| Watching Iran |
| Written by Dave Burstein |
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James Cowie of Renesys has provided remarkable insight into what Iran is actually doing with their Internet connectivity. Cowie describes the current situation: “Perhaps the strangest thing of all, given how diverse and active and vocal the proxy server farmers have been, is that by and large, it isn't working. (Map on left from Renesys)The rate with which new proxies are being created has slumped over the last few days. It's getting harder and harder to propagate new proxies to the people who need them, as the government consolidates its hold on the filtering mechanisms. Any new proxy addresses that are posted to Twitter, or emailed, will be blocked very quickly. People we talk to inside Iran say that almost no proxies are usable any more. F reegate, a Chinese anti-censorship application that makes use of networks of open proxies, has proven popular in Iran. But this week, it, too, has been experiencing problems. Many popular applications, like Yahoo! Messenger, have stopped working.”
CNN's Rick Sanchez and blogger Robert Scoble went head to head over the network's coverage of Iran (which was initially lousy.) Ann Curry of NBC jumped in with passion. Thanks to Jeff Pulver for posting the video http://bit.ly/WuOO6 . Nearly all Internet activists give passionate support to the Iranian opposition. Cowie writes “Install a few proxy instances on machines you control. Learn how to lock them down properly. Swap them with your friends overseas who live in places where the Internet is fragile. Set up your tunnels and test them. And don't wait until the tanks are in the streets to figure this out, because by that point, you may have already lost the proxy war.” Remarkable visuals at http://bit.ly/tzUt Craig Labovitz of Arbor/Ellacoya has graphs of how Iran introduced blocking after the election and a suggestion: game protocols like xbox and World of Warcraft show little evidence of government manipulation. Perhaps games provide a possible source of covert channels (e.g. “Bring your elves to the castle on the island of Azeroth and we’ll plan the next Ahmadinejad protest rally?”) http://bit.ly/19BXk1 Nokia-Siemens is a prime supplier of the equipment Iran is using, according to Christopher Rhoads and Loretta Chao WSJ http://bit.ly/MWLbf . That should surprise no one; Siemens supplies the equipment allowing Deutsche Telecom to monitor “every session of every user all of the time.” Alcatel also is a primary supplier to the Iranian Internet, sometimes using middlemen in the Emirates. Cisco has been the driving force behind the U.S. government's successful efforts to include this kind of tight security in the ITU Next Generation Networks. The Cisco proposals read like a spec sheet of the Great Firewall of China. These proposals were strongly supported by the U.S. government and security agencies. China, Germany and Britain are demanding all ISPs introduce the capability to enforce Internet blockades and monitoring, especially of explicit material. Everyone in the industry knows there is near-total co-operation with government security. <One who knows> tells me “Since 9/11, we can do all the things that were previously prohibited. Internet people around the world are determined to play a role in the Iranian struggle. An American, Brit or Frenchman needs to be very cautious taking a role in Iran. Everyone in the region knows that the CIA and SIS overthrew the elected government in 1953 on behalf of the oil companies, which is confirmed by official CIA reports. http://bit.ly/98kVX That said, I may set up a proxy server. The CIA and the SIS ousted an elected government in 1953 “It was the aim of the TPAJAX project to cause the fall of the Mossadeq government to reestablish the prestige and power of the Shah; and to replace the Mossadeq government with one which would govern Iran according to constructive policies. Specifically, the aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent,” http://bit.ly/98kVX Tiananmen + Twitter = Tehran?Gordon Brown told the Guardian “"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.” Dan Rather suggests “The revolution may not be televised but it will be twittered” and echoes Tiananmen + Twitter = Tehran from Read Write Web. The hype is off the wall. Twitter has passed Facebook in some places, and is an enormously important tool that you must learn if you haven't, but politics ain't that simple. Reza Shah said years ago “If Khomeini came with tapes, Khomeini then will disappear with the Internet.” From a remarkable Tina Brown interview with his mother, the former Queen. http://bit.ly/Mpoyu The U.S. State Department made a bad mistake persuading Twitter to stay up to encourage the revolution, allowing the regime to place blame on the CIA and others who destroyed democracy In Iran in 1951. What's happening in Iran is obviously a genuine movement which deserves respect. Nonetheless, one of the untold stories is almost surely the strong role of the U.S. Dick Cheney's boys spoke publicly about spending hundreds of millions for Iranian “regime change.” They've done a remarkable job of keeping a low profile. I've learned from the 2+2=5 guys in D.C. just how much a good operation with that kind of money can accomplish. What's the word for “astroturf” in Farsi? http://bit.ly/HUKe
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Renesys found that Iran was always connected, contrary to many news stories. “Except for a brief period of outage over the weekend, the routes into Iran from the rest of the world have been basically intact, if a bit congested and unstable. Most of that congestion and instability is probably the result of six billion people who are freshly interested in Iranian politics, all reading (and in some cases, yes, 
