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Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

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Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#221

Post by vintermann »

Nursie wrote: post #65
breppp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a very weird kind of propaganda I see a lot of lately. Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic. Doubt it? be showered with cherry picked micro facts that on the surface are similar. This rests on the fact that in order to establish a big picture you have to take small facts and agree on the big picture, and that leap from small and verifiable to large and analytic is the place you can inj…

This seems to happen a lot. The UK is doing some shitty stuff and a man was arrested for wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt a few weeks ago, “Palestine Action” being a proscribed group in the UK, and showing support being an offence. When the mistake was realised he was released after a few hours with an apology. These things are objectively terrible, shouldn’t be happening. The UK government is under popular and…

It's not literally the same of course. But you should wonder, how much of the difference is due just differences in how much they need to do?

If South American dictatorships could have their way with less blood and less noise, don't you think they would prefer that?

I'm reminded of a tragicomic recent admission from Nate Silver of 538 fame. He said Disney almost never interfered in their editorial process, as if that was a good thing. What that really meant, after all, was that Disney was perfectly willing to interfere in their editorial process, but almost never felt the need to. (As you would expect. I mean, why would Disney care about political polling?)

Could it similarly be that the UK government is perfectly willing to engage in brutal political suppression, but rarely has a need to? In that case maybe people are right to sound the alarm even though we haven't reached South American dictatorship levels yet.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#222

Post by [deleted] »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #124
mahdi7d1 wrote: post #66

I've been moderately happy this morning to find out I can open hackernews. Also Gmail is working. After attempting to get bridges using email and configuring an dozen of them I got 100% connection but then it disconnected without me being able to connect to anything. I would assume some sort of tunneling must be possible cause the services available are varied and not limited to a few websites (We only had access to…

Is there anything people outside Iran can spin up in order to get more routes out?

[deleted]

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#224

Post by danparsonson »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #155
randomNumber7 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely try to find and remove a lot of these videos (and their owners) before turning on the internet.

From the phones, computers, usb sticks and SD cards of millions of people?

They certainly wouldn't be the first regime to violently suppress millions of its own people.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#225

Post by Nursie »

vintermann wrote: post #221
Nursie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to happen a lot. The UK is doing some shitty stuff and a man was arrested for wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt a few weeks ago, “Palestine Action” being a proscribed group in the UK, and showing support being an offence. When the mistake was realised he was released after a few hours with an apology. These things are objectively terrible, shouldn’t be happening. The UK government is under popular and…

It's not literally the same of course. But you should wonder, how much of the difference is due just differences in how much they need to do? If South American dictatorships could have their way with less blood and less noise, don't you think they would prefer that? I'm reminded of a tragicomic recent admission from Nate Silver of 538 fame. He said Disney almost never interfered in their editorial process, as if that…

I mean, given that is hasn't worked and hundreds of people have continued to stand up and be arrested for supporting Palestine Action, I'd say that's a no?

It still stinks through and through of course.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#226

Post by vintermann »

DrScientist wrote: post #209
Nursie wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example given was of a man in a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt, with the poster saying how that man was “disappeared” by the British state when he was briefly arrested and released. If you’re not aware of the history of people being disappeared by states such as Chile under Pinochet, or more broadly what it means for a state to disappear someone, that’s kinda on you. Either way these are not equivalent actions. Yes,…

> No, it’s not the same as suppressing that speech by taking someone and holding them in a secret prison for years and/or killing them. Sure. Though in the UK I give you Julian Assange - 5 years in BellMarsh, mostly in total isolation as if he was some major threat.

And one thing Assange used to say over and over again, was that he was inspired by government attempts to suppress WikiLeaks releases, because that was evidence that they feared the information in them could actually change things. This is pretty much also the main thesis of Chomsky, and many other western dissidents (and some others too, e.g. Ai Weiwei): our leaders are as unaccountable and willing to use brutality as any dictatorship, they just have less reason to.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#227

Post by tryauuum »

j3th9n wrote: post #79
yolkedgeek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, This is different. In "normal" filtering situations, we can connect to most VPNs and do our stuff. When blackouts like these happen, EVERYTHING is blocked. It gets almost impossible to connect to a VPN. They have advanced tech that detects and blocks all VPNS and proxies. The internet speed is also now at crawling speed so you really can't upload download anything. Also, in each blackout, people find ways to work…

LoRa Meshcore.

How will this help connecting to the internet?

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#228

Post by squidbeak »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #26
sigmar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company using legal action to protect their IP rights is so different from a theocratic dictatorship shutting down the entire Internet to prevent their overthrow. Perhaps you don't follow the news about Iran but these comments are incredibly daft.

But that's even worse... Iran is a stuck up country with huge political issues, internal and external pressures, outside countries attacking it while internally they're at the cusp of a civil war. Of course they'll shut down the internet, what else do you expect them to do? It's not like they have many options, nor the government trying to stay in power and crush a coup, even if that means blocking the internet, nor…

> It's not like they have many options, nor the government trying to stay in power and crush a coup [..]

You are joking: a 'coup'? The protest movement was so large, the government's attempt to crush it killed 30,000 people in 48 hours.

https://time.com/7357635/more-than-30000-killed-in-iran-say-...

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#229

Post by tryauuum »

fragmede wrote: post #95
Symbiote wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Cuba belongs on that list. They have limited service because they can't afford anything better, and the USA prevents installing additional undersea cables, but only a small number of sites are blocked by Cuba itself, such as a few Spanish language news sites run by Cuban-Americans. Many more sites are unavailable in Cuba because their USA owners refuse access to Cuba, but that's not Cuba's fault.

The companies block access to Cube due to sanctions, which there because of Cuba's communist government, which is their fault.

You could've at least tried to put the blame on both parties in this scenario

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#230

Post by Nursie »

DrScientist wrote: post #209
Nursie wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example given was of a man in a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt, with the poster saying how that man was “disappeared” by the British state when he was briefly arrested and released. If you’re not aware of the history of people being disappeared by states such as Chile under Pinochet, or more broadly what it means for a state to disappear someone, that’s kinda on you. Either way these are not equivalent actions. Yes,…

> No, it’s not the same as suppressing that speech by taking someone and holding them in a secret prison for years and/or killing them. Sure. Though in the UK I give you Julian Assange - 5 years in BellMarsh, mostly in total isolation as if he was some major threat.

Sure, and his treatment has been awful in so many ways.

I'm honestly not trying to defend any action by any state in this thread, I'm not trying to say that the UK is better than any other state. I'm not trying to make any point at all beyond using a specific example in agreeing with the comments above mine that "Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic."

But it seems to be construed as if I am, no matter how much I agree that the actions we're talking about are terrible. People come back and tell me the UK is bad and I should feel bad for defending it. I know right! And if I was I would!

I must admit I find the whole thing very frustrating.

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