Iran’s internet goes dark amid mass protests, reports of violent government response

The authors of a hypothetical manual containing procedures repressive governments can use to stay in power despite restive populations would surely devote its first chapter to turning off the internet, an action the government of Iran appears to have taken in the last 24 hours. According to NetBlocks, network connectivity in …

[Dinanziame]

Noooo not the internet

The monsters

[lglethal]

Re: Noooo not the internet

When you are trying to organise legitimate protests against a despotic regime. Yes the Internet is required!

What are you going to do, ring and text everyone you know about the protests, over the network controlled by said despotic regime? Thanks you have just put everyone in the firing line, once the records are checked. Shouting from the rooftop will only get you heard by so many people, (and likely get you shot at the same time).

How do you get that video of security forces slaughtering protesters out to the wider world where external pressure can be brought to bear?

The internet for all of its Problems, is a way to relatively anonymously organise and keep the pressure on these regimes. Hence why so many turn to the old internet kill switch at the first sign of trouble.

So yes, when legitimate protests break out in places under a despotic regime, it is a tragedy when the internet disappears. Not something for simplistic ridicule...

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Noooo not the internet

>> When you are trying to organise legitimate protests against a despotic regime. Yes the Internet is required!

Required? The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution...

History lesson needed...

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Noooo not the internet

Lots of people out there who think the internet is necessary for a revolution.

They would have failed in the instances I mentioned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Noooo not the internet

Seeing how the Iranian protests spread from Tehran's Bazaar, I imagine it's not necessarily an Internet-dependent movement of online-first virtuals but rather tangible folks who've mastered and value in-person face-to-face comms, word-of-mouth trusted organization, handshake-brokered deals, and so forth ... Shutting down Internet should not be a determining factor for the continuance of their revolt imho (thankfully I guess).

The question though is what's the plan for after the Ayatollah's fled to Moscow and the dictator's been "terminated"? Is there a plan for Iran to become a secular democratic republic for example (which would be nice)? Asking for a friend ... ;)

[cd]

Re: Noooo not the internet

"Fled to Moscow"...sounds Syrious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Noooo not the internet

The signal the United Irishmen used to spark the 1798 Rebellion was to make sure the mail coaches didn't arrive.

[cd]

Re: Noooo not the internet

Helped in Nepal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also not great for those who have escaped, are living in a "safe" country but still have family who are currently not contactable.

My partner would be at real risk of being held as a hostage if she returned as she is a dual national (of a country that is considered to be hostile to the regime). She is currently not able to find out if her mother, sister or extended family are safe.

[DS999]

Too bad Apple and Google

Don't cooperate on some sort of ad hoc mesh networking with store and forward support for short SMS type text only messaging that can be enabled for times like this. That way people who live in areas where cellular/internet is cut off could still keep in touch with others in their city to organize protests, or just able to contact family members when they have away from home for too long and you're worried they might have been disappeared by a repressive government.

It would also be very valuable during disasters that have the same effect without it being a deliberate action. That's how they would want to promote it, since the repressive regimes that want to cut off people's internet would require they disable something that's intended to help protestors.

Wouldn't help much in rural areas where people aren't getting close enough for ad hoc wireless communication, but perfect for urban areas.

[Tron]

Distributed tech can beat that.

Every mobile device has the capability to create ad hoc connections with those in proximity to it, to create a bottom-up internet, circulating information and seeking a bridge to the wider net. It would work after a natural disaster like a quake, or when the government turn your net off. It could create a bottom-up internet that repressive regimes would struggle to deal with in North Korea, Iran or Trumpistan.

If your government censor or silence your internet, vote them out if you can (OSA/Starmer). In a dictatorship, things are usually tougher.

[rafff]

Re: Distributed tech can beat that.

"make it harder for citizens to communicate,"

Mesh networking has been around for a while. IIRC the 1-laptop-per-child scheme used it. Whatever happened to that? It seems to have faded from view.

[DougMac]

Re: Distributed tech can beat that.

https://meshtastic.org/

Meshtastic

An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Distributed tech can beat that.

Ugandans are apparently using Jack Dorset's Bitchat app that uses Bluetooth to get around a possible internet blackout in the run-up to the presidential election.

[DS999]

Re: Distributed tech can beat that.

It has to be automatic, built in to everyone's phone OS (since it is too late to download an app when your internet is cut off, and you don't want islands of communication using different apps) and be a simple switch you can flick to turn it on (because you don't want this enabled all the time) and limited in what you can send (i.e. text only) to support vast store and forwarding type situations.

It would also be nearly impossible to design for privacy (other than between people who have already exchanged keys like family members or people who exchange them face to face) particularly when it comes to announcing "protest meets here at 5pm" so you'd have to make sure everyone was aware of this before they used it - lest it become a way for the repressive regime to help round up the dissidents.

[Chronos]

Not protests

These are not protests. This is an uprising by the Iranian people who are now thoroughly sick of being occupied by the IRGC. They want their constitutional monarchy and democratic governance back.

[lvd]

Re: Not protests

"They want their constitutional monarchy and democratic governance back."

They haven't had much of that since 1953. Since then, Iran's been ruled by a secular autocrat - the Shah - and then religious autocrats (the ayatollahs). And if the carnage unleashed by the orange oaf is anything to go by, they might not be too enamoured of US-style democracy either.

Interesting times, unfortunately.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Not protests

The last Iranian king was not a constitutional monarch. He was an unelected despot without a single democratic bone in his body.

Mohammad Mosaddegh had democratic legitimacy, and the tinpot king kicked him out.

It is hard to have a revolution. The fact that the last Iranian king was kicked out should tell you how unpopular he was.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Not protests

I expect to read your comment soon about the Venezuelan people rising up against the American occupiers who are there to steal their oil. But I don't really expect to read it.

[Chronos]

Re: Not protests

Venezuela is a very different kettle of fish. What goes on in Latin America can, quite frankly, remain a mystery to me. I don't know what they've taken/smoked/absorbed but they, especially their leaders, seem to have done a lot of it. Not sure what you're trying to insinuate there that I'm some sort of bleeding heart armchair liberal...

Iran, on the other hand, has been a thorn in pretty much everyone's side for decades because of the ayatollahs. Regardless of rumour and innuendo, they were progressive in the 70s until the Russians tried to take over and the west fought back by installing the current batch of fanatics¹. If you watch real footage coming from Iran, the vast majority of the people on the streets are calling for Reza Pahlavi to return. Okay, it could be that the Shah is the lesser of two evils between him and a swivel-eyed lunatic ayatollah but, given the chants, the viral music and posts from the actual people who this affects directly, it really doesn't seem that way to me. The talk from Iranians in exile is that the monarchy is a power check to the democratically elected politicos, much the same as we have in the UK, which guarantees the constitution is upheld. Sounds sensible to me.

I don't often praise Elon but turning Iranian Starlinks on for free so we can see what's going on without the mainstream media censorship was a good move. Well done.

¹ Rather interesting that, whenever we (the west) interfere like this using proxies, it always goes so well. Iran, Afghanistan... Would probably have been slightly better to have left the Russians to it until they discovered their vodka evaporates in the heat and went home.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Not protests

Venezuela is a very different kettle of fish.

It isn't that different. Both Venezuela and Iran are oil-rich nations, and both are subject to regime change and election interference.

If you watch real footage coming from Iran, the vast majority of the people on the streets are calling for Reza Pahlavi to return.

Err.. Right. So Carter and the US helped deposed Pahlavi's father and installed Khomeini, with various accusations that Mohammad Reza had been a dictator installed and propped up by the West. Then as the Bbc puts it-

Many demonstrators in Iran have been calling for the return of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah (king).

Pahlavi himself has called for people to take to the streets. So who is the former crown prince and how much support does he have?

Pahlavi's essentially an American now and has become a figurehead for regime change agitation, which is why the Internet is down. It's also been interesting to see the use of AI or just old videos of protests to embiggen this one. Pahlavi of course would like to be installed as Shah because he's been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy during his exile, but it isn't at all clear how much popular support he really has. Or perhaps more importantly, support amonst Iran's military and police. So if Iran would just dissolve into another civil war and Middle East crisis of our own making. Plus there's some messy sectarianism with pressure to eliminate the apostates and unite the Muslim world under Sunni rule. Plus of course Israel stirring the pot, and the use of proscribed terrorist organisations like the MEK, much as the 'moderate terrorists' were used to overthrow Assad in Syria.. Which is now busily continuing their civil war and trying to eliminate the Kurds.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Not protests

>> Pahlavi's essentially an American now

True, that. Which is why America would like to see him installed as their despot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not protests

We don't need Pravda when the above two commentards can give us Moscow's view of the situation.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Not protests

We don't need Pravda when the above two commentards can give us Moscow's view of the situation.

Ah, another AC with severe paranoia. But how would you know what Pravda is saying when access to that site has been censored on the Internet for years now. So instead we have to make do with the UK's version-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2jek15m8no

Masked protesters are seen taking cover behind bins and bonfires, while a row of security forces is seen in the distance. A vehicle that appears to be a bus is engulfed in flames. Multiple gunshots and what sounds like banging on pots and pans can be heard.

A figure standing on a nearby footbridge appears to fire multiple gunshots in several directions as a couple of people take cover behind a fence on the side of the boulevard.

And of course-

US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit Iran "very hard" if they "start killing people".

Strange thing is-

In Syria, 'peaceful protests' escalated into a very violent and bloody civil war after mystery figures started shooting at both the crowd and security forces.

In Libya, 'peaceful protests' escalated into a very violent and bloody civil war after mystery figures started shooting at both the crowd and security forces.

In Ukraine, 'peaceful protests' escalated into a very violent and bloody civil war after mystery figures started shooting at both the crowd and security forces.

And now the same thing is happening in Iran. Trump promises intervention, if the killing starts, so of course 'peaceful protestors' start killing. Problem with the Bbc is when it comes to regime change content, it's nothing but repeats. Also curious that countries targetted in this way all generally have a lot of oil.

[Chronos]

Re: Not protests

Also curious that countries targetted in this way all generally have a lot of oil.

That does seem to be a theme, I admit. That is often the drawback of a capitalist system; resources are everything when it comes to keeping score. Greenland is also very resource rich, particularly in rare earth minerals on which China currently has a stranglehold given their "mine everything and hang the consequences" approach. I wonder if the Greenlanders know just how messy a full-scale rare earth mining operation is...

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Not protests

I wonder if the Greenlanders know just how messy a full-scale rare earth mining operation is...

Also how accessable a lot of Greenlands resources would be, and how expensive it'd be to strip mine them. But it'd be one of those out of sight, out of mind things. Environmentalists want windmills and EVs because they're 'green', and the environmental impacts of copper or lithium extraction are happening far offshore. But some of the politicing can be a bit strange. So suggestions Greenlanders can be bribed with $10k, except they already get $12k from the Danish government, plus things like free healthcare that they may lose living in Trumpland. Or being somewhat geographically challenged by complaing he needs Greenland to prevent the US being neighbors with Russia, which rather overlooked Alaska and that they already are.

Or just ignoring checks & balances from the US Constitution and saying Trump will do whatever he wants, constrained only by his own morality.. Which sounds rather like a dictatorship, but they're bad.. right?

[Chronos]

Re: Not protests

We're discussing. Intelligent people can do that without taking offence. Reza Pahlavi is indeed in the US and may well be influenced which makes JE's comment very possible, even likely.

@JelliedEel @VoiceOfTruth, I'll keep an open mind. I'm still defaulting to the Iranian people's right to self-determination and the fact that the current IRGC regime is a menace to pretty much everyone but I'm fully aware this may not be the full solution to the Iran issue.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Not protests

I'll keep an open mind. I'm still defaulting to the Iranian people's right to self-determination and the fact that the current IRGC regime is a menace to pretty much everyone but I'm fully aware this may not be the full solution to the Iran issue.

Some of the rights are a bit more basic, ie-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj691w2e840t?post=asset%3A484528d0-0dac-449e-86ed-30b198912066#post

Iran's government has been "unable to provide the basics of life", says David Satterfield, a former US ambassador in the Middle East, and a former Middle East Envoy to President Joe Biden.

Those basics are "water, fuel, electricity, and food at rates that is affordable - not just by lower economic classes, but by the upper and upper-middle classes as well," he tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The regime doesn't have the resources to address the sources of the protests."

The regime doesn't have the resources because Iran's been sanctioned for years, even to the point where selling it medecines was illegal. So the economy is a mess, but it's a mess we've created, and Iranians know this and blame us. If we (ie US, Israel) bomb Iran again, it's not exactly going to win any friends and Iran's already says it'll try to strike back.It's also a bit hypocritical to complain about Internet blackouts when the Internet is being used for propaganda and psyops. Especially when our own governments are busily imposing censorship and things like ChatControl to prevent the kinds of foreign interference and misinformation that we're using against Iran.

So it's another steaming mess of our own creating, and if regime change is successful, will probably just lead to another bloody civil war. Pahlavi may get installed on the Peacock Throne, but I doubt he'd survive for long, especially given all the weapons we've been pouring into the conflicts we've started in the Middle East and N.Africa.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry

Trump will be coming once you've transferred a ton of bitcoins to his personal account, oh don't forget the peace prize nomination with no strings attached.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scary...

They're walking a dangerous line when they get between people and their porn.....