Winpdb - A Platform Independent Python Debugger Revolutionary Technology
Where I live the media goes on and on about how The Iranian people is using web technology against its regime - for example Twitter, Youtube, e-mails and also cellular phones, SMS, etc… These technologies are described as giving an upper hand to the people as opposed for example to the revolution which took place 30 years ago.
I think this technology is actually being used against the people. You can not use it without being completely exposed. Anyone using it is being monitored and ironically has his/her social network mapped. Once someone is determined to be an organizer or worth the effort of taking down, he/she can be easily arrested.
This is kind of true. But most of the social network and online media have their HQ in the US. Can Iranian govt access those?
They don’t need to. They control their network and can therefore monitor anything en route from Iran to a server in the US or anywhere else.
Even if you regularly twitter or e-mail via HTTPS you are still exposed.
1) They can (and probably did) temporarily block HTTPS communication forcing the people to communicate with regular HTTP.
2) If someone is willing to pay 100,000 USD for the twitter server certificate, someone will deliver it - maybe it is already in the black market. Once they have it they can be the man in the middle for all communication. This could have been done long ago.
3) They control the network and can therefore infect any computer on it by exploiting browser vulnerabilities, no matter where you surf to. Once your computer is infected they can monitor it. If it has a microphone attached, they can even physically listen to anything you say in the vicinity of the computer. This could have been done long ago.
4) University, work-place and Internet cafe computers can potentially be pre-installed with monitoring software - depending on the nature of the regime.
Even in liberal western regimes, governments have confidential sections in the contracts given to communication corporates. You can guess what these sections cover.
I don’t think that’s true. All of these websites are already blocked, so anyone who uses them is using some sort of proxy server or anonimizing technology to bypass the filters. This makes tracking people much more difficult. Besides, there are an estimated 30 million Internet users in Iran (almost half of the population) and virtually all of these people participate in some sort of “illegal” activities on the Net (at least sending and receiving anti-regime emails regularly). The government cannot track all of these people. The numbers are on our side. They might be able to use some of the information they record against you, if they arrest you someday, but then again if you’re arrested they’re gonna make you confess to a lot of much worse things you’ve never done, so your online activities are not much of a problem.
I live in Iran, and I regularly post anti-regime material to my blog without much fear, despite the fact that the Islamic Republic is the first government in world to have arrested a blogger.
Hi Homayoon,
Isn’t there a difference between posting anti-regime opinions and posting information on upcoming demonstrations and calling people to show up?
I would expect the Iranian regime to focus their interest on the later. It is possible to use automatic filtering to dig such messages from the mass of information flowing on the Iranian Internet.
I hope you will notice this comment and share your opinion on the following:
In the western media Iran is often described as a terrible dark dictatorship regime oppressing the people. On the other hand I have a friend who insists Iran is actually the only model democracy in the Middle East.
This duality shows up in many other ways.
For example, in your own words when you write that you and many other Iranians publicly express your anti-regime political opinion without fear and on the other hand you write that once someone is arrested the regime will make them confess to crimes they never did - which implies torture of political prisoners.
On one hand there is a general election of the president and parliament and half the population has access to the Internet and on the other hand people and even minors are publicly hanged for being homosexual.
On one hand there are reports of people being kidnapped from their houses and hospitals, or shot by police, and on the other hand police brutality in demonstrations does not seem to exceptionally exceed that inflicted by western regimes like the US, France or Israel.
US Los Angeles riots in 1992 - 52 dead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_Riots
France civil unrest in 2005 - 2888 arrested
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France
What is your opinion?
How free would you say you are?
Is Iran a democracy?
Whatever the Iranian regime is, it definitely is NOT a democracy. You might want to read my recent blog post at http://elektito.blogspot.com/2009/06/from-islamic-republic-to-islamic.html to know about some of the opinions of the clerics on the “republic” part of the Islamic Republic. Besides, the highest ranking Iranian official, the supreme leader, is not directly elected by people and does not even need popular support (the constitution was changed after the selection of the current leader about this point).
There is a minority of people who are genuinely supporters of the regime (some estimate them as being 10 to 20 percent of the population). There are also others who think it’s not appropriate for Iranians to talk to foreigners about the horrible actions of the regime. Some of them justify this as keeping a good international image for our country, while others say letting these things known might cause a foreign invasion of Iran. I cannot agree with any of them. Showing a good but false image of Iran helps no one and fearing a foreign invasion cannot possibly justify hiding the oppression of people.
The fact that I and many others write whatever we want in our blogs and don’t fear going to jail is not that the regime is tolerant. They have done everything in their power to prevent this, including jailing and torture of bloggers, but they cannot possibly track all the people who write anonymously on their blogs many of which are hosted abroad. The regime has gone as far as asking people to register their websites and blogs (they later reduced it to registering those blogs with a top level domain name). This has become a joke to the people. Virtually no one has followed this law, and they found out it’s very hard to enforce it.
So how free are we? Very little as far as the government is concerned, but we have learned the ways of civil disobedience. We push the limits of the dress code as far as we can (and sometimes get arrested for it!). We drink alcohol at private parties though it is forbidden. The same goes for any other law that we can ignore or push to limits. And the current demonstrations are another example. Constitutionally speaking, we have every right to have peaceful protests, article 27 of the constitution clearly states that and article 9 prohibits the regime from passing laws to limit the constitutional freedoms of people. But the regime does not even obey its own laws. The constitution of the Islamic Republic definitely does not guarantee us democracy and freedom, but if they would follow it, people might have been happy enough to let them have their rule, but this way they are nothing but tyrants, and sooner or later they have to go.
HI Nir & Homayoon ,
I am the friend of Nir
let me explain my point of view
I did claim that
Iran “was” the most democratic country in the middle east.
that does not mean that its “Real” democarcy as I would like democracy to be.
I do think that Iran “was” great democracy for any one who bellives in Islamic constituion the same as Israel is great democracy as long as you are Zionist.
these claims are as kind of “counter” examples for democracy of Israel.
unfortunately latest elections did make me understand that the Iranian regime “does not even obey its own laws” and is moving towards dictatorship.
From the Guardian - Iranian consumers boycott Nokia for ‘collaboration’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/14/nokia-boycott-iran-election-protests
“Released prisoners have revealed that the authorities were keeping them in custody on the basis of their SMS and phone calls archive, which was at officials’ disposal.”
Homayoon - the last post in your blog is from the 26th of June so I hope you are safe and doing well.