Two days ahead of a new round of planned protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Internet access in the nation's capital is largely down, according to Agence France Presse.
During the post-election unrest in June, Twitter became a main avenue for Iranians' communication with the outside world.
(Credit: Twitter)Sources close to Iran's technical services say the cut to Tehran's outside access was the result of "a decision by the authorities" and not a technical breakdown, the news agency reports. Telecommunications ministry officials were unavailable for comment.
Protests are scheduled Monday to mark Student Day, the anniversary of the December 6, 1953, killing of three of University of Tehran students by Iranian police. The students were protesting then-U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon's visit, which followed the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.
As the nation gets ready to mark the annual day of remembrance, several Web sites have reported that Iranian opposition groups are preparing to hold fresh protests against Ahmadinejad. Scores of arrests have already been reported in advance of Student Day.
Since widespread post-election upheaval broke out in June amid charges of government vote-rigging, Internet lines, texting, and even mobile phone service have been cut or scrambled. But the weekend's Internet outage marks the first such occurrence to take place this far in advance of protests, AFP reports.
Twitter has the starring role as opening up Net communications about Iran's turbulent politics, but Google and Facebook are jumping in with their its own hasty efforts.
Google is adding Farsi, or Persian, language support to its translation service, the company announced Thursday night. Google rushed out the support specifically because of events in Iran, said Principal Scientist Franz Och in a blog posting.
Google used its YouTube blog to spotlight often violent conflicts between Iranian police and protesters.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)"We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran," Och said. "Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa--increasing everyone's access to information."
And Facebook produced a beta version of its social-networking site in Persian, Facebook localization engineer Eric Kwan said in a blog posting.
"Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared has been in Persian--the native language of Iran--but people have had to navigate the site in English or other languages," Kwan said. "We could not have made this happen so quickly without the more than 400 Persian speakers who submitted thousands of individual translations of the site."
Google's translation service so far is optimized for translating between English and Farsi, but Google is working on expanding that to support other language combinations, Och said. A quick test for me showed it workable translating Persian to English.
The Internet lowers barriers between different cultures, countries, and languages, but censors can seriously curtail access to Internet services. Of course, there often are ways to sidestep censors for those with some technical know-how.
Google also has spotlighted citizen journalist efforts on YouTube to document the crackdown on Iranian protesters.
Google has struggled with censorship in China in particular, concluding that censorship cooperation is better than not participating in the market at all.
The Iranian government is trying to control the flow of information among protesters of the supposed results of that nation's presidential election, and to and from news organizations.
But, reports CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg, Tehran is having difficulty stopping citizens from using technology to report what's happening, express outrage and get people out to opposition rallies.
There are reports citizens in Tehran have no access to text messaging via cell phones, and opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's Web site has been down.
But Sieberg combed Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and photo-sharing site Flickr, and found that those opposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refusing to be silenced.
"Against all odds," says Sieberg, "they're taking their voices to the Internet and seem to be announcing, 'The revolution will be blogged." '
"Shame on them that they think they can fool us," said one post. "Where's my vote? Really, where's my vote?" asked another.
Moments after Ahmadinejad declared victory in Iran, protestors flooded the streets of the capital.
They'd mobilized using the latest digital technology on Twitter and Facebook, Sieberg points out, while adding that there is still "no definitive way to verify the authenticity or accuracy of these reports."
"On the street level," says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, "people are asking themselves, 'What's going on. What does the candidate want us to do?' Well, you go to Facebook and you check what is the latest status line of your candidate, and from there they could find out what was actually taking place."
Twitter lit up with posts like this at 8:32 a.m. local time Saturday: "Reports of gun shots in Fatemi Square."
Even with many Web sites down, says Sieberg, supporters of Mousavi found a way to send this tweet at 3:44 p.m. Saturday: "All Internet and mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout 'Alaho Akbar' in protest."
"It's a tremendously skillful, talented, and Internet-savvy population in Iran," Parsi observed.
Protest videos and photos appeared on YouTube and Flickr.
Mousavi backers implored followers to declare, 'Death to dictator," on Facebook at 11:38 a.m. Sunday.
The latest tweet from Mousavi supporters called for street protests today at 4 p.m. local time, roughly 20 minutes from when Sieberg's piece aired on "The Early Show."
A tweet from Monday morning, claiming to be from an Iranian student, says of Monday's planned protest, "It's worth taking the risk. We're going. I won't be able to update until I'm back. Again, thanks for your support and wish us luck."
These pages have the most up-to-date information:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mousavi1388
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Mousavi1388
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mousavi1388
Daniel Sieberg reports on technology for CBS News.
While word of riots in the streets of Tehran spread like wildfire on Twitter, CNN stayed largely silent on the story, surprising and dismaying many.
(Credit: Twitter)As the Iranian election aftermath unfolded in Tehran--thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at perceived electoral irregularities--an unexpected hashtag began to explode through the Twitterverse: "CNNFail."
Even as Twitter became the best source for rapid-fire news developments from the front lines of the riots in Tehran, a growing number of users of the microblogging service were incredulous at the near total lack of coverage of the story on CNN, a network that cut its teeth with on-the-spot reporting from the Middle East.
For most of Saturday, CNN.com had no stories about the massive protests on behalf of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was reported by the Iranian government to have lost to the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The widespread street clashes--nearly unheard of in the tightly controlled Iran--reflected popular belief that the election had been rigged, a sentiment that was even echoed, to some extent, by the U.S. government Saturday.
"The Obama administration is determined to press on with efforts to engage the Iranian government," The New York Times cited senior officials as having said Saturday, "despite misgivings about irregularities in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Yet even as word of the urban strife, seemingly led by those posting to Twitter, spread next around the world on news networks like the BBC, NPR, and the Times, CNN remained mostly mute. Even when the network's Internet site finally posted a story late Saturday, the network's first "story highlight" was, "Ahmadinejad plans rally after winning second presidential term."
Increasingly, Twitter has become the go-to source for breaking news about any kind of notable event, be it an earthquake, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, or post-election riots in Tehran. Yet many Twitter users found CNN's lack of attention to what could end up being one of the biggest stories in years appalling.
"CNN just loops the same stories endlessly, while ignoring the biggest story," posted Twitter user MediaButcher.
"CNN needs to talk about the important things like Ms. California and who Paris Hilton is (sleeping with)," wrote Twitter user ArchivalQuality.
Others used the opportunity to applaud the work of other networks while indirectly criticizing CNN. "Might I point out to all of those tracking #CNNFail that there's a corresponding #NPRWin good coverage @ www.npr.org," opined Twitter user Nickbernstein, referring to the Twitter convention of using "hashtags," or pound-signs before keywords to indicate Twitter search terms, in this case a reference to the suggestion that NPR had done a good job covering the Iranian riots.
And it wasn't long before word of CNN's theoretical reporting failure began to make its way into more established media. Under the headline, "Dear CNN, Please Check Twitter for News About Iran," the popular blog ReadWriteWeb blasted the network for its failure to cover the clearly massive story in the Middle East.
"Hours after Iranian police began clashing with tens of thousands of people in the street," ReadWriteWeb wrote late Saturday night, "the top story on CNN.com remains peoples' confusion about the switch from analog TV signals."
It's odd that CNN would be so late to this story, especially given the criticism it's getting from the Twitterverse, and given how clued in the network is supposed to be to Twitter. It was, after all, only two months ago that CNN's Twitter account barely missed out--to actor Ashton Kutcher--on being the first to accumulate a million followers.
One would think, then, that when the idea began to percolate around Twitter that CNN was missing out on a major, historical story like the one developing in Iran, the network would have noted the discontent and done something about it.
But even as the sun prepared to rise in the eastern United States, CNN's Web site was still focusing on Ahmadinejad's victory and not the fact that massive riots in the streets of Tehran might be a world-changing moment, potentially on par with the failed 1991 coup in the Soviet Union that led to the collapse of the authoritarian government there.
To be sure, it's too early to tell if the events unfolding in Terhan will have such a lasting effect. But in Iran, there haven't been such vivid pictures of popular anger at the government since the revolution there in 1979 that toppled the Shah and led to the current religious fundamentalist leadership.
And to the thousands on Twitter posting to the #CNNFail thread, this story should be a no-brainer for the network that managed to have the only reporters on the ground when the United States began bombing Baghdad in 1991 at the beginning of the Gulf War.
The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has reopened a probe of Lime Wire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing companies over the issue of "inadvertent sharing." The move comes nearly two months after it was alleged that Iran took advantage of a computer security breach to obtain information about President Barack Obama's helicopter.
After sensitive information regarding the president's helicopter was leaked, Congress wants to know whether P2P company Lime Wire has made good on helping stop inadvertent sharing.
(Credit: The White House)CNET News has obtained copies of the letters written by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission asking them for help investigating the recent rash of security breaches caused when people who use P2P software accidentally share information on networks like Lime Wire or BearShare.
"These reports indicate that very significant risks continue to plague P2P file sharing networks," lawmakers wrote in an April 20 letter to FTC Chairman John Leibowitz. "Therefore, under Rules X and XI of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, we are reopening our investigation of inadvertent file sharing on peer-to-peer networks, including LimeWire."
Some security experts believe the files probably were transferred through a peer-to-peer network.
The Oversight Committee also wrote a letter to Mark Gorton, chairman of the Lime Group, Lime Wire's parent company.
"On July 24, 2007, you testified before the Committee on Oversight ... in a hearing on 'Inadvertent File Sharing on Peer-to-Peer Networks,'" the committee wrote Gorton. "It appears that nearly two years after your commitment to make significant changes in the software, LimeWire and other P2P providers have not taken adequate steps to address this critical problem."
A spokeswoman for the Committee on Oversight confirmed the letters had gone out. Representatives from the Lime Group were unavailable for comment.
The committee cited some recent high-profile security breaches.
On February 28, 2009, a television station in Pittsburgh reported that the blueprints and avionics package for "Marine One," the President's helicopter, was made available on a P2P network by a defense contractor in Maryland.On February 26, 2009, the "Today" show broadcast a segment on inadvertent P2P file sharing, reporting that Social Security numbers, more than 150,000 tax returns, 25,800 student loan applications, and nearly 626,000 credit reports were easily accessible on a P2P network.
On February 23, 2009, a Dartmouth College professor published a paper reporting that over a two-week period he was able to search a P2P network and uncover tens of thousands of medical files containing names, addresses, and Social Security numbers for patients seeking treatment for conditions such as AIDS, cancer, and mental health problems
On July 9, 2008, The Washington Post reported that an employee of an investment firm who allegedly used LimeWire to trade music or movies inadvertently exposed the names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of about 2,000 of the firm's clients, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. There have been reports alleging file-sharing programs have been used for illegal purposes, such as to steal others' identities.
A copy of the letter from U.S. Congressional committee on oversight to Attorney General.
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