Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
"oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood"
I understand what you're trying to say and I agree with that, but this is actually different. This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. It's the state literally disallowing people talking to each other. It's Orwellian: "we don't like what you're talking about, so we're going to make you completely unable to"
It's not the 80s or 90s anymore. The internet is rhe global backbone of how people communicate with each other. Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression.
I didn't miss that and I'm not sure what argument you're making. It sounds like you're trying to say that state censorship is conditional, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to make your case.
> from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)
I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life
Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.
> even tech articles have become partisan
True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
They did just after the protest started, and there is no evidence that's actually happening but it's kind of the point since we are not receiving information from Iran since the government blocked them out from the internet
This is the third uprising. They have so far followed the same recipe. People raise up. Internet is turned off. People are arrested and killed by the authorities. They are using the death penalty to teach the Iranians that raising up will get you killed.
While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
People don't do politics anymore, they get their priorities the other way around (geopolitics before the politics of their own house, workplace or city), and the little they do is heavily misplaced (online instead of physically demonstrating).
On top of that add the huge boom of data in politics. No politician anymore has programs or language aiming at representing most of the voters, but it only focuses to get 50%+1, which in practice means that most politicians aim for the majority of the swing voters.
Is politics that thing where I vote every 2-4 years and maybe volunteer for the DNC or send some money to a presidential candidate, and spend thousands of hours passively consuming election and news content? That's what I learned growing up but it doesn't seem to be working. :shrug: /s
The problem with other freedom-loving nations, the EU, etc is that they're a bunch of cowards and I feel like America is the only place that can stand up to the regimes like Iran/China. Who else if not US?
When thinking about an entire country, "good/bad" doesn't make sense as a category. In Iran, the people are protesting and holy hell are there a ton of people risking their lives for the chance for a better life with less oppression, without hyperinflation, with some sort of voice in their own governance. The ruling class can not be conflated with the populace. The populace can not be conflated with the populace for that matter, there's no "one" thing even under a shared culture. This is also true in the US, you can't conflate the ruling class with the people in the streets ringing bells and blowing horns and risking their lives and freedom against a tyrannical government seeking to arrest millions of people and deport some of them.
Nothing is completely free of politics, much less the existence of the Internet, and it's incredibly important to realize the impact that technology has on the fabric of society.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours,
This is not even remotely close to the meaning or impact of the site that's linked. It's about the dignity of life, the gunning down of thousands of people by their government, and the governments attempts to continue oppression by hiding their actions behind a veil. Your comment viewed in its most positive light is crass, more realistically is heartless and cruel.
My guess: you're commenting on the US from a Russified country, or from China? That's the only perspective on the world that I can imagine generating your statements, and if I'm wrong I'd love to know.
no, actually not, maybe a country that isnt very pro America given you're threatening to invade to take ownership of Greenland. But again in my post, the actual loss of life etc is very sad and shouldn't happen, but my point was more tech was one area where politics were left at the door and maybe I'm old but its sad I guess to see it here too.
Iran controls a string of proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and other places. Are you sure you're not forgetting that piece? When you write that we had 80 years of relatively peaceful times, you're glossing over that fact.
We haven't had a major conflict in 80 years. Little skirmishes all over the place, sure, but we've forgotten that significant wars between major powers used to be both terrible for everyone involved and also common. Our grandparents after WW2 decided to go a different path and created a largely rules- and trade- based international order that has largely kept the peace. We don't realize how good we've had it.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
You are not looking too hard at all. There are lots of dissenting opinions, in fact I'd wager that if you excluded official government mouthpieces, the lion's share of opinion (both private individuals as well as established media) is trending to open criticality of the US government's choices.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda
I almost feel bad for the established old school media companies. One side says they are spewing propaganda, the other side says they're ignoring it altogether. Both cannot be simultaneously true.
> but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece
Really? As a naturalized American I see diversity in the USA's media. Do you have an example?
From what I see, there are two big voices in the media politically.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
Again, we need an example. I see the official line from the current party in power, and the counter arguements from the mainstream media as a whole. The current party only has a media output from very few mainstream sources.
Have you been on the Internet as an adult ever? Have you been on X? What about Facebook? America is "one mouthpiece"? This is one of the most puzzling takes I've ever seen.
Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.
Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I mean... I guess it depends on what you consider "the media"? I certainly don't consume any media that reacted with anything but shock and horror. With CBS under attack I suppose that's fragile, but I think it's important to appreciate the freedoms we do still have. When people say "all the media in AUTHORITARIAN_STATE supports the federal government on IMPORTANT_THING", they don't mean "a plurality of popular TV networks" -- they mean all.
oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood
...I think you're coming from a good place, but you're failing to grasp the seriousness of a nation state shutting down telecommunications. Besides the immense power it shows, it also implies a level of desperation and/or severity-of-intent.
It's very, very different than a nation losing access to the internet because of technical issues (or, in your case, because it wasn't invented/popularized yet).
Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
I think a lot of them took a look at how Twitter and Facebook were used for organising during the Arab spring and decided that it was by far the most dangerous non-military threat.
Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink, I've seen rumors that they are using Russian EW systems but those same systems are not so effective jamming Starlink-guided drones on the frontlines.
>Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?
Do you think the 3 letter agencies in the likes of UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc don't know how to turn off the internet in their countries? They'd be really incompetent if they don't.
Switzerland even had all its bridges wired with explosives from like the 19th century and all the way through the cold war to blow them up inc ase of an invasion.
Do you think the internet infra is somehow spared this kind of strategic planning?
The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
> X cannot do it, because there is actually a law against Y
Famous last words.
I'm more than shocked that people STILL haven't learned how quickly laws came become meaningless. Which is why history keeps repeating itself.
If fascist government goons break into your house to kill you, do you think waving a piece of paper with the law in their face will stop them? Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment? Even they knew this 300 years ago. Have people already forgotten?
I was going to say! I actually laughed out loud at the computer screen when reading OP's comment. There is no way "There's a law against it" is going to stop the current administration (with all three branches of government aligned) from doing whatever the heck it wants.
I'm actually not shocked judging by that comment that you don't know how pyramid of authority works in most countries, and in this context, the US.
Most countries (including the US, obviously) follow their laws. Can you please give an example for a first world country that *consistently* ignores it's own laws?
History repeats itself because people ignore history, not because people ignore the law.
Sorry, I expressed my thoughts wrong. What I meant to say was that laws can change overnight based on mob political feels or black swan events (WW2, 9/11, etc.)
So just because something is illegal for the government TODAY, doesn't mean it will stay like that for the next 500 years.
Laws aren't real, they're just made up constructs on worthless pieces of paper, but the only thing that is always consistently real is the enforcement of the will of state through means of violence and they'll put that in writing to give it legitimacy but ultimately the people in charge of the guns can make whatever they want legal or illegal.
This "current administration" thinking is exactly the problem. When your version of the current administration had the power to diminish the power of the administration, did it do that? None of them do.
Somehow there's always a failure of imagining that whatever the current administration is won't always be current.
> The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
The link you provided says:
In 1942, during World War II, Congress created a law to grant President Franklin D. Roosevelt or his successors the power to temporarily shut down any potentially vulnerable technological communications technologies.
The Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act would reverse the 1942 law and prevent the president from shutting down any communications technology during wartime, including the internet.
The House version was introduced on September 22 as bill number H.R. 8336, by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI2). The Senate version was introduced the same day as bill number S. 4646, by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The bill did not pass and did not become law. So what are you referring to?
I highly doubt the Swedish government has a way to turn off our internet. Our government doesn't own our internet infrastructure, it's owned by private companies. The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Well. I can't talk for the current government of Sweden, but if I was the supreme leader of a Swedish Dictatorship, I am pretty confident that I could accomplish that by sending some very persuasive soldiers along with a government officer with some papers ordering those private companies to do whatever the fuck I wanted unless their executives wanted to experience some extra holes in their bodies.
Does Sweden not have the equivalent of the UK's civil contingency act?
Section 2 basically allows the Westminster government to make regulations as they see fit during an emergency, but with a short time scale (like a month or so) before parliament gets a say.
So what? If it's on Swedish ground then it's under Swedish government(military) enforcement in case the shit hits the fan.
>The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime, or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
The Americans often achieve the same ends with different means; use of mass surveillance to account for the threat of open communication, forcing sales of social media platforms to friends of the regime, domain seizures on pirate sites, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws, Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws, etc.
The American model is still preferable, but being preferable often gives people the false impression that open communication is a solved problem because they have limited assurances at the political level when what they should be after is more expansive assurances at the technical level.
My guess is that in Ukraine the Russian EW systems are deployed tens of kilometers back from the line of contact to protect them from artillery strikes and fiber optic drones. These Russian EW systems are likely used to protect command posts and logistics bases but not the line of contact.
But because Iran is not yet an active war zone the Iranians can deploy those systems close to the cities.
Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions. So using a Starlink terminal in Iran seems to come with a high risk that security forces can locate and arrest you.
> Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions.
Starlink terminals use highly-directional antennas that point at the sky (see. beamforming) and therefore they don't leak much in terms of RF emissions. So unless you can afford to maintain a host of overhead drones on permanent rotation and wide-area coverage, it would be very hard to actually locate anybody. Not that it's impossible, but largely intractable at scale. We use Starlink a lot in Ukraine, and even though the russians have platforms with sophisticated signal processing capabilities (think Xilinx RFSoC) perfectly capable of locating emissions from most communication equipment, they are still unable to locate Starlink terminals. And this is along the frontline, mind you. To cover all of Iran would surely be prohibitive.
In addition to jamming the radio signals directly, Starlink terminals use GPS, so jamming GPS can hurt connectivity. Iran has been jamming GPS in an effort to reduce the effectiveness of foreign military attacks, but maybe they've stepped it up a notch in the past week. People in Ukraine are probably so accustomed to GPS jamming that they've all gone to Advanced -> Debug Data -> "Use Starlink positioning exclusively".
Ukraine has one other advantage: The jamming tends to come from one direction. If you set up a barrier on that side of the antenna, the signal from the satellites is less likely to be drowned out. People in Iran have no idea where the jammers are in related to themselves. If they're in a city, they might be surrounded.
Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies, so it's quite possible for governments to find the terminals and confiscate/destroy them. Still, it's a lot more difficult to shut down than a few fiber optic lines.
> Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink
a good cyberwarfare attack would be disabling whatever is being used to prevent Starlink from working. Even if it only lasts for 12 hours the flood of images, video, and just general communication from inside Iran to the world would be a blow to the regime.
In Germany we have the Bundesnetzagentur an agency that drives around and measures the power of your WiFi. If its to high you get fined, and they really do manage to triangulate you.
I would guess the Iranian government is capable of at least the same: Triangulating specific radio frequency sources.
> This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I definitely disagree with this. Currently there is no reason to believe we'll ever have sentient AI, or AGI or whatever term you prefer, much less a runaway one. There is definitely reasons to worry about governments using this power in an era of increasing authoritarianism, I mean we're talking about this because it is literally happening right now to cover up a massacre.
I don't want the power to turn off all communications to exist, because I don't want my political enemies to have it if they win an election.
> shutting down all communications and power are our only defense against a runaway AI system
Wouldn't a centralized ability to shut down all communications and power also be one of the most vulnerable targets to an runaway AI attack though? Seems like a double edged sword if I've ever seen one.
Eh if you're gonna go that far with your logic then a runaway AI system intelligent and malevolent enough to require turning off the whole damn Internet in a place (or more likely globally, defeating the point anyway) will also be intelligent enough to use alternative means of communication.
The west would cut the internet the second shit got real. No question.
Europe is already flirting with it. Look at their draconian internet speech laws. If you think that ISPs would try to stand up to the government you should read about how quickly they bent over after the PATRIOT act.
Frankly, we need to get to a place where it is impossible to do shut down the internet in a country like this. P2P and distributed networks might see a resurgence here
Any RF comms can be jammed, you will need ground to satellite laser communications to accomplish this (or you were close enough to a terrestrial free space optics ground station outside of nation state borders a satellite isn't required).
RF comms can't realistically be jammed across the entirety of a whole country, though, so this is definitely a case of "something is better than nothing", and it absolutely makes sense to establish community-level networking/comms at least.
Plane was the test bed for the military application in my citation, the ground station could be ground or roof mounted and camouflaged. As it would emit no RF, you would have to know where to look for it to find it (unlike say, StarLink ground terminals, which are detectable).
If you emit RF in a contested environment as a civilian, you can be found using multilateration (for this context, I assume if you have military comms equipment, you have access to exotic RF that will make this difficult similar to have quick and saturn). SDR networks on the public internet enable this today, as long as there are enough receivers online in an area and you know what you're looking for, so I don't think it's beyond the grasp of nation state actors.
Eh I don't think there are enough jammers to get everywhere. Otherwise a twinkling sea of laser light house to house repeaters, red stars in the dark is a pretty sounding dystopia.
...whelp, this thread is gonna get shut down. Everyone was being reasonable, but all it takes is one person to say some out-of-pocket shit like "the country currently massacring protestors is the real democracy" for it to descend below HN's standards for political discourse.
non-democratic states like north korea
And FWIW, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is ostensibly a democracy, too. AFAIR the list of openly non-democratic states is quite small: Saudi Arabia, some microstates like the Holy See, and ~6 non-micro "Executive constitutional monarchies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy#List_o...)
No. It's about iran, so it'll get stuck on the frontpage for a while. If this was about israel, then you'd have point.
> but all it takes is one person to say some out-of-pocket shit like "the country currently massacring protestors is the real democracy" for it to descend below HN's standards for political discourse.
The US has massacred people, even protestors. Are you saying we are not a democracy?
> And FWIW, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is ostensibly a democracy, too.
There is a difference between one claiming to be a democracy and another that actually is. No?
If they cut off the internet how did this information get out and how can it be verified? There would be video of this kind of thing if it wasn’t just the Americans building support for regime change; I have yet to see any.
Unverified though - people are saying more in the range of 2000.
PS
In Islam they don't do cremation and burial is within a day before next sunset hence the horrible footage of hospitals releasing bodies publicly in the street - it is part of their faith and even the regime respects it.
Around 2,000 people were killed in Iran protests, an Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday, blaming "terrorists" for the deaths of civilians and security personnel.
A senior Iranian health ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said about 3,000 people had been killed across the country but sought to shift the blame to “terrorists” fomenting unrest. The figure included hundreds of security officers, he said.
Another government official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had seen an internal report that referred to at least 3,000 dead, and added that the toll could climb.
And countless human rights and freedom activists completely absolutely silent. They chose to be silent about Iran, it feels like iranian blood is worth less than other places apparently.
As someone very vocal on Iran, I find these recriminations shallow and generally intended to be punitive about those positions in those others places.
By the same precedent, it opens up Iranian human rights activists to the same endless accusations — when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India, etc etc. I don't think it's countless silent organizations, and those organizations or activists are generally not in position to be able to influence the IRI or IRGC.
I think you have distinguish between feckless organizations like the ITU, and say, college student campus activists.
I think it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
“it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.”
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Is your argument that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel which are used on Gaza, Americans and Europeans wouldn't care about what's going on in Palestine as much?
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
I don’t know if you are American, but I am. Sure, I don’t support Iran giving Hamas weapons. The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does. It wouldn't be happening like this. So that's right, the level of caring would be lower because the genocide would not be possible.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle. But it's certainly reasonable.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
Sure, care to elaborate on what exactly these protestors are protesting, or how protesting works and why that's uniquely different for Palestine versus other equally horrible injustices?
The difference you see is between a sponsored protest and unsponsored. Basically, bleeding heart liberals have been successfully convinced to align with Hamas without them explicitly realizing it either. This is a good primer on Hamas in the US and their general media strategy:
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
This is classic whataboutism. You don't have to criticize every single atrocity in the world in order to criticize one. I often find that people who take your stance don't care about any issues. They're simply weaponizing other problems to avoid engaging with the one they actually oppose.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
I intentionally didn't do a whataboutism, but just asked why it seems that westerners care about what happens in Gaza, as bad as it is, more than they do other equally horrific injustices.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
I answered your question, if you read my response fully.
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
Personally, I do care about Gaza more because my government is complicit in it. So it's my duty, especially in democratic country, to oppose that. I don't know how to influence Iranian government, if anything, I think my government could offer them lifting sanctions in exchange for easing domestic policies.
> This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter
Oh come now, must we play this game?
This whole subthread is just Israel supporters trying to use Iran for that old favorite hasbara tactic: try to shame anyone who shows any support for Palestinians.
It's not a really relevant comparison for the reasons that have been brought up many times in thread (e.g. scale, duration , level of US complicity) but that's not the point.
And whether pro-Palestine activist or organizations have yet said anything about Iran is actually immaterial to hasbarists as well. Because there's no amount of support for other causes that will unlock permission to oppose the genocide of Palestinians.
If you're going to use anti-semitic online trolling tropes at least spell them right. It's "Hasbara" and no Israeli under 80 years old uses this word on any day to day basis.
Wtf are you talking about Muslims in India? Indian Muslims are more privileged and have more rights than other groups in India. E.g. Muslim men can have 4 wives, regular men only one, Muslim men can divorce by saying "talaak" 3 times, regular men have to go through courts and all. And yes Kashmir needs to be talked about more, especially the Hindu Exodus from Kashmir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus due to the threat of violence from Islamic extremists.
>when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India...
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
It's very obvious what they are trying to accomplish: ethnic cleansing. The idea is to make life so miserable to Palestinians that they will give up their national liberation struggle and venture into the punishing Sinai desert, allowing Israel and Trump to build a riviera and a gas pipeline on the sea.
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
If you're an American, what could protesting Iran possibly accomplish? They are already sanctioned out the wazoo and our government already doesn't like the government there.
Our sanctions are the reason why their situation is difficult. They are having the intended effect. And the protests plus the calamity are wanted by the west.
Not too long ago (three months ago?), either here or on Lobsters, an iranian programmer was basically pleading for help because he had built some type of A.I. system, but there is zero market for it in Iran, and he is blacklisted from working with / for anyone in the US.
In fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to pre-1976 China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has around 100k headcount, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel. That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. It was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand. Unlike China in 1976, they don't have a
First, Oct 7th was not the start, but it can seem like that to those that regard Palestinians as subhumans who do not deserve liberation and instead are destined to live under the shackles of apartheid, blockade, and occupation.
Secondly, there are various reasons why there is no protesting in this case. Maybe it’s because Israel is the child of US foreign policy? Or perhaps it’s because US veto protection is what has allowed Israel to get away with so much across its history? Or heck, maybe it’s because our taxpayer dollars fund the Israeli gov to the tune of billions of dollars annually (and don’t come with the “it is just weapons” bullshit; money is fungible).
On the other hand, what exactly would be accomplished by protesting against Iranian government repression on US soil or on US campuses?
To demand the US invades Iran? Do you think the Iranian fuckheads killing their own citizens care about the words of a group of people in a different country? A country which already sanctions Iran to the point that a protest doesn’t change anything for them unless the demand is for the US to invade them?
>The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
Depends on the protester and what they are protesting but many of Israel protests have been against US continuing to support/fund Israel and want US government to do something different.
Iran on other hand is US sanctioned and US actively works against it, very different relationship then with Israel.
> The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
When Israel does this to Palestinians with US made planes and US made bombs, bought largely by US tax dollars? Over and over again for more than 2 years? Shielded from consequences in the UN by the US? Seems pretty sus that Americans would protest that in particular.
The purpose of protesting Israel's human rights abuses is that lack of awareness, misinformation, and propaganda, are key pillars in the policies that make them possible. Protests (and online complaints) are ineffective enough already, we don't need to layer an unclear goal (what would you be hoping to accomplish?) on top of it all.
> The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
As the comment you just replied to says, Iran is already sanctioned and bombed, while Israel gets billions in military (and other) aid from US and the rest of the West. It's abundantly clear that there's a difference.
And furthermore, so you have to have a decibel meter perfectly calibrated for every tragedy that happens on planet earth, or your arguments are nullified? Preposterous.
Should we talk about all of the victims on October 7th that were killed with munitions Hamas doesn't possess as well? I wouldn't call leveling Gaza "targeted strikes". Seems more like wonton destruction to me.
I think there are voting rings and bots downvoting anything that goes against a certain agenda here on HN. I read many posts about it here as well, nothing we can do, but I don’t think the downvotes are organic.
One government is committing a genocide against a neighboring sovereign state. Why does a person have to condemn every atrocity to condemn genocide without being accused of being an anti-Semite? They don't need to, is the answer.
I think this gives further evidence that these huge campaigns and marches/protests/street graffiti are very deliberate manipulation by certain groups and a lot of money.
Read the Wikipedia page for the Internet Research Agency. This was a Russian propaganda outfit that organized half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
> half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
Organizing protests is one thing, but troll farms to agitate and turn the population on itself is the story here too. It helps explain the daily protests.
> A group of Iowa State University students gathered recently, standing in solidarity with the Iranian people and in opposition of the Middle Eastern government.
Well, for starters, one person really can’t care about every possible issue, even if they wanted to. So people and groups may get very passionate about one thing that really pulls on the heartstrings, hits close to home, or is more related to their own country’s policies. (For example, those protesting Palestine may protest US’s typically very strong support of Israel.)
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
Human lives have the same value, but does Iran suppress the protesters with the tacit approval or active support of the West? If not who to protest against then? The Ayatollah?
Which orgs are you talking about specifically? Don't sling mud in such a vague way. Here's Amnesty's homepage https://www.amnesty.org/en/. The UN has already issued statements. What do you mean exactly? Random nobodies on social media?
After 10 days they put those banners up. After enormous pressure from people online and political from USA republicans. They were silent mostly. Also BBC, NYTimes, WPost, they only ran articles after 10 days of continuous killings in Iran were happening.
What in the world... Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the escalation of repression in Iran. BBC, NYTimes, WPost, and well, virtually every major media outlet in the World has been reporting on Iran at least since the major escalations around 5-6 January.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
That's funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way. what was their rational for countering the Iranian demonstrations? Free Palestine but subjugate Iran doesn't seem rational.
Events like this show that the Internet is pretty heavily centralized. The original DARPA Internet was supposed to be resilient to stuff like this, but it's clear that the old Internet, and the new Internet, are not the same. We as Internet engineers really need to be better here, and design hardware and software to be ready to handle any errors, even unlikely ones like a state actor breaking things.
It's like installing smoke alarms; no one thinks they need them until they do.
You mean the "counter protests" organized and dictated by IRGC and the regime, you mean? The totally organic, completely believable groups of coordinated military aged men and occasionally their wives showing up for on-message photo ops for Khamenei & crew?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
>>> Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
Of all the dictatorships you might want to be an apologist for, I can't think of a shittier and less inspiring one than this one, other than North Korea.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
The difference is one set of protestors support US/Israel intervention for regime change.
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
The death toll and the pictures and videos that are coming out that these people don’t even dare taking their usual positions and try to just mitigate it. It’s that bad.
So if this happens, what are your remedies if any? I guess a VPN wouldn’t help since there are no routes? Something like Starlink would work or would there be a problem with ground stations not having internet?
This reads like a submarine ad for some kind of analytics startup. I'm confused why this post is HN's #1, ahead of numerous other sources expositing the same story; it isn't interestingly different.
Clearly other HN readers consider news of as many as 12,000 people possibly having been killed by their government to be important, and consider the discussion happening about it on this page to be interesting to them.
That 12,000 number is utter make believe - an X account (you can guess who backs it) make this claim, got boosted and got over 1M views... and then they deleted the post. But the damage is done, of course.
Yeah, and heavily rewritten by AI. Every single sentence screams AI slop smell. I find that short content smells the most - AI tends to overfit its patterns even more strongly then.
I hate it Americans/Western advocating democracy, human rights for Iran (Which I believe is their right if the demand so). But let me remind you, Pakistan is facing this since 2022, when an elected PM was removed by an American regime change operation on behalf of US by Pakistan Army.
Since 2022, Pakistanis been protesting, largest political party was banned from elections, largest political party was dismantled by Pakistan Army, journalists were abducted, banned, and killed, the most famous leader was shoot, eventually locked up.
In February 2024 Pakistan Army stolen election, when Pakistan army shut down internet, and keep x.com banned for 1.5 years, thousands of common Pakistanis was abducted, tortured, their homes broken into, killed during protests. Literally no one spoke. EU champion of human rights and democracy did not release Pakistan election 2024 report for 1.5 year. US is silent because Pakistan army general's serve their motives, so they do not have any problem with internet shut down, human right violations, democracy.
Stop this hypocrisy. Democracy and human rights become a thing when their interests are not served, or some dictators serve them then EU/US do not care.
There are a lot of Iranian-Americans in Silicon valley, and the broader tech. These people have family and relatives in Iran and not being able to contact has been extremely hard on them. If you have an Iranian colleague, please understand that they may not be able to perform and work as their usual. Hopefully this collective nightmare will end.
absolutely, the capacity of the US and their useless european minions to side with evil while cloaking geopolitical violence in the language of human rights is not hypocrisy by accident but policy by design, activated selectively when victims are convenient and ignored when perpetrators are allies. i am very sad for iranian protesters, but the west does not need to instrumentalize their suffering.
Illinois has 12 m people and a GDP over $1 trillion. I doubt most foreigners could place it on a map. There is no significant difference that it is part of a federation and Iran is not. People oversell these kind of Instagram sound-bites. It's really not a big deal.
I'd suspect most Americans have a relationship with far-off suffering the same as me: it's sad and I think we should contribute to alleviating it, but if I encounter sufficient sanctimony about it I'd rather go live my life.
The parent comment is provocative and impolite, so you are right to refute it.
On the other hand, I’d like to point out that few countries have foreign policies as obsessed with Illinois as the US government is with Iran.
The average person probably also has no political opinion on Illinois or their governments policy with respect to Illinois, something which I would assume to be different with respect to Iran in the US.
Now, compare the cultural history of Illinois and Iran/Persia.
And yes, being a part of federation does make a lot of difference.
How many China provinces can you name? (Not even asking you to point them on the map).
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
I understand what you're trying to say and I agree with that, but this is actually different. This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. It's the state literally disallowing people talking to each other. It's Orwellian: "we don't like what you're talking about, so we're going to make you completely unable to"
It's not the 80s or 90s anymore. The internet is rhe global backbone of how people communicate with each other. Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression.
You may have missed it but right now the US is encouraging insurrectionists in Iran to capture government buildings and promises all kinds of support.
To wit: notice how few pictures we're seeing from there (a few were trickling in before the crackdown).
You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)
I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life
Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.
> even tech articles have become partisan
True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
They helped Russia, for one thing.
On top of that add the huge boom of data in politics. No politician anymore has programs or language aiming at representing most of the voters, but it only focuses to get 50%+1, which in practice means that most politicians aim for the majority of the swing voters.
> the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life
That's a lot of caveats.
Nothing is completely free of politics, much less the existence of the Internet, and it's incredibly important to realize the impact that technology has on the fabric of society.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours,
This is not even remotely close to the meaning or impact of the site that's linked. It's about the dignity of life, the gunning down of thousands of people by their government, and the governments attempts to continue oppression by hiding their actions behind a veil. Your comment viewed in its most positive light is crass, more realistically is heartless and cruel.
My guess: you're commenting on the US from a Russified country, or from China? That's the only perspective on the world that I can imagine generating your statements, and if I'm wrong I'd love to know.
You are not looking too hard at all. There are lots of dissenting opinions, in fact I'd wager that if you excluded official government mouthpieces, the lion's share of opinion (both private individuals as well as established media) is trending to open criticality of the US government's choices.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda
I almost feel bad for the established old school media companies. One side says they are spewing propaganda, the other side says they're ignoring it altogether. Both cannot be simultaneously true.
Do you have any idea how much Chinese economic leverage has caused Hollywood to censor against CCCP criticism?
As for Iran, we have a literal embargo, so it's not quite the same.
Really? As a naturalized American I see diversity in the USA's media. Do you have an example?
From what I see, there are two big voices in the media politically.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
Again, we need an example. I see the official line from the current party in power, and the counter arguements from the mainstream media as a whole. The current party only has a media output from very few mainstream sources.
Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.
Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
It's very, very different than a nation losing access to the internet because of technical issues (or, in your case, because it wasn't invented/popularized yet).
...during mass violence against the population.
I think a lot of them took a look at how Twitter and Facebook were used for organising during the Arab spring and decided that it was by far the most dangerous non-military threat.
Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink, I've seen rumors that they are using Russian EW systems but those same systems are not so effective jamming Starlink-guided drones on the frontlines.
Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?
Do you think the 3 letter agencies in the likes of UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc don't know how to turn off the internet in their countries? They'd be really incompetent if they don't.
Switzerland even had all its bridges wired with explosives from like the 19th century and all the way through the cold war to blow them up inc ase of an invasion.
Do you think the internet infra is somehow spared this kind of strategic planning?
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr8336/summary
Famous last words.
I'm more than shocked that people STILL haven't learned how quickly laws came become meaningless. Which is why history keeps repeating itself.
If fascist government goons break into your house to kill you, do you think waving a piece of paper with the law in their face will stop them? Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment? Even they knew this 300 years ago. Have people already forgotten?
Most countries (including the US, obviously) follow their laws. Can you please give an example for a first world country that *consistently* ignores it's own laws?
History repeats itself because people ignore history, not because people ignore the law.
So just because something is illegal for the government TODAY, doesn't mean it will stay like that for the next 500 years.
Laws aren't real, they're just made up constructs on worthless pieces of paper, but the only thing that is always consistently real is the enforcement of the will of state through means of violence and they'll put that in writing to give it legitimacy but ultimately the people in charge of the guns can make whatever they want legal or illegal.
Somehow there's always a failure of imagining that whatever the current administration is won't always be current.
The link you provided says:
In 1942, during World War II, Congress created a law to grant President Franklin D. Roosevelt or his successors the power to temporarily shut down any potentially vulnerable technological communications technologies.
The Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act would reverse the 1942 law and prevent the president from shutting down any communications technology during wartime, including the internet.
The House version was introduced on September 22 as bill number H.R. 8336, by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI2). The Senate version was introduced the same day as bill number S. 4646, by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The bill did not pass and did not become law. So what are you referring to?
In fact, it's likely that you can turn off the internet, and then, after some time, a judge will rule on the topic.
Oh sweet summer child.
Good one, buddy. That's a good one.
Section 2 basically allows the Westminster government to make regulations as they see fit during an emergency, but with a short time scale (like a month or so) before parliament gets a say.
Does ANY country from the list above own their internet infrastructure?
So what? If it's on Swedish ground then it's under Swedish government(military) enforcement in case the shit hits the fan.
>The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime, or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
You guys do. Säpo and Telia were a customers of mine when I was still an IC.
The American model is still preferable, but being preferable often gives people the false impression that open communication is a solved problem because they have limited assurances at the political level when what they should be after is more expansive assurances at the technical level.
But because Iran is not yet an active war zone the Iranians can deploy those systems close to the cities.
Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions. So using a Starlink terminal in Iran seems to come with a high risk that security forces can locate and arrest you.
Starlink terminals use highly-directional antennas that point at the sky (see. beamforming) and therefore they don't leak much in terms of RF emissions. So unless you can afford to maintain a host of overhead drones on permanent rotation and wide-area coverage, it would be very hard to actually locate anybody. Not that it's impossible, but largely intractable at scale. We use Starlink a lot in Ukraine, and even though the russians have platforms with sophisticated signal processing capabilities (think Xilinx RFSoC) perfectly capable of locating emissions from most communication equipment, they are still unable to locate Starlink terminals. And this is along the frontline, mind you. To cover all of Iran would surely be prohibitive.
Ukraine has one other advantage: The jamming tends to come from one direction. If you set up a barrier on that side of the antenna, the signal from the satellites is less likely to be drowned out. People in Iran have no idea where the jammers are in related to themselves. If they're in a city, they might be surrounded.
Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies, so it's quite possible for governments to find the terminals and confiscate/destroy them. Still, it's a lot more difficult to shut down than a few fiber optic lines.
It's an active transmitter actively shouting "I'm here!" to the right gear.
IIRC, the Ukrainians found it's best to have a nice long wire between you and the terminal for this reason.
It's naive to think that our countries don't play the influence and propaganda war online.
a good cyberwarfare attack would be disabling whatever is being used to prevent Starlink from working. Even if it only lasts for 12 hours the flood of images, video, and just general communication from inside Iran to the world would be a blow to the regime.
I would guess the Iranian government is capable of at least the same: Triangulating specific radio frequency sources.
This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I think the differentiator is always when governments choose to employ these things.
I definitely disagree with this. Currently there is no reason to believe we'll ever have sentient AI, or AGI or whatever term you prefer, much less a runaway one. There is definitely reasons to worry about governments using this power in an era of increasing authoritarianism, I mean we're talking about this because it is literally happening right now to cover up a massacre.
I don't want the power to turn off all communications to exist, because I don't want my political enemies to have it if they win an election.
Wouldn't a centralized ability to shut down all communications and power also be one of the most vulnerable targets to an runaway AI attack though? Seems like a double edged sword if I've ever seen one.
RF is rife in our brave new world.
Europe is already flirting with it. Look at their draconian internet speech laws. If you think that ISPs would try to stand up to the government you should read about how quickly they bent over after the PATRIOT act.
https://spacenews.com/aircraft-links-with-satellite-using-la...
https://event.dlr.de/en/hm2025/tesat-scot80/
https://www.tesat.de/products
If you emit RF in a contested environment as a civilian, you can be found using multilateration (for this context, I assume if you have military comms equipment, you have access to exotic RF that will make this difficult similar to have quick and saturn). SDR networks on the public internet enable this today, as long as there are enough receivers online in an area and you know what you're looking for, so I don't think it's beyond the grasp of nation state actors.
TDOA Transmitter Localization with RTL-SDRs - https://panoradio-sdr.de/tdoa-transmitter-localization-with-... - July 17th, 2017
No. It's about iran, so it'll get stuck on the frontpage for a while. If this was about israel, then you'd have point.
> but all it takes is one person to say some out-of-pocket shit like "the country currently massacring protestors is the real democracy" for it to descend below HN's standards for political discourse.
The US has massacred people, even protestors. Are you saying we are not a democracy?
> And FWIW, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is ostensibly a democracy, too.
There is a difference between one claiming to be a democracy and another that actually is. No?
*According to a leaked diplomatic cable: https://www.axios.com/2018/01/05/declassified-cable-estimate...
according to iranian government sources talking with nytimes there are 3000 dead
PS
In Islam they don't do cremation and burial is within a day before next sunset hence the horrible footage of hospitals releasing bodies publicly in the street - it is part of their faith and even the regime respects it.
By the same precedent, it opens up Iranian human rights activists to the same endless accusations — when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India, etc etc. I don't think it's countless silent organizations, and those organizations or activists are generally not in position to be able to influence the IRI or IRGC.
I think you have distinguish between feckless organizations like the ITU, and say, college student campus activists.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/202...
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
Oh come now, must we play this game?
This whole subthread is just Israel supporters trying to use Iran for that old favorite hasbara tactic: try to shame anyone who shows any support for Palestinians.
It's not a really relevant comparison for the reasons that have been brought up many times in thread (e.g. scale, duration , level of US complicity) but that's not the point.
And whether pro-Palestine activist or organizations have yet said anything about Iran is actually immaterial to hasbarists as well. Because there's no amount of support for other causes that will unlock permission to oppose the genocide of Palestinians.
If you're going to use anti-semitic online trolling tropes at least spell them right. It's "Hasbara" and no Israeli under 80 years old uses this word on any day to day basis.
Myanmar was literally burning people in open pits, happened across 800 villages, most people don't even know that happened.
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
You ask for equal reaction, here it goes: I want for Israel the same sanctions that are applied to Iran and Russia. Fair, right?
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
Well yeah but we could drop even more bombs than we would have
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to pre-1976 China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has around 100k headcount, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel. That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. It was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand. Unlike China in 1976, they don't have a
Secondly, there are various reasons why there is no protesting in this case. Maybe it’s because Israel is the child of US foreign policy? Or perhaps it’s because US veto protection is what has allowed Israel to get away with so much across its history? Or heck, maybe it’s because our taxpayer dollars fund the Israeli gov to the tune of billions of dollars annually (and don’t come with the “it is just weapons” bullshit; money is fungible).
On the other hand, what exactly would be accomplished by protesting against Iranian government repression on US soil or on US campuses?
Depends on the protester and what they are protesting but many of Israel protests have been against US continuing to support/fund Israel and want US government to do something different.
Iran on other hand is US sanctioned and US actively works against it, very different relationship then with Israel.
When Israel does this to Palestinians with US made planes and US made bombs, bought largely by US tax dollars? Over and over again for more than 2 years? Shielded from consequences in the UN by the US? Seems pretty sus that Americans would protest that in particular.
I demand for Israel the same sanctions that they are applying to Iran and Russia. Are you happy now?
As the comment you just replied to says, Iran is already sanctioned and bombed, while Israel gets billions in military (and other) aid from US and the rest of the West. It's abundantly clear that there's a difference.
And furthermore, so you have to have a decibel meter perfectly calibrated for every tragedy that happens on planet earth, or your arguments are nullified? Preposterous.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80d2zrdj7vo
IF you're going to profess such outlandish things, please go ahead and say the quiet part aloud for us all :)
EDIT: zionists on here downvoting anything they don't like because the truth offends them.
https://www.reuters.com/world/greta-thunberg-alleges-torture...
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
The solution is to take the weapon away.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
Private Interest Groups.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/
> A group of Iowa State University students gathered recently, standing in solidarity with the Iranian people and in opposition of the Middle Eastern government.
https://eu.amestrib.com/story/news/local/2026/01/12/iowa-sta...
Some, even support the terrible things that are going on, today and for a very long time, in those other places.
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
You’re angry at the wrong people.
I mean...how about we just not kill each other. Kept the drawn lines, make "settlers" illegal and be done with it.
But nah we all tribal monkeys, our species is poisoned by evolution. So we'll never stop taking from each other, killing each other.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
It's like installing smoke alarms; no one thinks they need them until they do.
Or the ones that are counter-protesting that know foreign intervention will be a net negative for their country?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
OP asked what a layman could do to help the protestors, and I asked which protestors he wants to support.
I despise the Iranian government lol. Stop attributing intent where there isn't.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
A puppet installed by US/Israel is a puppet that will only benefit those countries.
So the anti-government protestors all protest for both? Like it's implied?
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
It's sad people don't see these dead bodies and take positions, because popular media don't publish this news.
Please make your point clear without accusing me of supporting state-sponsored violence.
“This wasn't a cascade—it was coordinated demolition.”
puking noises
Since 2022, Pakistanis been protesting, largest political party was banned from elections, largest political party was dismantled by Pakistan Army, journalists were abducted, banned, and killed, the most famous leader was shoot, eventually locked up.
In February 2024 Pakistan Army stolen election, when Pakistan army shut down internet, and keep x.com banned for 1.5 years, thousands of common Pakistanis was abducted, tortured, their homes broken into, killed during protests. Literally no one spoke. EU champion of human rights and democracy did not release Pakistan election 2024 report for 1.5 year. US is silent because Pakistan army general's serve their motives, so they do not have any problem with internet shut down, human right violations, democracy.
Stop this hypocrisy. Democracy and human rights become a thing when their interests are not served, or some dictators serve them then EU/US do not care.
I am not complaining but I am telling what it is.
What we know about Iran's Internet shutdown https://blog.cloudflare.com/iran-protests-internet-shutdown/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602066)
Among a number of other posts previously getting into it
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591974
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542683
12k oppressed people murdered in 5 days and it's radio silence.
Holding my fingers they get their freedom.
I'd suspect most Americans have a relationship with far-off suffering the same as me: it's sad and I think we should contribute to alleviating it, but if I encounter sufficient sanctimony about it I'd rather go live my life.
On the other hand, I’d like to point out that few countries have foreign policies as obsessed with Illinois as the US government is with Iran.
The average person probably also has no political opinion on Illinois or their governments policy with respect to Illinois, something which I would assume to be different with respect to Iran in the US.
And yes, being a part of federation does make a lot of difference. How many China provinces can you name? (Not even asking you to point them on the map).