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September 5, 2011
September 5, 2011
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Protests in Iran spurred by Disappearing Lake

Update: Radio Farda reports that the Parliament in Iran has budget up to $900 million to address the problem.Six months ago, environmental activists in Iran starting sounding the alarm about the state of Lake Orumiyeh (Urmia). Many began posting about Lake Orumiyeh on Facebook. They urged others to take notice: Lake Orumiyeh, the third largest salt water lake in the world, was drying up. This environmental catastrophe was not receiving the attention needed to force action from the government.Protests about the state of the lake have moved from Facebook to the streets, where they are occuring on a regular basis. Several dozen people have been arrested in Northwestern Iran protesting the government's inability to ensure the long-term survival of the lake, which is drying up as a result of drought and the man-made diversion of rivers that once flowed into the lake.Read more
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September 2, 2011
September 2, 2011
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Man in Middle Attacks Dangerous in Iran – Part 2

به زبان فارسیUPDATE: Google and Mozilla have revoked more than 200 security certificates as a result of a hack into the accounts of certificate authority, DigiNotar.WARNING: Tor, Yahoo, and Mozilla were among the targets.WHAT THIS MEANS: If you are in using Tor software downloaded after July 9, it might be compromised. Users of confirmed versions of Tor should not have been effected. (Read more on the Tor Blog.) If you have not checked the signature of Tor to ensure that it is authentic, now is the time to do so. Instructions are here.MORE THAN 200 SECURITY CERTIFICATES STOLENA few days ago, Arseh Sevom reported on compromised security for users in Iran. It was reported that a security certificate was stolen and was in used in Iran. This certificate was used to access secure communication between users in Iran and Google.Read more...
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August 30, 2011
August 30, 2011
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Man in the Middle: Google Becomes Dangerous in Iran

It all began with a simple message. An Iranian internet user was trying to connect to Google using the Chrome browser. Strangely enough, his browser flashed a message telling him that the security certificate he was using to access Google was not theirs. The user went to Google’s help forums to follow up on this and an investigation followed which uncovered a secretive, but highly explosive plot: a security firm in the Netherlands, DigiNotar, had seemingly provided a certificate to “someone” in Iran that allowed access to all secure traffic over Google within Iran.Security bloggers are reporting that the site may have been hacked earlier, in 2009. Screenshots of hacked pages are being shared via the internet. The links to those pages were available as recently as the morning (in Europe) of August 30th.Read more...
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August 29, 2011
August 29, 2011
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Karroubi in Danger and Other Stories

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran is reporting that opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi has been isolated from family and friends for more than a month now and is being forced to make a false confession.The depletion of Lake Orumieh in Western Iran is causing protest throughout the country. Radio Free Europe reports that over 30 activists have been arrested in Iran.It has been announced that 100 political prisoners will be released in Iran.Vali Nasr warns of the possibility of sectarian violence in his opinion piece If the Arab Spring Turns Ugly.Read more...
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August 29, 2011
August 29, 2011
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You don’t have to pay for protection

This post is part of special series of articles focusing on managing your online security and privacy. The complete series can be found in Persian at this link: http://bit.ly/n19Pzk.

Easy to use software is available that will keep your computer safe, and some of it is actually! Better yet, you can download anti-virus protection from the internet and install it in minutes. The best part: these applications don’t constantly bug you about renewing that subscriptionWe’ve made a short list of the best of these programs. So get rid of those tiresome constant pop-ups! Or, in the case that you don’t have an anti-virus program installed, start protecting your computer and your personal information better! AVG (Used by writer and recommended)Link: http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage AviraLink: http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus AvastLink: http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-downloadRead more...
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August 25, 2011
August 25, 2011
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Google+ or Minus

This post is part of special series of articles focusing on managing your online security and privacy. The complete series can be found in Persian at this link: http://bit.ly/n19Pzk. Are There Security Concerns for Google+?

Google+ is the newest effort from Google to break into the social networking sphere. Some claim as high as 20 million unique accounts have been made since its release just a few months ago. However, like any social networking website, Google+ is not without flaws. This post will try to address some of these issues to two different sets of people, those living under governments that sponsor large-scale censorship and those who live under relative internet freedom.Read more...
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August 22, 2011
August 22, 2011
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Two Important Facebook Issues: Privacy and Attack Rumors

This post is part of special series of articles focusing on managing your online security and privacy. The complete series can be found in Persian at this link: http://bit.ly/n19Pzk. Two Important Facebook IssuesFacebook has been in the news for two unrelated, yet disturbing issues. One concerns rumors of an attack on Facebook by the group Anonymous. The other is related to Facebook's newest privacy intrusion. People who use its mobile phone application have found that the phone numbers of their contacts are now being imported into Facebook's database.Read the complete post...
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August 19, 2011
August 19, 2011
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Ali Motahari on Freedom of Assembly, Water Fights in Iran, and More…

Iran's parliament member Ali Motahari speaks about the freedom of assembly in an interview with Fars News, translated by TehranBureau. Political prisoners in Evin complain to the Prosecutor General about using their families as pawns. Playful water fights become a new battleground for hardline forces inside the regime, and Iran's image plummets in the Arab World.

Read more on all these stories here.
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August 2, 2011
August 2, 2011
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Online Social Capital?

This week's featured article from Arseh Sevom's Civil Society Zine is Christina Ashtary's piece examining the development of social capital in politically restrictive environments. Can trust be developed between individuals who meet online? By now, most of us know couples who wooed one another online long before they ever met. Why not activists?Ashtary argues that trust and social capital are being created even among those who know each other as bits and bytes, communicating solely (for a time, at least) in the virtual realm. She discusses how the control of public spaces by the regime in Iran has led to a transfer to the virtual sphere, Weblogistan: a digital Iran that transcends geographical borders and oppressive control.Read more...
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