Briton caught up in Iran internet wars
Updated on 16 June 2009
As Iranians take to cyberspace to organise their opposition, British web designer Ryan Kelly finds himself in the middle of Iran election protests.
Thousands of Iranians are sidestepping government attempts to silence them by blogging and posting eyewitness accounts, photographs and calls to action on internet sites like Facebook and Twitter.
A British web designer unwittingly found himself in the midst of Iran’s election protests today after his web application was used to crash President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s website.
Ryan Kelly, 25, developed his page reboot software to automatically refresh websites such as eBay, but today discovered it had been used by Iranian dissidents to scupper official websites.
Channel 4 News found that instructions were posted by activists on blogs and social networking sites telling people how they could use Kelly’s application to crash government websites.
If enough people use the application on a particular website it crashes, under the sheer weight of traffic. The ‘attacked’ website becomes unobtainable and displays the message: “Maximum number of users reached, server busy, please try again later."
President Ahmadinejad’s website, among others, was displaying this message today.
Kelly, who works in Oxford Circus, was oblivious to the key role his application was playing in the cyber protests 2,700 miles away in Tehran.
He told Channel 4 News: “Normally we get between 600-1,200 hits a day on the site – but I checked this morning and yesterday it had got about 41,000 hits. And the day before it got 15,000.
“I really didn’t know anything about how it was being used until this morning (16). Obviously I was surprised, we’d never had traffic like that before.
“Later I got lots of emails from Iranians saying they were using the application to attack government websites and bring them down. And it was working.
“I had to take my website down though because I was getting too many hits, the huge spike in traffic was exceeding my server cost limit. In fact, I had to take it down before I knew what it was being used for.”
Kelly, who lives in Upper Holloway, London, developed the free application two years ago with a friend. In the past 48 hours it was used to try and block sites including Iran’s ministry of internal affairs, a state media outlet, and the president’s official website. All of the websites were unavailable at various points today.
The protests at President Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory have utilised social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but the use of Mr Kelly’s software marked a new phase of cyber-warfare, as dissidents attempted to stop the Iranian government from getting its official message out.
He said: “I didn't really know the situation in Iran well enough to make a judgement call on whether what the application is being used for is right or not. When I took it down I got lots more emails calling for me to make it available again – as it’s needed in the protests. The emails came not just from Iran, but around the world.
"I had emails from the Iranian government too, asking me how the application works, but I have not replied to them. I have replied to the protesters though.
"After I appealed for funding on the site to pay for the increased server costs, I've had enough donations to make it available again. I agree with what they are doing and will keep it up there as long as I can, and as long as the server does not overload."
Dissidents contacting Mr Kelly have apologised for using his application, but say it is required for their campaign.
One wrote: “We’re sorry about the usage of your site, but it’s our latest way. We are inside Iran and we had no choice, no support, while the government has all the possible alternates.”
Another said: “We have been using your website for freedom and not attack.
“This is the government of Iran that is attacking everyone and not us. Tell it to your ISP please.
“I think you can put a link to your website to get money for your costs and even more. We will pay. I hope you understand it...”
