Man Attacked In Ohio For Providing Iran Proxies 467
David Hume writes "electronicmaji is reporting on the Daily Kos that the individual known as ProtesterHelp (also to be found on twitter) was attacked in Ohio for providing network security for Twitterers in Iran, setting up private networks to provide secure proxies, calling for media networks to remove the Iranians Twitterers' information from their broadcast, and providing counter-intelligence services (including Basiji and Army Locations) within the Twitter community. ProtesterHelp was allegedly attacked by a group of men while walking to class in Ohio. The men, who appeared to ProtesterHelp to be either Iranian or Lebanese, drove up beside him and threw rocks at him while shouting, 'Mousavi Fraud.' ProtesterHelp further reported that his personal information has been leaked, and is currently being spread both online and inside of Iran amongst the government." Relatedly, Wired is also reporting that Google and Facebook have rushed out support for Persian. This move has allowed many pro-democracy groups to connect and translate their message to a broader audience.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Informative)
I've been lurking around the IRC channels for a few days. Folks have been working on setting up proxies, and doing what they can to help. I question whether anything is actually being accomplished, but my hat is off to anyone who is at least trying to help facilitate communication. Personally, since I'm not a developer, I haven't found too much I can do. There are more than enough proxies out there at this point...
Re:No, this stops (Score:5, Informative)
The single click and least trouble free solution to help right now seems as this one:
http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en [torproject.org]
If you don't know about it, Tor is a distributed proxy system which helps people in oppressive areas.
If you have questions about legitimacy of helping such a system, US DOD itself designed it and suggests their own personnel to use it when abroad.
If you think like a Iran nerd, Tor would be the only solution to implement really fast to gather and send information now. It could be life saving since those countries are really at limit of spying the internet right now.
They say just spare 20 KB (not MB) a second upspeed is enough. It is even lower than torrent traffic and shouldn't effect regular internet usage in any way even if you have multiple computers on NAT etc. (install to single in that case)
Re:skeptical (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone remember the Republican campaign worker who carved a backwards B into her face and blamed it on an Obama supporter?
Fixed that for you.
I find it heartening that the freepers are so quick to dismiss this story. Perhaps they will recognize that they are identifying with the enemies of democracy in Iran, and the cognitive dissonance will result in personal growth.
Re:wonder how he could have protected himself? (Score:3, Informative)
ProtesterHelp Here (Score:4, Informative)
cba to make account, but it's me, can e-mail on ph.on.twitter@gmail.com if you want to confirm
Just wanting to say:
1) I agree that this was not agency work, but nationalists.
2) I had no clue how serious this was when I started, and by the time I took measures of security, it was too late
3) I tried to have my personal info pulled from twitter, but they gave me form letter about deleting my account. Boo @twitter.
4) Want to say thank you to all of the private sector security people who offered to advise/help
5) go to http://iran.whyweprotest.net to see how you can help
6) There are other reports of odd things happening to other prominent Americans. Cars trailing, seen parked outside their homes. I can't confirm these, but just saying, if you are involved in any major way (beyond proxies/tor setup), please be careful.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Informative)
A "car accident" (or heck, a standard homicide, those are common enough, just nick the guy's wallet so it looks apolitical) would have been much more professional.
Speaking of...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/iran-protests-day-five [guardian.co.uk]
There were unconfirmed reports that Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in a suspicious car accident in Tehran. Asgari had reportedly leaked evidence that the elections were rigged to alter the votes from the provinces. Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19m votes, and should therefore be president.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:surprised they're having this much trouble lock (Score:4, Informative)
If you think of "authoritarian" and "not-authoritarian" as a binary switch between extremes, and if you assume that an authoritarian government not only is absolutely authoritarian in structure, but also of perfect in loyalty to the leadership and competence, that assumption would be natural.
Reality doesn't quite work that way, and particularly not in the present situation in Iraq. It probably doesn't help the authoritarians that the "opposition" includes people who are former high ranking government officials with lots of contacts in and through the government at all levels, and that some are, in fact, current senior leaders*. Even authoritarian regimes don't have governments that are from top to bottom composed of mindless drones with unquestioning loyalty to the leader.
Mousavi was the last Prime Minister of Iraq before the position was abolished in 1989; among others in the opposition, Mohammad Khatami is the most recent former President of Iran, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is Khatami's predecessor as President and, perhaps more importantly, the current chair of the Assembly of Experts (a body whose official duties include supervising, electing, and dismissing the Supreme Leader), and there are others in positions of power that are either aligned with the opposition or, at the least, not committed to backing Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Informative)
Leaked it to where? Poor bastard.
I believe it's referring to these leaked election results, although I'm personally still waiting for some sort of validation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5540211/Iran-protest-cancelled-as-leaked-election-results-show-Mahmoud-Amadinejad-came-third.html [telegraph.co.uk]
Mr Mousavi's wife and co-campaigner, Zahra Ranavard, was reported as warning that riot squads would be equipped with live ammunition, raising the prospect of serious bloodshed.
Iran's Interior Ministry said Mr Mousavi would be responsible for any consequences if he went ahead with the protest.
Mr Mousavi's cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday's polls.
The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.
The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed.
Re:No, this stops (Score:3, Informative)
I hate to badger you on this, but the link you provided doesn't provide strong enough evidence for me to feel comfortable supporting your claim.
A link(*) off that page substantiates the claim that the Navy developed it as a research project. However, the Naval Research Labs produce a lot of experimental research so their invention of the project isn't necessarily an enforcement of Tor. That is to say the NRL is about what could be done, not what should be done.
This brings us back to the claim that the DOD "suggests their own personnel to use it when abroad". The Tor page claims this, but doesn't give specifics or cite a DOD source for this information. For that matter, the Tor page doesn't say it is US militaries that use Tor. The page only claims that some agents of some armed force of some country use Tor in some capacity. If I were to try to convince someone else, I would want more specific facts. Ideally the exact document in which the DoD allegedly suggests their personnel use it.
Again I'm not saying your claim is incorrect. I'm just asking for evidence (documentary or otherwise) in support of that claim, so I can use it if I were to attempt to persuade someone. The claims on the "torproject" page are just to vague and unsubstantiated to use in a debate.
(*) http://www.onion-router.net/ [onion-router.net]