Social Media Becomes Iran’s IT Back Bone

An Iranian revolution is literally taking place in front of our faces, well sort of.  Media entities in the U.S. are not covering the developments in Iran to the extent they should.  The Iranian government is blocking e-mail, text messaging, satellite comms and sites like Twitter.  They also have banned all international journalists from covering anything ongoing in cities across the country. This is an effort to cut off the rest of world off from what is a major revolution.  After what many believe to be a rigged election the younger population, which is a majority in Iran, has decided to fight back.

As many of you know, communication is power.  What are Iranian’s to do who are walled off from the world for the most part?  They turn to caring individuals across the globe through social media.  Tech savvy Iranian’s (especially university students) have turned to users on blogs, Facebook and Twitter for help.  They have organized DDoS attacks which have since been now collectively decided to be a bad idea and for the most part have ceased.  They are asking outside users to create fresh proxies to get around Iran’s web filters to allow Twitter updates and uploading video of the violence to YouTube.  They are using these proxies to e-mail United States media companies to tell their story and provide information.  It is amazing that social media, especially Twitter has put out a ‘cowboy call’ to anyone with technical skills to help those in Iran in any way possible.  Users are posting translated U.S. military field manuals on how to treat gunshot wounds and other injuries.  They are providing their technical insight on comm networks like cell phone towers and satellite phones.  All of this is going down LIVE! as CNN runs another Larry King re-run.  The best part about this is the 140-character limit.  People are pushing ‘to-the-point’ facts because they don’t have room to ramble.

This I feel will be a key turning point for Twitter as it is being used as a organizational tool and communications platform.  It is the only lifeline to the outside world for some Iranian’s.   This situation as it continues to rage on will be studied for some time and will be a turning point for Twitter and company.

Another backbone for organization has now become iran.whyweprotest.net.  This site virally spread online on Tuesday only helped by the folks at thepiratebay.org linking to it showing their support for protesters in Iran.  Another Internet privacy company, XeroBank, has showed its support by offering free encrypted VPN’s  to Iranians to allow communication.

From BoingBoing

How you can help those in Iran…

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you b.s.  filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuously, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind…

The following is an excerpt from iran.sharearchy.com

Mobilize the Masses

There’s a lot to be done