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Why do protests in Iran always seem to lose steam before any change is made? Rust or Zig?

aljgz 4y ago
There are several factors. One is the government's violence. They shoot people with rifles, arrest them and kill them in the prison, do everything they can to scare people off. Another is government's total control over communication. In 2009 they shut down the internet and SMS for a week. They did that again recently. When people cannot communicate, they can't organize. Another is a lack of leadership. The government has successfully removed (killed or imprisoned) anyone people trusted. Intolerance plagues cooperation of opposition groups. Maybe that's because of the history of Iran, maybe part of that is fueled by the government (it maintains an army of supporters in cyber space, spreading misinformation, hatred, and everything else they can do to prevent a large scale movement, some times masquerading as opposition)
- 7373737373 4y ago
  The internet really shouldn't be something that can be shut down
  - aljgz 4y ago
    Unfortunately, when dealing with an authoritarian government, there is not much that can be done. In Iran, the government invests heavily on censorship infrastructure. The country's entire internet traffic passes through an organization controlled by the government. The telecom companies were sold to the military (we have two military branches, one is made to support the government, to to defend the country) and they control all communication, shutting down the service when necessary. They can even shut down specific regions when a riot is happening there. The government sends EM noise in urban regions to block satellite TVs. This cannot be done easily to block something like Starlink due to spread spectrum modulation, but as the government controls official import gateways, there is no simple way to buy the equipment. Also, anyone with such a connection should take extreme measures to stay under radar. For most of them it's not easy for a normal person to even know they are revealing their identity, as many domestic service providers (food delivery, ride hailing, etc) have servers inside Iran and should cooperate with the government to share user data with them.
    - Melatonic 4y ago
      I wonder if something as simple as a Garmin inReach would still work? Super low bandwith (literally just text messages) but it goes direct to iridium satellites. Plans arent super cheap but I imagine you could afford one for example if you really needed it.
ybinator604g3 4y ago
Another Iranian SWE here. IMO they don't in the big picture. I agree with the points made in the adjacent comment (reality), but if you look at the frequency in which these protests happen, it's increasing and with each occurrence they are gaining wider support. Not only that, but in the recent protests, even smaller cities with more conservative population are now joining the fight. They wanted reform initially, now they have become more radical in nature. It's only a matter of time. Or, I don't know, maybe it's because of the numerous memory safety issues we encounter. Perhaps we should use a borrow checker in our revolution compiler ;)

There are several factors. One is the government's violence. They shoot people with rifles, arrest them and kill them in the prison, do everything they can to scare people off. Another is government's total control over communication. In 2009 they shut down the internet and SMS for a week. They did that again recently. When people cannot communicate, they can't organize. Another is a lack of leadership. The government has successfully removed (killed or imprisoned) anyone people trusted. Intolerance plagues cooperation of opposition groups. Maybe that's because of the history of Iran, maybe part of that is fueled by the government (it maintains an army of supporters in cyber space, spreading misinformation, hatred, and everything else they can do to prevent a large scale movement, some times masquerading as opposition)

7373737373 4y ago
The internet really shouldn't be something that can be shut down
- aljgz 4y ago
  Unfortunately, when dealing with an authoritarian government, there is not much that can be done. In Iran, the government invests heavily on censorship infrastructure. The country's entire internet traffic passes through an organization controlled by the government. The telecom companies were sold to the military (we have two military branches, one is made to support the government, to to defend the country) and they control all communication, shutting down the service when necessary. They can even shut down specific regions when a riot is happening there. The government sends EM noise in urban regions to block satellite TVs. This cannot be done easily to block something like Starlink due to spread spectrum modulation, but as the government controls official import gateways, there is no simple way to buy the equipment. Also, anyone with such a connection should take extreme measures to stay under radar. For most of them it's not easy for a normal person to even know they are revealing their identity, as many domestic service providers (food delivery, ride hailing, etc) have servers inside Iran and should cooperate with the government to share user data with them.
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    I wonder if something as simple as a Garmin inReach would still work? Super low bandwith (literally just text messages) but it goes direct to iridium satellites. Plans arent super cheap but I imagine you could afford one for example if you really needed it.

ybinator604g3 4y ago

Another Iranian SWE here. IMO they don't in the big picture. I agree with the points made in the adjacent comment (reality), but if you look at the frequency in which these protests happen, it's increasing and with each occurrence they are gaining wider support. Not only that, but in the recent protests, even smaller cities with more conservative population are now joining the fight. They wanted reform initially, now they have become more radical in nature. It's only a matter of time. Or, I don't know, maybe it's because of the numerous memory safety issues we encounter. Perhaps we should use a borrow checker in our revolution compiler ;)