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.
Waiting for it... (Score:2, Insightful)
A man on US soil gets attacked by agents of a foreign government.
Slashdot response: "It's the US's fault".
Discuss.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually I was going to go with Obama saying it was Rush Limbaugh's fault and Rush Limbaugh saying it was Obama's fault all the while David Letterman was making a wisecrack about one of Palin's daughters as we learn that Jon and Kate are getting a divorce.
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I mean, no one wants to be a mercenary and have people mount vigils when they're captured or speak tearful eulogies when they die, otherwise you lose the whole mystique of the profession.
Re:Daily Kos' infamous "screw them" comment (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's a bit glib. At least a significant portion of the Blackwater people, at least the ones actually on the ground, are just former soldiers who traded up to an employer who would give them better body armor.
Now if you're explicitly talking about someone who is willing to fight for anyone who pays enough money, no questions asked, then of course they don't deserve any sympathy. But I don't think there are really that many people like that.
Re:Daily Kos' infamous "screw them" comment (Score:4, Insightful)
I just can't stand blanket contempt for any group, self-selecting or not, without regard for the fact that not all people within that group have the same circumstances.
Yes I agree that the use of mercenaries systematically creates bad results. But I hate the idea of assuming that all people who sign into a bad system signed into it for bad reasons.
You could say that I hate misdirected hate. Any form of contempt should be focused as tight as a laser beam, both to avoid any damage to bystanders and to maximize its potential for incinerating the target.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they tried to hide the reasons for doing it, it would completely defeat the purpose.
Attacks like this are never just, or even primarily, to silence the one guy hit. They're to scare all the rest of the people thinking about doing the same thing.
Drive-by rock throwing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Drive-by rock throwing (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends . You have to put it in it's context.
In Iran , and most of the Arabic world , stoning is meant a humiliating punishment.
So , it sends the signal 'anyone who does this , deserves to be stoned' .
Re:Drive-by rock throwing (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
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I've got a Brazilian couchsurfer here right now. I'm sure she'll understand if I sock her one.
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If we were going to go the bush way, we'd have to respond by attacking Brazil.
If we were going to go the obama way, we'd have to respond by buying Iran.
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Re:Waiting for it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Had they whacked the guy, all his twitter buddies would have come up with a conspiracy theory on the subject before he had time to cool. And which is scarier: believing that you are subject to a danger that those around you recognize, or believing that you are subject to a danger that most of those around you would laugh at you for believing in?
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
A few laps through the news cycle, and these guys will be reported as a band of agents financed by Osama bin Laden under orders from the Ayatollah to fire nuclear-tipped RPGs at a guy who was on his way to a fundraiser for orphaned babies of US troops killed in Iraq. A quick trip to the UN with a vial of uranium, and we're off to the races.
Really, this is such elementary stuff I'm amazed I have to explain it to you people.
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Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
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Weapons of Massive Discomfort?
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Funny)
WMDs (rocks HURT!)
Weapons of Minor Denting?
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I'd be inclined to suspect, pending further information, that the guys who pulled this are your basic freelance nationalists, rather than actual agents.
Really. My first thought is that they're just your average every day violent assholes, who in this case just happen to be Iranian Ahmadinejad/Khaemeni/establishment supporters in America.
I don't think we need to resort to international conspiracy to explain this.
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: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.
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Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
He's not alone (In the assault part he probably is). The concern is universal. A lot of us Tor Network admins who do not provide exit nodes have opened ports for twitter, IM, and IRC...
There's a lot of silent backing out here by us geeks. I normally do not open ports because of DCMA risks and the fact that my Tor routers run on boxes that do other things. But this is special.
If people want to help a little, throw up a Tor Network relay and open exit ports for IM and Twitter- they will get used. Even better, open up a bridge relay so those blocked in Iran can access the network. If you are not a fan of running Tor long term- no problem. Just bring it down when the crisis is over.
If you do not know networking, or cannot quickly absorb the Tor docs- take a pass on this.
Sorry for the anonymous coward status...
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:Meddlesome (Score:5, Insightful)
When we invade countries for no reason, I agree with you. But when we facilitate communication among disenfranchised citizenry, I'd say we're not meddling at all. We open the door for the individual humans in Iran trying to get to a representative democracy. They either walk through it, or don't.
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If the South still had slavery, would you have been one of the folk saying we just let the South get around to freeing the slaves on their own time?
Sometimes, the folk in power have enough power to ensure the folk who don't (that constitute 99% of the country) won't ever get a chance to change things.
I remember Tiananmen Square, and how very very sad I was that the only thing we seemed to be willing to do was watch.
I'm not saying Iran is in that spot, but I'm sure as hell not going to avoid lending a hand t
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rights are not something that exist in nature. They exist only because a large number of people believe they should, and are willing to assert their belief strongly enough to ensure the continued existence of those rights.
In the USA and some other countries, rights are spelled out in a constitutional document, which makes many people believe that they are permanent and unenfringeable. But even in countries with the most democratic political systems, a strong body of people in power are able to erode those rights.
In countries that do not have democratic political systems or constitutional guarantees of equality, people do not have any rights other than what the government decides to give them. In many countries, for example, we support gender equality. In an Islamic theocracy like Iran, however, women are not given equal rights. We may believe they should have these rights, but they do not actually have them.
Whether we like it or not, might is right, whether that might comes from an authoritarian system with a small number of people deciding everything, or a democratic system that is influenced by a larger number of people.
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This is why we have built the institutions, laws, and governments we have built. Your argument says we should just accept oppression without trying to build something better.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary, my argument says that you have to keep asserting your rights en masse or they'll gradually disappear.
Look at the constant Slashdot stories about warrantless searches, unlawful search & seizure, oppression of free speech, and other denials of rights that are codified, but not respected by those in power. If it weren't for citizens fighting to protect these rights, and bring such infringements to court, they would disappear.
The Constitution is not a magic wand. It won't ensure the perpetual existence of your rights if you don't defend them.
But in countries that don't have such documents, those rights simply don't exist, and they won't until the people are able to convince the government to grant them.
If a supreme ruler can ensure that those selected for the police, the courts, and the army share his beliefs, and maintain the right balance of fear and contentment among the people, it doesn't really matter what rights the powerless believe they have. If that balance is destabilized, however, as may currently be happening in Iran, that's when things change.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Soviet Union had a beautifully crafted Constitution guaranteeing many rights, even more than the US Bill of rights and Constitution.
So yes you are correct, rights come from a peoples willingness to enforce them a piece of paper means nothing. Usually that enforcement is against their own Government, sometimes it's against other factions among them, other times it's against foreign powers.
Governments have little to do with rights, it's what the people around you think and the way they behave that matters.
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Whether or not that right is granted
The Government does not grant rights! The government is granted rights by the people
"Granted" is probably the wrong word there. "Guaranteed" would probably be a better word. While it's true that governments don't grant rights, especially in an American style of constitutional republic, in reality, the only rights you have are the ones that either you can defend yourself or the government promises to defend for you. You might think that free speech is a fundamental right (and I agree that it should be a right of everyone), a government that doesn't think so can almost certainly silence you,
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
fring is being used a lot in this too. the servers are in tel aviv.
"go figure"
I can easily understand plenty of Israelis supporting this effort. There's probably little that Israel wants more than a progressive government in Iran that will stop threatening to nuke them.
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Pretty sure that the opposite of 'progressive' is 'oppressive theocratic dictatorship with elected puppet' and that you are a moron.
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If by the "the US" you mean "the US government", I'll just ask one question: who is supposed to protect people on US soil from being attacked by agents of foreign governments?
I mean, last I looked, even those generally opposed to government doing anything else think that's the governments job.
So, yeah, anytime that happens, its a failure of the US government. Possibly a failure that couldn't be effectively avoided without greater harms (e.g., to freedom), so one that must be an accepted risk, but a failure nonetheless. And unless you acknowledge the failure, you'll never get to the point of considering whether its a failure of the type that must be accepted, or whether it reveals a problem that can and should be addressed.
(Even if they aren't agents of foreign governments, it is a government, if not necessarily a federal government, responsibility to effectively address violent crime.)
Re:Waiting for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
A: How did you figure out that the attackers were agents of a foreign government? It seems that hundreds of thousands of people in Iran are demontrating - sometimes violently - for BOTH sides. Do you suppose that all of them are agents of the Iranian government? DUHHH!
B: Even if the are agents of a foreign government, who stated that it's the US' fault? I see that nowhere ahead of your post.
C: My take on the matter is, silly twits who have no conception of personal security, let alone electronic security, shouldn't be involving themselves in international affairs. People have been stalked and killed for far more frivolous matters than international politics. The idiot is lucky he has nothing worse than a couple bruises from stones being thrown at him. He COULD have been the target of a more professional asassination squad. It never ceases to amaze me that people have the balls to "get involved", but not enough brains to think matters through before doing so.
And, to think that some slashdotters have accused ME of having a high testosterone level......
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The attack was uncalled for, but do we know for a fact that they were agent of a foreign goverment?
"Appeared to be Iranian or Lebanese". Unless they showed him their passports, physical appearance will not really tell you where they are from.
Think about the implications. If they are really agents of a foreign goverment, would it be an act of war?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A man on Slashdot attacks Slashdot readers by implying they are all irrational US haters.
Slashdot response: "Give that man a +5 Insightful, he's got us pegged!"
Discuss.
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By that logic, would the East be morally justified in destroying American nuclear weapons facilities?
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No, because the western democracies do not conduct themselves in the same way as the tyrants that run places like Iran and North Korea. Western governments don't make fist-shaking speeches that include discussions about their glorious nuclear programs and also about wiping another country and its people off the map.
It will be ugly (Score:4, Interesting)
Islam hardliners see current Iran's regime as only force who can stand against 'Western corruption'. They are desperate as they influence around the world shrinks after more moderate US goverment came into power. So it propably wasn't ordered attack, just people who sees current democratical movement with Mousavi as leader as real threat for the regime.
So this fight will echo around the world. If you support those guys in Iran, be ready to take some hits. Let's hope there won't be killings or something, but it will be ugly nevertheless.
Not quite right about the Islam connection (Score:5, Insightful)
For a start Irans shia form of islam means that it will never be seen as a force representing the majority of the muslim world and whilst to an outsider iranians may seem extremely religious they are n't, just look at the youth who are leading this thing.
Islam as the reason for the way things are in Iran is a red herring, the people at the top are basically filthy rich and use the argument of "Gods will" against anyone who they sea as a threat to them, hence the use of the word "devine" by the ayatolla to describe the result.
Re:Not quite right about the Islam connection (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, that's the only reason (Score:5, Interesting)
They are desperate as they influence around the world shrinks after more moderate US goverment came into power.
So Democracy in Iraq, neighbors to Iran, had no influence at all on Iranians *also* wanting real elections?
I'm not saying having a more moderate U.S. president come into power. But let's not heap glory on only one side while forgetting (or trying to bury) the history that made this point possible.
And speaking of moderate administrations, if students here and abroad are willing to take hits, perhaps the President of the U.S. should be as well. And before you repeat the mistaken idea that Iran will crack down harder if the U.S. spoke in support of the protestors, jut what do you think is happening today? Just what do you think is going to happen tomorrow, as Iran ha already warned? Expressing support and best wishes for the protestors gives them a boost in spirit that they need if they are to succeed. Even the president of France has come out strongly in favor of the protestors...
I only want the best for Iranians as well, as one of my friends grew up in Iran. That is why I am so dissatisfied with the lack of upper level support to date.
Re:Right, that's the only reason (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it really is for the best for the US president to keep saying nothing.
That being said have got to see if I can set up a proxy to help. At this point I think the credit must go to the Iranian people the best thing we can do is simply helo give them a way to speak.
Re:Right, that's the only reason (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I had Iranian friends and roommates in grad school starting in the early 2000's. According to them, this is the most blatant the vote rigging has ever been. The guys fresh out of Iran before the last election (not the current one) told me point blank that Ahmadinajan was going to win for domestic economy reasons.
The problem with U.S. support is NOT that the Iranian regime will crack down harder. The problem is that the US government is so unpopular there, that if we support them openly, many influential people will abandon the movement. It happened back in the early 90s with Bush Sr., and it could happen again.
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Expressing support and best wishes for the protestors gives them a boost in spirit that they need if they are to succeed.
Yeah, and erodes their support among the people of Iran (and hell, various factions of protestors themselves) by linking them with America, and in particular with American meddling. Yes many Iranians want a more free and open government, yes many of them want better relations with the West in general and US in particular. But they do not want us meddling in their affairs. They have a
Re:Right, that's the only reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not. Iran had a real reform movement before the US invasion of Iraq, which was largely derailed, with the aid of the propaganda boost given to the hardline elements by the belligerence of the US in the region (and the invective direct at Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil" in particular) during the last administration.
The "Democracy in Iraq" hasn't been considered much of a showpiece for emulation outside of the same group of people in the West who were cheerleaders for the war in the first place.
The problem isn't that Khamenei will try to crack down harder if the US takes sides, the problem is that the US taking sides, rather than merely supporting, generally, an end to violence and fair results, validates Khamenei's propaganda that the West, particularly the US and Britain, are behind the reform movement and that it is not a genuine, broad-based, organic domestic opposition. This could well undermine support for the opposition.
Its not a mistake that the people in the US most vigorously wanting the President to take sides are the same people that openly expressed that either Iranian candidate winning would result in Iran continuing to be an "enemy" of the United States, and even in many cases that it was better if Ahmadinejad won, since that way we'd have a clear and unmistakeable enemy rather than a "reformer" that it might seem we could work with.
I think its pretty insulting to the Iranian opposition, especially given the "spirit" they have demonstrated thus far, to suggest that their morale will crack if they aren't given an explicit and direct endorsement by a foreign leader, particularly the leader of a country that has pointed to their nation as an enemy for decades.
France is not the US, or the UK, so the political dynamic with respect to Iran is different. Franco-Iranian relations have been far more friendly than those of the US or UK with Iran, which means that individual instances of French criticism of Iranian government action don't feed into easy government propaganda narratives about manipulation by longstanding enemies.
Re:Right, that's the only reason (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that Presidential interference would be particularly productive. In fact, it's almost certainly counter-productive.
The main opposition in Iran is doing it's very very hardest to portray itself as again the President, but not against the Supreme Leader or the Islamic Republic itself. All their rivals need is some proof that they're really no-good collaborators with an invasive foreign power, and suddenly the opposition's more moderate supporters back the flip off.
The Western world needs to do it's absolute best to keep the common people or Iran safe and free, but it can't interfere. This is one of those things that'll need to sort itself. If the best thing we can do is keep avenues of communication open to prevent people being locked down and suppressed, that's what needs to be done.
Much kudos, incidentally, goes to Google Translate and Facebook for both rushing out Persian language versions of their respective sites.
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your idea here is just going to promote a whole lot of nothing. Oh, it will provoke serious Iranian hatred of the US though.
Condemn an entire country's culture?
That's like condemning the country North Korea for what is the choice of a dictator. It's not the country's fault that they're basically living at gunpoint. I don't like XYZ object but condemning it does nothing.
Why don't you go back to whatever you support when you use logic instead of what I am replying to on this one.
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Wish I had mod points to bump you up.
Good thing you don't then. GP is a troll; has made the same post elsewhere on this topic, as well as several previous Iranian topics. Was soundly refuted last time. (Hint: The US's [wikipedia.org] deserves a lot of blame.)
Do this stuff ANONYMOUSLY as possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, not that I mean to be insensitive, but when you're messing with that kind of stuff, you want to be as anonymous as humanly possible.
Like, purchasing hosting somewhere else in the world, with a one-time VISA/MasterCard cash card that you bought at a corner store with cash. You know? Uploading everything from your laptop while you're chilling at a coffee shop well distanced from your home.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but man, I would not be dealing with this kinda scenario where people are getting killed in the night and shit, unless I was doing it ultra un-traceable style. Because I would absolutely anticipate this kind of harsh backlash from the same crazy fuckers that are doing the same thing in Iran.
I actually considered setting up an anonymous web-form -> twitter gateway, but it was just not worth the hassle to set that kind of thing up with the kind of anonymity I would require to be OK with doing that. :P
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Re:Do this stuff ANONYMOUSLY as possible (Score:4, Insightful)
Apathy/laziness has always been highly correlated with cowardice.
Coming from an AC that means almost nothing
Now he knows that... (Score:5, Interesting)
he's making a difference.
No, this stops (Score:5, Insightful)
No. This stops now.
I don't have any money, but I am glad to provide a proxy or whatever if anyone is so crazed that they will attack people across international lines just to silence their speech. I don't have family and I'm not afraid of whatever they think they can do. Such people are scum and not worth fearing.
I need help. I don't know the specific systems, steps and processes necessary to support these people. What do I do or where do I go to find out what to do?
Re:No, this stops (Score:5, Funny)
...
If this is your course of action, might I suggest changing your nick to "TinyElusiveTarget"?
Seriously, though, previous threads over the past couple days have had a lot of details on what to do and how to do it if you want to help. Alternatively, Fark.com has daily (or more frequent) threads on the Green Revolution, and there are always helpful posts in those threads.
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)
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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
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I will demure and let you decide for yourself. Information is meant to be free.
skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone remember the nutjob who carved a backwards B into her face and blamed it on a black man?
I'm very skeptical of this without corroboration.
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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:skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in Ohio. Ohio's a big place. How come nobody mentions a city? What "school"? What police dept. was notified? Why go public on the internet and not call the local media?
If true, this is very disturbing, but I too am skeptical.
And no, it's not impossible. The Shah's agents were here in OH in the 1970s. Seriously.
Re:skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
Read about this on Huffpo after seeing it first posted on dkos. Nico Pitney, the guy doing the excellent live blog there apparently tried to confirm this story and was unable to. I'm thinking that this is very likely a hoax.
Another Note on this. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been on IRC (where everybody is organizing) constantly for the last 3 days or so watching the chatter on this.
Dear god. Guys, some of the people doing this have got their head fully up their ass. People are going to get banned from their ISP or worse. You've got a bunch of idiots that cannot grok how to launch a DOS window running wide open proxies on their home cable connections.
There are people running dedicated servers right now to ferry information out of the country, but some of these people are seriously going to get themselves into trouble.
If you do not have a working knowledge of routing, pf/iptables, and squid, please do not run a proxy. You are going to get yourself into more trouble than having rocks thrown at you.
Or worse, your misconfiguration is going to get people in Iran killed.
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Homland Security Indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly why free speech is so critical - so that I can, for example, post a comment on Slashdot without worrying about thugs attacking me for it. Flames and trolls are one thing, angry guys throwing rocks at my car? Quite another.
Re:Homland Security Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that, apparently, a foreign government identified an American Citizen and had operatives attack that individual? On US Soil? I wonder if there will be hit squads next, or teams of operatives attempting to sabotage servers where proxies are being hosted... This is exactly why free speech is so critical - so that I can, for example, post a comment on Slashdot without worrying about thugs attacking me for it. Flames and trolls are one thing, angry guys throwing rocks at my car? Quite another.
Seriously? Do you really think that the Iranian Govt/Hezbollah tracked down a Twitter user just to have a couple goons throw rocks at him? I find that hard to believe. If they really felt threatened enough to track him down and send people out to him, he'd be dead. At worst, this was the act of a couple mentally challenged Iranian/Lebanese ex-patriots who have bought into the BS that the Supreme Leader and his cronies have been spouting and decided to try to go scare this guy. And I'd be more likely to believe that these guys don't really even care about what's going on but stumbled on his real identity and drunkenly though it'd be "cool to go throw rocks at him and make him thing he's in big danger".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well the rest of the world (TM) is pretty used to that coming from your direction so in a perfect world it would be a nice little wake up call to how it feels and that perhaps you should stop doing things like that to the rest of us. Of course it's only the barest of tastes as they didn't kidnap and export him to Syria or Egypt to be imprisoned and tortured for the rest of his life, or better yet simply assassinate him as your country has so often done to people who it doesn't like in other countries.
Not e
Wow (Score:3, Funny)
That guy better be careful (Score:2)
He should google Daniel Pearl to know what he's getting into.
I too wish everyone respected each other in a peaceful fashion but clearly that's not the case.
What?!? (Score:3, Funny)
Lock and Load. (Score:5, Funny)
Time for this guy to get a conceal carry permit, a handgun, and most importantly, the training to know when to use the above. Online we defend ourselves with munitions known as anonymity and encryption. In real life we use body armor and small arms.
Pro-democracy (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't about democracy, although many people claim it is.
If Mousavi had won and violent protests had started in the face of electoral fraud, the press would be condemning the protesters as a violent minority clinging to a past order. Similarly, if the protest had started in the middle of Ahmadinejad's term, to oust him out, the press and most people living in the west would side with them. This is good, this is healthy. It'd be healthier if people acknowledged that is has nothing to do with democracy. If Mousavi will be less repressive than Ahmadinejad, then he should take his place, regardless of what the polls say.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If Mousavi had won and violent protests had started in the face of electoral fraud, the press would be condemning the protesters as a violent minority clinging to a past order"
And this theory is relevant to what? Mousavi (officialy) lost, and in the (fairly apparent) face of electoral fraud, massive non-violent protests began. Given the good evidence of fraud, the massive scope of the protests, and there generally non-violent nature, it's hardly surprising these are being cast
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Mousavi had won and violent protests had started in the face of electoral fraud, ...
Can it not be about both wanting to see a genuine democratic election and wanting to see the slightly-less-evidently-supportive-of-a-fundamentalist-religious-regime guy win?
why the tolerance for TERRORISM on US soil? (Score:2, Troll)
We have a plague of right-wing extremists killing Americans for political and religious reasons. That's terrorism by definition. The Administration Party Line is "lone nuts" and there's no attempt to investigate the organizations
Speak the truth (Score:2)
pay the price
not a hero, unless you die
there are others, pick whichever sounds awesomer to you
wish i could be like him
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.
surprised they're having this much trouble locking (Score:4, Interesting)
Given that Iran is operating under an authoritarian government, I would have thought that just shutting everything down would be quite possible. Cut all internet connections from the country save for a few government agencies, done. I can understand the difficulties in providing selective access across the board but I would have thought it would be simple enough for them to pull the plug. The only reason why they aren't must be because they are more reliant on the internet across their entire economy than I previously suspected -- they can't afford to pull the plug.
That even an authoritarian government run by unpleasant people have trouble with this is encouraging; I would hope censorship in western democracies would be even less successful.
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.
Beware Agent Provocateurs (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming this story is true, I'd be concerned that this is an attempt to draw the US Government into a confrontation that will help the hard-liners in Iran. As for who would want such a thing.
Clearly the hard-liners would like to try, once again, to get people to rally behind them in the face of "the great satan." You'd also have to look at the US Neocons, many of whom would like to remove any sympathy for Iran or Iranians that gets in the way of their long-disgraced axis-of-evil BS. And then there is Israel. At least some in Israel are on the same page as the neocons, though I wouldn't want to suggest that their position is universally held.
Anyway, I'm suspicious of the motives of anyone who wants to use this as anything but a reason to get the cops and/or FBI on the case.
just goes to show (Score:5, Insightful)
well now look whose face is red (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdotters not particularly savvy re Persia (Score:3, Interesting)
By George Friedman
Related Link
* The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress
Related Special Topic Page
* The Iranian Presidential Elections
In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.
The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch's modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years -- Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn't speak Farsi all that well.
The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising -- Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn't think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.
Misreading Sentiment in Iran
Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading -- because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy -- people Americans didn't speak to because they couldn't. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.
Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization -- a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook "iPod liberalism," the idea that anyone who listens to rock 'n' roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran -- a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand -- but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to p
I advise caution (Score:5, Interesting)
I advise caution in believing this story. ProtesterHelp, earlier today, was spreading false information that Mousavi had been arrested on Twitter. The combination makes me suspect attention whoring in lieu of truth.
Re:wonder how he could have protected himself? (Score:5, Insightful)
if only they allowed concealed carry on campuses, we'd have a few less rock throwers in this country.
Yeah, they should lift the ban on concealing rocks.
. . .provided the fact he has a gun, and knows how to use it of course
Oh. Never mind.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Islam is a religion of peace, but that didn't stop some Muslims from flying planes into the WTC, nor does it stop them from strapping on bombs and blowing people up.
Christianity is a religion of peace, but that doesn't stop some from murdering abortion activists. Every group has its extremist nutjobs.
Re: (Score:2)
When was the last time you heard of an extremist Agnostic fundamentalist? A man willing to give his life for the proposition that there may or may not be a god?
Re:Don't believe this blogger (Score:5, Insightful)
If you'd care to compare the number of Christian abortion activists to the number of Muslim car bombers I think you'll find a difference in the number of attacks.
While it's true that all groups have "extremist nutjobs" it's only a partial story. There ARE differences in scope and frequency. Large differences.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
a religion of peace
There is no such thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a religion of peace
There is no such thing.
Yes there is. You just have to remember that the actions of the few do not necessarily represent the beliefs of the many. In the case of radicals, by definitions they do not represent the beliefs of the many.