4 ms·

i'm just a tad confused. if all internet and mobile lines are cut, how can they use twitter?

randallsquared 17y ago
I guess satellite internet? Or maybe the mobile only cut the voice and it didn't occur to them that significant use could be made of SMS?
- nir 17y ago
  IIRC cutting off SMS was one of the first things the government did. SMS was even disabled a day before the elections with the formal explanation of preventing last minute campaigning. The article seems a bit hyper. "As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived." - does Sullivan think Twitter has some uniquely resilient technology? Twitter will survive right until whoever's in charge takes the 10 seconds to put twitter.com into Iran's blocked sites list (or, you know, the next the fail whale)
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  The only way I could see is through SMS using a low power satellite phone such as this: http://www.iridium.com/products/product.php?linx=0350 http://www.iridium.com/products/product.php?linx=0350 But in a country where people live on roughly $2 a day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/25/afghanistan.terrorism25 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/25/afghanistan.terr...) I doubt many have $1,400 satellite phones that cost $6 a day to use. Other methods are impossible... Twitter is blocked through regular internet (see Michael C. McHugh comment here: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/The_stakes_in_Iran.html http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/The_stakes_in_Ir... ) Cell phone towers are what's been cut so no SMS (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSPlmVgh-SfeEO9WhpOVG6Slnu0w http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSPlmVgh-...) Satellite dishes have been banned since '94 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34407 http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34407) so no highspeed internet that way.
  - apsec112 17y ago
    Iranians do not live on $2 a day; Iran is a middle-income country roughly comparable to Mexico or Turkey. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran.
  - lionheart 17y ago
    Satellite dishes might be banned, but this doesn't mean that they aren't very widespread. This isn't the United States or Europe. I believe there was an article in the NY Times about this exact issue. Everybody "middle-class" and up has a satellite dish. Every few months the government confiscates them, at which point everybody goes to the local black market dealer, buys a new one and puts it back up. Quite often the new one is their old one because usually the black market dealer is whoever is in charge of the local branch of the satellite dish confiscation agency. Ah, reminds me of the bad old days in the Soviet Union.
  - pageman 17y ago
    we used to have Thuraya phones in Afghanistan for emergencies (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090421134111AAFS8e2 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090421134111AA...) - if they satellite you are trying to upload to DOESN'T point to the horizon, you could have your satellite pointing to the sky on the roof and people would be none the wiser.
jimfl 17y ago
I agree. There's something about this story which strains credulity. But we're in the early phases of what seems to be a significant news story, and so in the rush to scoop, careful analysis is rarely job #1.
smhinsey 17y ago
i probably don't have any info you don't (assuming you're following the story) but i do know that satellite dishes are very common in the middle east. it wouldn't surprise me if satellite phone and internet service are equally popular, particularly among the set of people who are most likely to be involved in twitter. that said, i'm sure there are a lot of fakes out there right now, but there are those who do seem legitimate enough that the information from them is worth weighing against everything else as we try to understand this situation for ourselves. [edit] as with all news stories involving dubious sources, it's important that you establish a set of baseline facts of the situation that you can use to help evaluate the credibility of what you see. for example, if they mention eating breakfast, make sure it's not 6pm where they claim to be. if they mention locations, do what you can to verify them. fact check to the extent that you can. this won't keep you from being duped by a motivated person, but it can help you establish a comfort level with respect to how far you are willing to trust what you've learned. if something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't, but keep in mind that cultural and language barriers can dull your sense of deception.
- bilbo0s 17y ago
  I wish I could upvote you more. I am learning Farsi right now, so naturally I am trying to follow all of the happenings in Iran as best I can. There is an interesting exchange on CNN, for instance, that is really disturbing me. Christiane Amanpour asked M. Ahmedinejad if he would guarantee the safety of his rival. He said everyone is equal under the law, Mousavi would get a fine just like anyone else. Which is a strange answer to that question, almost like he was answering a different question. At any rate, CNN reported it as "Ahmedinejad declines to guarantee rival's safety". Well, I speak a lot of languages, one of them is French. A while later I was bouncing around lemonde.fr and got to another version of the same exchange. Only this time the translations were audible. The translation for safety was strange, it was not safety, it was a phrase akin to 'safety from law'. Now my Farsi is terrible, so maybe 'safety' is always translated this way. I would need more info to know, just like you said. It does leave me with troubling questions though. Why does CNN not air the translations? It's probably perfectly innocent because Christiane Amanpour looked confused as well. So I wonder, was the translator making translations that confused more than just me? Given the confusion evident in this whole exchange, why did CNN report it as it did? I think this is a textbook case of what you are talking about. Because, for me, the '... cultural and language barriers...' are dulling my sense of deception. That said, I can tell that something is out of place with a lot of the reporting around this issue.
pygy 17y ago
Text messenges were shut on the election day, but turned on later on. Other communication media went off then on with various time frames.
DannoHung 17y ago
Clearly not all lines are cut as new videos keep showing up on youtube.
dasil003 17y ago
Is everyone here so young (and I'm only 31 mind you) that you've never heard of land lines? Not so much directed at the parent as all the responses.
- pageman 17y ago
  exactly. you can actually set-up a dial-down (callback service) to setup an internet connection.
- dagobart 17y ago
  I thought so too, but I don't grasp how a stationary "Twitter access point" would be of use while the revolution is going on at the street.
pageman 17y ago
http://twitter.com/persiankiwi/status/2169483495 http://twitter.com/persiankiwi/status/2169483495 "I am accessing twitter from 148.233.239.24 Port:80 in tehran. you can avoid gov filters from here. spread to others. #Iranelection"
- oj_ettena 17y ago
  You'll not find much echo on jpost anymore, it/Israel/USA being interferingaccused by I./O.wantsI.talk. Couldn't see anymore whether they'd posted my WED written abt Habibi's "war ./. God" (intestinalrage, notGodwhocheated, youDARE hang them!!!) tostopthemasJ.M.Jordan/Germany. Godblessyou + the24

I guess satellite internet? Or maybe the mobile only cut the voice and it didn't occur to them that significant use could be made of SMS?

nir 17y ago
IIRC cutting off SMS was one of the first things the government did. SMS was even disabled a day before the elections with the formal explanation of preventing last minute campaigning. The article seems a bit hyper. "As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived." - does Sullivan think Twitter has some uniquely resilient technology? Twitter will survive right until whoever's in charge takes the 10 seconds to put twitter.com into Iran's blocked sites list (or, you know, the next the fail whale)
TomOfTTB 17y ago
The only way I could see is through SMS using a low power satellite phone such as this: http://www.iridium.com/products/product.php?linx=0350 http://www.iridium.com/products/product.php?linx=0350 But in a country where people live on roughly $2 a day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/25/afghanistan.terrorism25 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/25/afghanistan.terr...) I doubt many have $1,400 satellite phones that cost $6 a day to use. Other methods are impossible... Twitter is blocked through regular internet (see Michael C. McHugh comment here: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/The_stakes_in_Iran.html http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/The_stakes_in_Ir... ) Cell phone towers are what's been cut so no SMS (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSPlmVgh-SfeEO9WhpOVG6Slnu0w http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSPlmVgh-...) Satellite dishes have been banned since '94 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34407 http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34407) so no highspeed internet that way.
- apsec112 17y ago
  Iranians do not live on $2 a day; Iran is a middle-income country roughly comparable to Mexico or Turkey. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran.
- lionheart 17y ago
  Satellite dishes might be banned, but this doesn't mean that they aren't very widespread. This isn't the United States or Europe. I believe there was an article in the NY Times about this exact issue. Everybody "middle-class" and up has a satellite dish. Every few months the government confiscates them, at which point everybody goes to the local black market dealer, buys a new one and puts it back up. Quite often the new one is their old one because usually the black market dealer is whoever is in charge of the local branch of the satellite dish confiscation agency. Ah, reminds me of the bad old days in the Soviet Union.
- pageman 17y ago
  we used to have Thuraya phones in Afghanistan for emergencies (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090421134111AAFS8e2 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090421134111AA...) - if they satellite you are trying to upload to DOESN'T point to the horizon, you could have your satellite pointing to the sky on the roof and people would be none the wiser.

jimfl 17y ago

I agree. There's something about this story which strains credulity. But we're in the early phases of what seems to be a significant news story, and so in the rush to scoop, careful analysis is rarely job #1.

smhinsey 17y ago

i probably don't have any info you don't (assuming you're following the story) but i do know that satellite dishes are very common in the middle east. it wouldn't surprise me if satellite phone and internet service are equally popular, particularly among the set of people who are most likely to be involved in twitter. that said, i'm sure there are a lot of fakes out there right now, but there are those who do seem legitimate enough that the information from them is worth weighing against everything else as we try to understand this situation for ourselves. [edit] as with all news stories involving dubious sources, it's important that you establish a set of baseline facts of the situation that you can use to help evaluate the credibility of what you see. for example, if they mention eating breakfast, make sure it's not 6pm where they claim to be. if they mention locations, do what you can to verify them. fact check to the extent that you can. this won't keep you from being duped by a motivated person, but it can help you establish a comfort level with respect to how far you are willing to trust what you've learned. if something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't, but keep in mind that cultural and language barriers can dull your sense of deception.

bilbo0s 17y ago
I wish I could upvote you more. I am learning Farsi right now, so naturally I am trying to follow all of the happenings in Iran as best I can. There is an interesting exchange on CNN, for instance, that is really disturbing me. Christiane Amanpour asked M. Ahmedinejad if he would guarantee the safety of his rival. He said everyone is equal under the law, Mousavi would get a fine just like anyone else. Which is a strange answer to that question, almost like he was answering a different question. At any rate, CNN reported it as "Ahmedinejad declines to guarantee rival's safety". Well, I speak a lot of languages, one of them is French. A while later I was bouncing around lemonde.fr and got to another version of the same exchange. Only this time the translations were audible. The translation for safety was strange, it was not safety, it was a phrase akin to 'safety from law'. Now my Farsi is terrible, so maybe 'safety' is always translated this way. I would need more info to know, just like you said. It does leave me with troubling questions though. Why does CNN not air the translations? It's probably perfectly innocent because Christiane Amanpour looked confused as well. So I wonder, was the translator making translations that confused more than just me? Given the confusion evident in this whole exchange, why did CNN report it as it did? I think this is a textbook case of what you are talking about. Because, for me, the '... cultural and language barriers...' are dulling my sense of deception. That said, I can tell that something is out of place with a lot of the reporting around this issue.

pygy 17y ago

Text messenges were shut on the election day, but turned on later on. Other communication media went off then on with various time frames.

DannoHung 17y ago

Clearly not all lines are cut as new videos keep showing up on youtube.

dasil003 17y ago

Is everyone here so young (and I'm only 31 mind you) that you've never heard of land lines? Not so much directed at the parent as all the responses.

pageman 17y ago
exactly. you can actually set-up a dial-down (callback service) to setup an internet connection.
dagobart 17y ago
I thought so too, but I don't grasp how a stationary "Twitter access point" would be of use while the revolution is going on at the street.

pageman 17y ago

http://twitter.com/persiankiwi/status/2169483495 http://twitter.com/persiankiwi/status/2169483495 "I am accessing twitter from 148.233.239.24 Port:80 in tehran. you can avoid gov filters from here. spread to others. #Iranelection"

oj_ettena 17y ago
You'll not find much echo on jpost anymore, it/Israel/USA being interferingaccused by I./O.wantsI.talk. Couldn't see anymore whether they'd posted my WED written abt Habibi's "war ./. God" (intestinalrage, notGodwhocheated, youDARE hang them!!!) tostopthemasJ.M.Jordan/Germany. Godblessyou + the24