Iranian protestors

Here is more information about helping the protestors. PLEASE READ BEFORE resetting your Twitter preferences!

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/16/cyberwar-guide-for-i.html

may i suggest editing your original post to cover the page mentioned in your link? Or at the very least mention in your original post the part about the time zone.

done. thanks.

Done; and thanks for posting about this.

Good to know.

I changed my location and time zone, but they'll know right away I'm not Iranian by my name. Either way, cyber-warfare = fun.

I had trouble with the link before; here are the instructions for Twitter:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP's over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don't retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become 'Iranians' it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don't blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don't publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don't signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind...

I've never used Twitter, but if it's that simple to spoof location, and the "Iranian secret police" really have to resort to such a primitive tactic to find these people, why don't they (protesters) just change their own locations to non-Tehran? There's probably an obvious reason that I'm missing, but supposing this is an option and they are already doing it, well-meaning internationals changing location to Tehran would completely negate the benefit once the pattern is figured out. One hates to be a conspiracist but if this were a movie I'd have the secret police disseminating these instructions.

"One hates to be a conspiracist but if this were a movie I'd have the secret police disseminating these instructions."

That's a possibility, but since the students are much more sophisticated with IT, they may just be buying more time for this rather tenuous communications system. Apparently many of the people in Tehran are already restricting their contacts - limiting it to people they trust.

The whole point of this is to reveal the lack of transparency shown by the government. Ahmedinejad will probably still come out the 'selected' winner, but at least the election will be seen as the sham that it was.