5 ms·

Stealth signals are bypassing Iran’s internet blackout

123 points by WaitWaitWha 6mo ago

darig 6mo ago
[dead]
zenmac 6mo ago
>NFP’s solution was to add redundancy, similar in principle to a data-storage technique called RAID (redundant array of independent disks). Instead of sending each piece of data once, we send extra information that allows missing or corrupted packets to be reconstructed. A bit disappointing TBH if that is their solution. Seems like everything is trying to pigeon hole everyone into the proof of work scenario. If we have more power/energy then we will beat you in everything security, coding and censorship circumvention.
- femto 6mo ago
  It's a sound solution. They are describing forward error correction with a variable code rate. Reducing the code rate increases the amount of redundancy, allowing the signal to be retrieved when the signal-to-noise ratio is lower. It's a standard part of communications theory and has a strong theoretical basis. A low enough code rate will overcome almost any level of jamming at the cost of reduced data rate, provided the receiver does not saturate.
- wiml 6mo ago
  I think they're just doing forward error correction (FEC). Not sure what that has to do with proof-of-work?
- hgoel 6mo ago
  What other method do you propose to deal with data loss?
- bombcar 6mo ago
  FEC and Reed-Solomon and other various methods have existed for decades, and are common and non-crypto related.
tgma 6mo ago
None of the people I know inside Iran actually use this Toosheh[1] thing. And I mean zero, nada, none. Not one. Most are unaware of its existence. This sounds something that sounded cool pre-Starlink era that received funds and favors from western governments and NGOs and did not result in anything useful (not surprising that they get international press too despite being a total failure.) Realistically, a download-only solution does not solve a problem. Persian video content that people watch are delivered via DVB Satellite TV video channels. With Internet, what people want is to communicate and therefore need realtime access and data upload capability to contact others and use web services, not download a new offline copy of Wikipedia everyday! In practice, Iranians inside Iran end up mostly using VPNs and tunnels of various sorts. Often some variant of shadowsocks with SNI spoofing, which stop working in a full blackout. What will be left during a full blackout is people who have government-sanctioned SIM cards with full Internet access (known as "white SIMs") to propagandize on social networks in favor of the reigme when everyone else is disconnected and, a tiny set of people who have acquired Starlink terminals. The same set of people behind that project were supposedly given additional resources to smuggle Starlinks inside, and in the Persian community on Twitter, there's an ongoing meme mocking where those Starlinks actually went and given to whom, never to get an answer... [1]: TLDR: data archive within DVB-S video stream
- stackghost 6mo ago
  >What will be left during a full blackout is people who have government-sanctioned SIM cards with full Internet access (known as "white SIMs") to propagandize on social networks in favor of the reigme when everyone else is disconnected and a tiny set of people who have Starlink. One would think this is exactly the sort of circumstances under which store-and-forward/delay-tolerant routing would be useful. Years before Jack Dorsey thought of bitchat[0] I had the same idea, but never pursued it because I live in a western country but not in a "tech city", in other words, nobody around here is interested in being an early adopter of an app primarily of use only to preppers or people living under repressive authoritarian regimes. Anyways, it's a great idea in theory, as the techno-anarchist preppers that LARP with off-the-shelf lilygo LoRa tranceivers will be happy to tell you. But in practice nobody who actually could benefit from these seems to adopt these things. Or at least I never hear about it, if they indeed do. Perhaps today's internet blackouts are too transient for a 2026 version of samizdat to develop? Do the people you know inside Iran plan to just wait it out, or do they have some other solution ready for a total blackout? [0] https://bitchat.free/ https://bitchat.free/
bawolff 6mo ago
So its just embeding some files in a satalite tv broadcast stream? I dont think that helps that much. If you have satalite tv going in, you already have video coming in, are arbitrary files really that much more useful? The thing people really want internet communication for is 2 way coms. Getting info on the situation on the ground out and allowing different groups inside Iran to coordinate. I fail to see how this helps with that.
- labelbabyjunior 6mo ago
  > So its just embeding some files in a satalite tv broadcast stream? Which is neither new nor novel. PlayCable was doing this to download console games over analog cable systems <checks notes> 46 years ago. TeleText says hello.
- dirkt 6mo ago
  > I dont think that helps that much. Teletext [1] was extremely popular in Europe before the Internet was widely available for private households. Also piggybacked on TV. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
SanjayMehta 6mo ago
The claim of 30,000 dead in the crackdown is dubious. It originates from a doctor turned fashion blogger turned independent journalist called Deepa Parent[1] and doesn't have any other evidence to support it. (The Dresden fire bombing required tons of munitions and the toll was 25,000).[2] Now having said that, given the nature of the Iranian theocracy, they are quite capable of such acts. Remember that they have hanged homosexuals from cranes,[3] and executed rape victims.[4] But 30,000 in two days [5] is an extraordinary claim which requires more evidence, certainly more than circular references tracing back to just one source. [1] https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/01/guardian-iranian-death-toll-concocted-monarchist-doctors/ https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/01/guardian-iranian-death-to... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Asgari_and_Ayaz_Marhoni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Asgari_and_Ayaz_Marhon... [4] https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/people/crime-against-women-back-when-a-16-year-old-girl-was-publicly-executed-in-iran-for-a-crime-she-didnt-commit-article-152526405 https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/people/crime-against-... [5] https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198 Edit: added [5]
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- at-fates-hands 6mo ago
  >> But 30,000 in a day The number was given over two days, not one. The protests were in over 200 cities with 5 million+ participants, WE KNOW they fired live rounds this is undeniable if you only had 200 deaths per city you would reach a death toll north of 40k already. Yes it's not verified yes there isnt a video of exactly 30000 identifiable bodies side by side. But the number really isnt as unachievable as people make it out to be. From another article: The 30,000 figure is also far beyond tallies being compiled by activists methodically assigning names to the dead. As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more. https://www.aol.com/articles/iran-protest-death-toll-could-112447282.html https://www.aol.com/articles/iran-protest-death-toll-could-1... The mass murdering of 5,400 people is nothing to scoff at, on any level, even over two days.
thakoppno 6mo ago
> Satellite TV uses a file system called an MPEG transport stream that allows multiple audio, video, or data layers to be packaged into a single stream file. Interesting read but that part really made me question my own sanity. It’s probably just lost in translation.
- djkoolaide 6mo ago
  that's how it works. point a free-to-air dish at the right place in the sky, demodulate the DVB-S2 signal, and it's often IP traffic moving through mpeg transport streams.
  - thakoppno 6mo ago
    it’s the claim of it being a file system that’s throwing me. obviously nbd but maybe my mental models broken again.
    - pabs3 6mo ago
      http://tom7.org/harder/ http://tom7.org/harder/
    - atoav 6mo ago
      File system is the wrong word. What they should have used is file format. It is not wrong that you can have a file (bits and bytes encoded in the shape described by a file format) on some remote point. If you have an index of those files where you can programmatically choose between multiple files that could even pass as a crude "file system". But I doubt this is what they meant to refer to. It is likelier they wrongly assumed a file system is the system in which a file is organized, where in fact they meant file format.
      - T-A 6mo ago
        I think they were going for a reasonable analogy, especially when a stream is saved to disk to have its contents extracted: each channel contained in the stream can then be thought of as a separate file, not unlike files in a zipped directory.
fguerraz 6mo ago
Excepts the internet blackout has nothing to do with censorship at all. This is just Iran protecting itself from cyber attacks, if they had kept Internet running, they would have been completely pwned.
- ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
  Come now, let's not be naïve. If protestors or dissenters are organizing over social media, or app-based Internet communications, shutting down the Internet is a great way to keep them in the dark and prevent the majority of them from either keeping up with local demonstrations or exfiltrating recordings of civil unrest. It is true that shutting off your Internet prevents cyber-attacks, but imagine if it happened in the USA: it would effectively shut down much of our commerce and everyday living activities. In the West, Internet access is becoming more of an essential utility than the icing on the cake, or a recreational forum for malcontents and ne'er-do-wells. Or perhaps it's both at once.
  - fguerraz 6mo ago
    There is no naivety on my part, the USA has publicly admitted that it orchestrated and even armed the protests [1] [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-irans-claim-that-protesters-were-us-armed https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-...
    - ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
      Perhaps you are, instead, disingenuous, because the article you linked says nothing about the effects of an Internet blackout nor its motivations and now you're blathering about orchestration and arming, which likewise have nothing to do with an Internet blackout.
      - fguerraz 6mo ago
        You’re correct, the article doesn’t say anything about that, I’m using my own judgement given the facts that I have. All I know is, if I was at war with the USA, I would definitely cut the internet in my country. Not doing it is like being at war with a big maritime power, and not protecting your coastline.
Gathering6678 6mo ago
Would satellite dishes still be allowed when push comes to shove and the Internet is completely locked down?
- tgma 6mo ago
  Receive-only DVB dishes are very common (although technically illegal and occassionally subject to house raids and removal). They often try to jam the signal from time to time by inducing noise on the broadcast frequency (locally referred to as parasite). They have been cracking down on Starlinks though (most likely from the supply chain, which is very likely to be a compromised regime asset). In any case, as I wrote in another comment, it does not solve a real problem and no one uses this. You can simply watch news/video content live (or DVR'd) on your TV.
wartywhoa23 6mo ago
What a shithole the world has become, and will become even worse... Yes, the world, not just parts of it. Everyone still lulled by notions of democracy, constitution and human rights today is asleep at the wheel.

123 points by WaitWaitWha 6mo ago

darig 6mo ago

[dead]

>NFP’s solution was to add redundancy, similar in principle to a data-storage technique called RAID (redundant array of independent disks). Instead of sending each piece of data once, we send extra information that allows missing or corrupted packets to be reconstructed. A bit disappointing TBH if that is their solution. Seems like everything is trying to pigeon hole everyone into the proof of work scenario. If we have more power/energy then we will beat you in everything security, coding and censorship circumvention.

femto 6mo ago
It's a sound solution. They are describing forward error correction with a variable code rate. Reducing the code rate increases the amount of redundancy, allowing the signal to be retrieved when the signal-to-noise ratio is lower. It's a standard part of communications theory and has a strong theoretical basis. A low enough code rate will overcome almost any level of jamming at the cost of reduced data rate, provided the receiver does not saturate.
wiml 6mo ago
I think they're just doing forward error correction (FEC). Not sure what that has to do with proof-of-work?
hgoel 6mo ago
What other method do you propose to deal with data loss?
bombcar 6mo ago
FEC and Reed-Solomon and other various methods have existed for decades, and are common and non-crypto related.

tgma 6mo ago

None of the people I know inside Iran actually use this Toosheh[1] thing. And I mean zero, nada, none. Not one. Most are unaware of its existence. This sounds something that sounded cool pre-Starlink era that received funds and favors from western governments and NGOs and did not result in anything useful (not surprising that they get international press too despite being a total failure.) Realistically, a download-only solution does not solve a problem. Persian video content that people watch are delivered via DVB Satellite TV video channels. With Internet, what people want is to communicate and therefore need realtime access and data upload capability to contact others and use web services, not download a new offline copy of Wikipedia everyday! In practice, Iranians inside Iran end up mostly using VPNs and tunnels of various sorts. Often some variant of shadowsocks with SNI spoofing, which stop working in a full blackout. What will be left during a full blackout is people who have government-sanctioned SIM cards with full Internet access (known as "white SIMs") to propagandize on social networks in favor of the reigme when everyone else is disconnected and, a tiny set of people who have acquired Starlink terminals. The same set of people behind that project were supposedly given additional resources to smuggle Starlinks inside, and in the Persian community on Twitter, there's an ongoing meme mocking where those Starlinks actually went and given to whom, never to get an answer... [1]: TLDR: data archive within DVB-S video stream

stackghost 6mo ago
>What will be left during a full blackout is people who have government-sanctioned SIM cards with full Internet access (known as "white SIMs") to propagandize on social networks in favor of the reigme when everyone else is disconnected and a tiny set of people who have Starlink. One would think this is exactly the sort of circumstances under which store-and-forward/delay-tolerant routing would be useful. Years before Jack Dorsey thought of bitchat[0] I had the same idea, but never pursued it because I live in a western country but not in a "tech city", in other words, nobody around here is interested in being an early adopter of an app primarily of use only to preppers or people living under repressive authoritarian regimes. Anyways, it's a great idea in theory, as the techno-anarchist preppers that LARP with off-the-shelf lilygo LoRa tranceivers will be happy to tell you. But in practice nobody who actually could benefit from these seems to adopt these things. Or at least I never hear about it, if they indeed do. Perhaps today's internet blackouts are too transient for a 2026 version of samizdat to develop? Do the people you know inside Iran plan to just wait it out, or do they have some other solution ready for a total blackout? [0] https://bitchat.free/ https://bitchat.free/

bawolff 6mo ago

So its just embeding some files in a satalite tv broadcast stream? I dont think that helps that much. If you have satalite tv going in, you already have video coming in, are arbitrary files really that much more useful? The thing people really want internet communication for is 2 way coms. Getting info on the situation on the ground out and allowing different groups inside Iran to coordinate. I fail to see how this helps with that.

labelbabyjunior 6mo ago
> So its just embeding some files in a satalite tv broadcast stream? Which is neither new nor novel. PlayCable was doing this to download console games over analog cable systems <checks notes> 46 years ago. TeleText says hello.
dirkt 6mo ago
> I dont think that helps that much. Teletext [1] was extremely popular in Europe before the Internet was widely available for private households. Also piggybacked on TV. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

SanjayMehta 6mo ago

The claim of 30,000 dead in the crackdown is dubious. It originates from a doctor turned fashion blogger turned independent journalist called Deepa Parent[1] and doesn't have any other evidence to support it. (The Dresden fire bombing required tons of munitions and the toll was 25,000).[2] Now having said that, given the nature of the Iranian theocracy, they are quite capable of such acts. Remember that they have hanged homosexuals from cranes,[3] and executed rape victims.[4] But 30,000 in two days [5] is an extraordinary claim which requires more evidence, certainly more than circular references tracing back to just one source. [1] https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/01/guardian-iranian-death-toll-concocted-monarchist-doctors/ https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/01/guardian-iranian-death-to... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Asgari_and_Ayaz_Marhoni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Asgari_and_Ayaz_Marhon... [4] https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/people/crime-against-women-back-when-a-16-year-old-girl-was-publicly-executed-in-iran-for-a-crime-she-didnt-commit-article-152526405 https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/people/crime-against-... [5] https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198 Edit: added [5]

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
at-fates-hands 6mo ago
>> But 30,000 in a day The number was given over two days, not one. The protests were in over 200 cities with 5 million+ participants, WE KNOW they fired live rounds this is undeniable if you only had 200 deaths per city you would reach a death toll north of 40k already. Yes it's not verified yes there isnt a video of exactly 30000 identifiable bodies side by side. But the number really isnt as unachievable as people make it out to be. From another article: The 30,000 figure is also far beyond tallies being compiled by activists methodically assigning names to the dead. As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more. https://www.aol.com/articles/iran-protest-death-toll-could-112447282.html https://www.aol.com/articles/iran-protest-death-toll-could-1... The mass murdering of 5,400 people is nothing to scoff at, on any level, even over two days.

thakoppno 6mo ago

> Satellite TV uses a file system called an MPEG transport stream that allows multiple audio, video, or data layers to be packaged into a single stream file. Interesting read but that part really made me question my own sanity. It’s probably just lost in translation.

djkoolaide 6mo ago
that's how it works. point a free-to-air dish at the right place in the sky, demodulate the DVB-S2 signal, and it's often IP traffic moving through mpeg transport streams.
- thakoppno 6mo ago
  it’s the claim of it being a file system that’s throwing me. obviously nbd but maybe my mental models broken again.
  - pabs3 6mo ago
    http://tom7.org/harder/ http://tom7.org/harder/
  - atoav 6mo ago
    File system is the wrong word. What they should have used is file format. It is not wrong that you can have a file (bits and bytes encoded in the shape described by a file format) on some remote point. If you have an index of those files where you can programmatically choose between multiple files that could even pass as a crude "file system". But I doubt this is what they meant to refer to. It is likelier they wrongly assumed a file system is the system in which a file is organized, where in fact they meant file format.
    - T-A 6mo ago
      I think they were going for a reasonable analogy, especially when a stream is saved to disk to have its contents extracted: each channel contained in the stream can then be thought of as a separate file, not unlike files in a zipped directory.

fguerraz 6mo ago

Excepts the internet blackout has nothing to do with censorship at all. This is just Iran protecting itself from cyber attacks, if they had kept Internet running, they would have been completely pwned.

ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
Come now, let's not be naïve. If protestors or dissenters are organizing over social media, or app-based Internet communications, shutting down the Internet is a great way to keep them in the dark and prevent the majority of them from either keeping up with local demonstrations or exfiltrating recordings of civil unrest. It is true that shutting off your Internet prevents cyber-attacks, but imagine if it happened in the USA: it would effectively shut down much of our commerce and everyday living activities. In the West, Internet access is becoming more of an essential utility than the icing on the cake, or a recreational forum for malcontents and ne'er-do-wells. Or perhaps it's both at once.
- fguerraz 6mo ago
  There is no naivety on my part, the USA has publicly admitted that it orchestrated and even armed the protests [1] [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-irans-claim-that-protesters-were-us-armed https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-...
  - ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
    Perhaps you are, instead, disingenuous, because the article you linked says nothing about the effects of an Internet blackout nor its motivations and now you're blathering about orchestration and arming, which likewise have nothing to do with an Internet blackout.
    - fguerraz 6mo ago
      You’re correct, the article doesn’t say anything about that, I’m using my own judgement given the facts that I have. All I know is, if I was at war with the USA, I would definitely cut the internet in my country. Not doing it is like being at war with a big maritime power, and not protecting your coastline.

Gathering6678 6mo ago

Would satellite dishes still be allowed when push comes to shove and the Internet is completely locked down?

tgma 6mo ago
Receive-only DVB dishes are very common (although technically illegal and occassionally subject to house raids and removal). They often try to jam the signal from time to time by inducing noise on the broadcast frequency (locally referred to as parasite). They have been cracking down on Starlinks though (most likely from the supply chain, which is very likely to be a compromised regime asset). In any case, as I wrote in another comment, it does not solve a real problem and no one uses this. You can simply watch news/video content live (or DVR'd) on your TV.

wartywhoa23 6mo ago

What a shithole the world has become, and will become even worse... Yes, the world, not just parts of it. Everyone still lulled by notions of democracy, constitution and human rights today is asleep at the wheel.