Who's winning Iran's cyber-war?
Updated on 16 June 2009
Protesters are defying Iranian government attempts to silence dissent by sharing images and reports online.
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are being used by opponents of the regime to co-ordinate protests and spread news.
While dissidents are also using cyber-tactics to outwit official censorship plans.
Supporters of Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi posted support on the micro-blogging site Twitter today, calling for a second banned pro-Mousavi rally to go ahead and offering security updates.
While one Facebook group called I Love Iran has more than 65,000 members already. Bloggers from around the world are also posting powerful images.
Catch 22
The Iranian government is in the catch 22 situation of needing the internet to spread its own communication, but also being aware of the mass dissent it is also helping to spread. Therefore – like the phone lines – sometimes it is blocked, sometimes it is open.
Facebook, YouTube, anti-government websites and Twitter have all been blocked at various points.
As President Ahmadinejad proclaimed his "great victory" on Saturday, the mobile phone network stopped working and text messaging remains blocked.
But the cyber-tactics have worked both ways, internet users outside Iran has been creating proxy servers, or false IP addresses to disable censorship software.
The proxy addresses are posted online to alert Iranian dissidents. Censors leap to block each one as it appears, only to find that more are created.
Overseas hackers are apparently using a tactic used by repressive regimes, a denial of service (DoS) attack, to block Iranian government sites. Using a free web application to create a deluge of clicks, yesterday they had brought down the president's personal website and that of a state broadcaster.
