Iranian political strife sparks limited cyber-warfare

Tehran, the capital of Iran, is currently undergoing an explosive state of turmoil as hundreds of thousands of people protest the results of the last election. This has led to an interesting small cyberwar of sorts, as the government tries to maintain the free flow of propaganda, and the protesting public tries to retain its ability to communicate online.

Taking a page from the Chinese government's playbook, the Iranian government was quick to shout down social communication websites, once the protests began in earnest. Twitter seems to be playing a significant role in the organization and documentation of protester's actions. The #iranelection tweeter page was one of the more active, with updates and reports from different parts of the city, and encouraging words, such as this last tweet that was posted: "If we ever succeed then the power goes to the people for fact & not as a formality. this is the 1st Net Revolution #iranelection." To counter Twitter, agents of the Iranian government have been banning IPs, and shutting off Internet access.

Science fiction writer and web-celeb Cory Doctorow has been updating his own Twitter page, with addresses of proxy servers that can be used by Iranians to get around the IP filtering.

The Iranian intelligence services, or perhaps just pro-Ahmadinejad supporters, have also been trying to limit information getting out of Tehran. Journalists have had tapes taken, the phone system of BBC Persia has been shutdown, and on the cyberwarfare side of things, some reporter's websites have been suffering DDOS attacks, such as Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish,  who was live-blogging the protests.

The anti-Ahmadinejad citizenry has also been fighting back. A call for hacks against government websites went out, primarily over Twitter. Digital-minded Iranian protesters set up links to basic hacking and network disruption tools, with simple instructions, on how people can use them to shutdown websites.

In Tehran, social media websites and Internet communication are extremely popular -- perhaps even more so than here, as Twitter and Facebook offer a less filtered, less censored means of communication, especially for the youth of the city. Evidenced by the police raiding universities and smashing computers, the Iranian government seems to take this ability to communicate very seriously.

Internet mass-communication tools have empowered the Iranian protesters means of organization, and counter-propaganda efforts. It'll be interesting to see how the hard line, right-wing government of President Ahmadinejad will attempt to stymie this advantage if it manages to retain power.