his close relationship with the man that wrote Prarie Fire .
Your ideas about "pointless war" so "they could line their pockets" and "use fear to control America" doesn't stand much scrutiny. If the "mighty" MIC was so powerful, how did it go from 40% of GDP at the end of WW2 to only about 4.5% GDP today? What other institution would you consider super threatening if it lost 90% of the resources it used to control?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
MJ died in 2009. The Arab "spring" was in 2011.
Next the poor Iranians will have to have an app to avoid the Thought Police.
Stop comparing GDP to spending. The USA isn't a communist nation and therefore the GDP has no basis on government spending. Currently theMIC composes of 30% of the budget and 35% of the reveune. The current 4.1 trillion budget is over estimated on tax reveune by 10%. Which will be closer to 3.5 trillion. Possibly less.
The GDP is only useful, if the government nationalised every industry. Let me know when the government does that. Until then stop being an idiot and compare government revune(taxes for the stupid) to spending. That paints a much bleaker picture were our debt is 5-6 times our current income.
Ask a Bank to give you a loan when your debt is 5 times your income.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
It is funny that you say that the Shah was the legitimate head of state, when in fact he was placed in power by a CIA-inspired coup which deposed Mosaddeq.
Stop comparing GDP to spending. The USA isn't a communist nation and therefore the GDP has no basis on government spending.
Go tell it to NATO. (Really, you can't do the conversion / math?)
Just Five of 28 NATO Members Meet Defense Spending Goal, Report Says
Only Poland this year joined the four other countries, out of 28 total NATO members, that are meeting the alliance’s goal of spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. The other four are the U.S., Great Britain, Greece and Estonia.
Defence Expenditures of NATO Countries (2008-2015)
One other thing - national defense is a Constitutional responsibility of the US Federal Government. And that other stuff ....?? Allowed, but not required.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Why don't you try comparing Russia's condition and market share to what it was eight years ago? You just might find we are winning the war. And since their petro-dollars are worth shit, the threat is further reduced. The latest news is our new buildup in Eastern Europe. Now's the time, right? So, really, what is your complaint? Let the proxies and mercenaries fight the wars for us, more money, less American blood. In the Game of Empires our position has never been better, and is getting better still.
And where did you get that 4.5% nonsense? That might cover the toilet paper, if that.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You have your history confused. The Shah was in power prior to all of that, beginning in 1941. Mosaddegh came later, became PM, and overthrew the government. The UK and US helped restore the Shah to power in 1953.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
more Michael Jackson. It's funny how the entire Arab Spring went bust after the public lost interest when M.J. died.
Well, Michael Jackson has contributed more value worth to the world than all of the Middle-east and North and central Africa combined so no surprise there.
And where did you get that 4.5% nonsense? That might cover the toilet paper, if that.
Although you may have a source to "prove" otherwise, I'm pretty sure that the US defense budget doesn't take 100% of GDP. I think someone would notice.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'm only asking where you got 4.5%, not 100%
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This it isn't an obscure fact. The US Defense budget has been bouncing around 4-5% of GDP for more than 10 years. There are pleny of place to find the numbers. Here is one. I refer you to page 6.
Defence Expenditures of NATO Countries (2008-2015)
I will refer you to page 320 of this document:
BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT - Historical Tables
Supporting the Force: The Industrial Base and Defense Conversion
The Defense Drawdown After World War II
During World War II, the nation truly had a defense economy. In the war's last year, 1945, over 39 percent of the nation's GDP was devoted to defense. By 1948, less than 4 percent of GDP was spent on defense. (Ibid., p. 140.) Defense spending in 1945 was $714 billion in 1987 dollars; by 1948, it was under $65 billion. Thus, in only three years, defense spending had fallen by 90 percent. (Ibid., p. 128.)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I love how Greece is on that list when they're the ones that can probably least afford to be.
The Shah was a monster and Khomeni was an unknown quantity with zero blood on his hands at the time so a lot of people were "fooled".
The revolution was almost bloodless. What happened next was not.
Ahmedinajad and the others have been figureheads and never allowed to decide anything important. That's why his rants about Israel were not much to worry about, sabre ratting for the sake of popular support with no way he could follow through. It should be taken no more seriously than if the Mayor of Springfield threatened to invade France.
You haven't had your balls squeezed by the TSA yet? They are a populist measure that is functionally equivalent.
An app where one can sell "morality free parking" information . Alternative names "Gaystack" because the moral police are so against heterosexual contact of any nature.
more Michael Jackson. It's funny how the entire Arab Spring went bust after the public lost interest when M.J. died. Of course, it was obviously not much of a thing if all it took was one (albeit very famous) dead pop star to distract us all.
This must be some new record in correlation of unrelated events.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Well, 2% of nothing is still not much. I probably spent 2% of Greece's GDP on toast last year...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You have your history confused even more, which is not surprising, due to your your political views and general stupidity. The shah was installed by the Brits in first place by invading Iran and forcing the previous shah to abdicate. Oh by the way, that previous shah was also installed by the Brits 20 years before.
And Mosaddegh was democratically elected.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I'm completely amazed that the Iranian government don't see the obvious problem with their society when they need a 'morality police' to make the population comply with some arbitrary standard that the population obviously don't agree with. Shouldn't the standard be defined by the people, not by some out-of-touch-with-reality council or similar?
Religion is once again beyond stupid.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
So now when they get caught, they're going to be in trouble for everything they would have been in trouble for before ... and on top of it for intentionally avoiding the checkpoints ... and the app they have on the phone.
Why do I think this isn't going to work out like expected and heads are literally going to roll because of it?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Well look at you, you stopped going backwards once the narrative comforted you. You truly are one of the most one-eyed and least credible posters on this site, and that is fucking saying something. You should work in PR.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Oh, I agree. Obama's the shittiest president we have!
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Regions ruled by Muslims and their laws are some of the worst hell holes on Earth, only ever exceeded in their evil and barbarity in human history by places run by Communists or National Socialist pagans. Oh, and YES, there is such a thing as "evil".
Don't forget the witch burning Christians on that list, and all the old religions where human sacrifices were common, or maybe it is all just about "power of authority" like shown e.g. by the Stanford Prison Experiment
Now all someone needs to do is use that app to set up a burkha rental booth in front of that checkpoint when its discovered. You give a large deposit for your rental burkha, don't get pinched by the pigs, then drop your burkha off at the deposit booth on the other side of the morality police checkpoint, where you get most of your deposit back.
THIS!!! A THOUSAND TIMES, THIS
Iran was converted to Islam by the Samanid rulers in the 8th and 9th centuries, who encouraged aggressive trolling by Islamic fanatics, demolished Zoroastrian shrines wherever they could, and encouraged discrimination in favor of Islam and against all non-Islamic religions - Zoroastrianism, Christianity & Judaism - which resulted in that country going Islamic.
Contrary to popular view, Shia Islam is NOT any more an Iranian religion than Sunni Islam. The Samanid dynasty - which converted Iran to Islam - was Sunni, as was every Iranian dynasty until the Safavid, while the first Shia dynasty was the Mamluq sultanate in Egypt. The start of Shia Islam was their belief that Mohammed's legit successor was Ali, rather than Abu Baqr. None of them Iranian.
Now it was the Safavid dynasty forcibly converted all of Iran from Sunni to Shia - the second time in its history that that country underwent a religious conversion. None of the succeeding dynasties - Nadir Shah or the Pahlavis - chose to turn back that clock, so end result was that Iran remained Shia.
Today, while there are a number of Iranians sick of their regime, there is a spectrum of opinion when it comes to Islam. That ranges from those who want to remain Islamic to some who want to go completely Atheist/Agnostic to some who want to revert to Zoroastrianism - their original religion. How many want what is something that cannot be known as long as this regime remains in power in Iran. But if they ever become free, it would be interesting to see whether they do throw off Islam.
One historic precedent does exist - when Iran was under the Mongol Ilkhanate of Hulegu Khan - who was Buddhist, non Muslims had the same rights in Iran as Muslims. The Iranians didn't convert from Islam to Buddhism or Shamanism or Christianity. Centuries into their reign, when the Ilkhanate embraced Islam, that opportunity was lost, and w/ it, the non Muslims of Iran lost their religious freedoms again.
The question we were commenting on was the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible. Let's see how your post contributes to that discussion.
You have your history confused even more, which is not surprising, due to your your political views and general stupidity.
Mockery. It doesn't add any useful facts to the topic under discussion: the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible.
The shah was installed by the Brits in first place by invading Iran and forcing the previous shah to abdicate.
An irrelevant factoid not related to the topic under discussion: the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible.
Oh by the way, that previous shah was also installed by the Brits 20 years before.
An irrelevant factoid not related to the topic under discussion: the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible.
And Mosaddegh was democratically elected.
A mostly irrelevant factoid not strongly related to the topic under discussion: the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible. A pity you couldn't have at least mentioned he was Prime Minister.
It seems that despite your implied mental superiority you didn't really manage to contribute in a meaningful way to the topic under discussion. I'm pretty sure you've managed to accomplish that before.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It is a pity that you couldn't have been a little more specific on the exact nature of your disagreement with my post. That would have made it easier to reply, but I'll make a wild guess: you think more of Iran's history should have been included? That wasn't really needed, the question was a fairly narrow one: the overthrow of democracy in Iran in the early 1950s, and who was responsible. The answer I gave was adequate for that question. If you think more history should have been included then make a case for that.
You're also mistaken about me being "one of the .... least credible posters." Nonsense. It isn't that my answers are wrong, but that they aren't liked, they aren't politically correct. That is an entirely different question. Besides, if I'm posting links to major media coverage of an issue, how do you think that isn't "credible"? Has it crossed your mind that the nature of the world and society isn't quite what you think it is? That is a fairly common problem on Slashdot.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Great, now show me the 'other' set of books... I kid... kinda..
Heh, checking out more recent figures (lord knows why you wouldn't link to them :-), looks like Homes brought the deficit spending down by almost 70% since he took office (p. 359? feel free to correct). It's very phony of course because of the Wall Street bailouts. When you exclude them, the deficit almost tripled since 2007, which may not be true either, since the bailouts are still ongoing, so the 'real' deficit might be hard to pinpoint. The whole thing is a fantasy anyway.
Anyway, your new number for defense is 3.6, more bang for the buck, where's the beef? Still, I wouldn't mind if they found that eight and a half tril, it's not exactly chump change.
Getting back to the story, let's all be happy that people are making censorship in Iran (and everywhere else) a little easier to circumvent. Freedom of speech is always a good thing, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”