[HN Gopher] Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout
        
       Author : honeycrispy
       Score  : 346 points
       Date   : 2026-01-08 16:11 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (radar.cloudflare.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (radar.cloudflare.com)
        
       | dgrin91 wrote:
       | Seems like v4s zeroed out for a tiny bit too, but even now they
       | are substantially lower than normal. Odd behavior, I don't know
       | if its a precursor to an attack or some infra issue
        
         | hvenev wrote:
         | For IPv4 the graph does not start at zero, but at around 45K.
        
           | syncsynchalt wrote:
           | Correct, click the "Min/Max scale" toggle to get a zero-based
           | graph that shows the v4 reduction in context.
        
         | reactordev wrote:
         | Considering the recent events going on, it's definitely sus.
        
         | Weryj wrote:
         | Probably more likely a internet blackout to counter the
         | protests.
        
         | miadabrin wrote:
         | for context: There is a call to action from an opposition
         | leader for people to join the protests today. They normally
         | cutoff internet infrastructure on purpose in these cases so
         | people cannot communicate
        
         | Nicook wrote:
         | Yeah I am suprised everyone thinks this is necessarily
         | internal. Could equally be related to IL/USA incoming
         | aggression.
         | 
         | I'd at least keep an open mind for a while.
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | An attack would probably undermine the protests. From a
           | strategy perspective, probably the last thing Israel/USA want
           | to do is give the Iranian regime a common enemy to rally
           | around in the midst of a protest that might plausibly over
           | throw the Iranian regime.
        
             | keybored wrote:
             | > From a strategy perspective, probably the last thing
             | Israel/USA want to do is give the Iranian regime a common
             | enemy to rally around in the midst of a protest that might
             | plausibly over throw the Iranian regime.
             | 
             | They attacked Iran a little while ago. But now they are
             | playing it cool like a cucumber?
        
               | bawolff wrote:
               | There wasn't really any sort of plausible protest
               | movement going on at the time, and the strikes did result
               | in an upswell of regime support in the short term.
               | 
               | It was advantagous for them to strike when they did, so
               | they did. Its much less advantageous in this moment, so
               | it seems less likely they will now. Or at least not
               | overtly.
               | 
               | > But now they are playing it cool like a cucumber?
               | 
               | Well yes. Countries tend to do things they think will
               | make them more powerful. Sometimes that means blowing
               | shit up, but that is not always the right play.
        
       | ronsor wrote:
       | No competent network engineer wants to work in Iran, so
       | government doesn't know how to block v6 properly. End result:
       | just get rid of it entirely!
        
         | umanwizard wrote:
         | Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?
        
           | tguvot wrote:
           | (going with recent ipv6 discussion) they probably failed to
           | make it work properly and decided that it's easier to block
           | it
        
             | umanwizard wrote:
             | Is this an attempt at a joke, or do you actually seriously
             | believe a country capable of enriching uranium isn't
             | capable of hiring competent network engineers?
        
               | tguvot wrote:
               | i'll leave it as exercise to a reader
        
               | bigyabai wrote:
               | Reading through their comment history, it doesn't seem
               | like a good-faith comment. Not sure what they thought HN
               | stood to gain from their contribution here.
        
               | tguvot wrote:
               | Reading through their comment history, it doesn't seem
               | like a good-faith comment. Not sure what they thought HN
               | stood to gain from their contribution here.
        
               | bigyabai wrote:
               | Case in point.
        
           | cogman10 wrote:
           | IDK for sure, but might be harder to maintain, monitor, and
           | block.
           | 
           | One characteristic of v4 is it's somewhat reasonable to do a
           | straight forward block on a range of addresses to shut down
           | access. This is still somewhat possible with v6, but harder
           | as there's simply a much larger portion of ip addresses that
           | can be all over the place. It's theoretically a lot easier
           | for anyone that wants to bypass a simple filter to grab a new
           | public IP address.
        
             | sva_ wrote:
             | Additionally to the much larger IP space, you also have
             | larger headers and additionally extension headers which
             | make deep packet inspection computationally much more
             | expensive if you consider the scale
        
             | iso1631 wrote:
             | n ipv4 /32 is roughly equivalent to an ipv6 /56 or /64
             | 
             | You'd typically block an AS - i.e. every IP originating
             | from AS12345. That's just as easy on v6 as v4.
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | Otoh, ipv6 address assignment tends to be much more
             | contiguous. My (small) residential ISP has one v6 prefix
             | but several v4 prefixes. If you block the whole prefix for
             | services you don't like, it's far less prefixes for v6.
             | 
             | But, it is a new skill, and you can turn off v6 at small
             | cost if you're already ok with heavily restricting v4.
        
             | miyuru wrote:
             | >One characteristic of v4 is it's somewhat reasonable to do
             | a straight forward block on a range of addresses to shut
             | down access. This is still somewhat possible with v6, but
             | harder as there's simply a much larger portion of ip
             | addresses that can be all over the place. It's
             | theoretically a lot easier for anyone that wants to bypass
             | a simple filter to grab a new public IP address.
             | 
             | no its not, its easier to block IPv6 ranges than IPv4 ones.
             | 
             | if someone want be block my ISP, they only need a single
             | /32 rule with v6.
        
           | davidw wrote:
           | There are some pretty big protests happening right now: https
           | ://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mbvphn4...
        
             | umanwizard wrote:
             | That doesn't explain why they would want to block IPv6
             | _specifically_ , and not also block IPv4.
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | The OP's comment is that they can censor IPv4 when they
               | want, but they don't know how to censor IPv6. So they
               | block it entirely.
        
               | helloaltalt wrote:
               | Thanks this really explains the situation.
        
               | observationist wrote:
               | A lot of the Starlink and other contraband uplinks are
               | using ipv6, allowing connectivity for people the regime
               | doesn't want to have contact with the rest of the world.
               | They don't want the revolution broadcast or popularized.
        
               | umanwizard wrote:
               | I wouldn't think blocking terrestrial IPv6 links would
               | have anything to do with blocking Starlink.
        
               | syncsynchalt wrote:
               | It could be as simple as their surveillance / censorship
               | tools not fully supporting IPv6.
        
           | stackskipton wrote:
           | It's much more difficult to block.
           | 
           | A lot of anti censorship organizations have trouble getting
           | more IPv4 /24 for cost reasons or moving it around to
           | different AS since they would go offline.
           | 
           | With IPv6, you can get IPv6 /40 from ARIN/RIPE no problem.
           | You slice that up into /48 and just start bouncing it all
           | over the place. When one /48 goes down, you move everything
           | to another /48, switch providers if required and continue.
           | 
           | EDIT: They also tend to get multiple blocks as well for when
           | ISP figures out to root /40.
        
             | jcalvinowens wrote:
             | > It's much more difficult to block.
             | 
             | No it isn't. Nobody is blocking ranges as they roll in,
             | they're blocking whole ASNs at once. That's just as trivial
             | with v6 as v4, actually v6 can be simpler because ISPs tend
             | to have fewer large blocks in v6land.
        
               | stackskipton wrote:
               | There are plenty of providers that when you BYOIP, they
               | will broadcast out of their ASN, I know Azure does,
               | Google appears to, no clue on AWS. Plenty of colo
               | providers including $LastCompanyProvider will fold your
               | IP block under their ASN as well. That's how it worked at
               | last job.
               | 
               | Sure, Iran government may just decide to block that
               | specific ASN but if it's they want to remain somewhat on
               | the internet, they are stuck with "Smack entire broad
               | ASNs and lose large chucks of internet" or "Block
               | specific IP spaces."
        
           | coretx wrote:
           | Because v6 IPs are cheap, expendable and routing it over
           | encrypted tunnels does not look suspicious. Anyone can buy a
           | block and with little help announce them from multiple
           | locations including home, mobile, uni wifi, and route further
           | from there.
        
         | coffeemug wrote:
         | Two counterintuitive/surprising lessons I've come to
         | appreciate:
         | 
         | 1.Talent pools in nation states are extraordinarily deep-- much
         | deeper than they appear. Countries can suffer from brain drain
         | for decades (or centuries!) but when conditions call for it,
         | superbly talented people somehow manifest.
         | 
         | 2. The correlation between talent and conscience is weak.
         | Nation states always manage to find superbly talented people to
         | work on problems many of us would recoil from.
        
           | f1shy wrote:
           | This is so much true! Indeed you can find absolutely
           | everywhere absolutely incredible brilliant people in any area
           | you want. The reason for the 1st and 3rd world is that is
           | difficult to come by enough people and then coordinate them:
           | is about critical mass and alignment.
           | 
           | About 2. also 100% true: intelligence/knowledge is totally
           | independent of any other trait.
        
             | coffeemug wrote:
             | Right-- talent isn't that useful in a vacuum. You need
             | economic and legal infrastructure that talented people can
             | plug into to be productive. That infrastructure (a) takes a
             | very long time to build and (b) depends on cultural norms
             | that take a long time to evolve and don't find fertile
             | ground everywhere.
        
           | SilentM68 wrote:
           | I tend to agree with most of what you said regarding all
           | governments and countries. What may not be widely known is
           | that some authoritarian regimes have been accused by
           | expatriates of identifying and indoctrinating intellectually
           | gifted children into their state-sponsored organizations for
           | use by these entities for unmentionable purposes. Of course,
           | it's next to impossible to find written documentation, with
           | specific details since detailed evidence in such states are
           | understandably hard to retrieve. Most of these accounts
           | arrive through word of mouth.
        
             | chrneu wrote:
             | >What may not be widely known is that some authoritarian
             | regimes have been accused by expatriates of identifying and
             | indoctrinating intellectually gifted children into their
             | state-sponsored organizations
             | 
             | Literally every country does this. It's just perspective
             | whether an individual thinks it's okay or not.
             | 
             | If you're on the side doing the indoctrination, you
             | probably agree with it, or are indoctrinated yourself. We
             | all are to some degree.
        
           | keybored wrote:
           | Counter-intuitive? The primary motivation for fretting about
           | Brain Drain (whether it is true or not is secondary) is
           | because the people who fret about it are educated
           | professionals, precisely the people who are prone to build
           | their identity around the idea that society thrives and
           | succumbs based on their own existence.
           | 
           | The same people who have unironically latched onto the idea
           | of Meritocracy. A concept/idea that was literally conceived
           | as a parody.
        
       | giancarlostoro wrote:
       | Stuxnet v2? Speculation I know, but wow, IPv4 came back up, but
       | IPv6 is completely out, looks like 48 million devices? Compared
       | to IPv4's 47 thousand (wow that's insane).
       | 
       | Looking at IPv6 its not 0 exactly, looks like probably
       | censorship, only some devices allowed online? Some other comment
       | mentioned there's calls to protest again today.
        
         | dogma1138 wrote:
         | No, it is the Iranian government shutting down the internet.
        
         | zdragnar wrote:
         | They are almost certainly attempting to shut down
         | communications due to the ongoing anti government protests.
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | Teredo/Miredo would work on top of IPV4.
        
       | cimi_ wrote:
       | Not specific to this IPv6 event, but I was wondering what happens
       | to public services during these Internet shutdowns?
       | 
       | Does everything stop or it's mostly business as usual minus some
       | things?
       | 
       | I would imagine hospitals, tax offices etc need the internet to
       | work?
        
         | falaki wrote:
         | In recent years they have been trying to build a nation-wide
         | Intranet that can function while international gateways are
         | blocked. It is not perfect and every time they block the
         | Internet, many issues happen but for the most port critical
         | network services (such as payments) continue to function.
        
           | throwaway894345 wrote:
           | Seems like it would be an easy target for the government (or
           | really anyone) to DOS, right? Presumably there's no good way
           | for the nation-wide intranet to exclude government actors?
           | I'm just thinking out loud; I'm glad to hear something is
           | being done and I wish the Iranian people the best.
        
         | ceejayoz wrote:
         | Ironically, their long history of shutoff and censorship
         | probably mean they're more resilient to stuff like this.
        
         | thaack wrote:
         | Matt Lakeman's recent "Notes on Afghanistan" actually covers
         | this as he first-hand experienced a similar situation in
         | Afghanistan where the Taliban had shut off the internet:
         | 
         | "The internet was out. Everywhere. Across the entire country.
         | No cell data, no wifi, no phone service, and as far as I could
         | tell, there are no landlines in Afghanistan [...] But now the
         | blackout was total. Our waiter was complaining to my guide that
         | he couldn't contact his mother in a western province. I saw
         | other people in the crowded restaurant fiddling with their
         | phones and looking annoyed. I asked my guide what he thought
         | was going on. He shrugged."
         | 
         | "Without internet and phones, people can't talk to loved ones,
         | businesses can't function, trade can't function, and even
         | government offices can't function. Only the Taliban with their
         | well-established network of short-wave radios can function. But
         | still, if the internet remains off long enough in Afghanistan,
         | the country's economy and society may very well collapse.
         | Afghans couldn't get money from banks. Soon enough, would food
         | stop being delivered to cities?"
         | 
         | https://mattlakeman.org/2026/01/05/notes-on-afghanistan/#
        
         | macleginn wrote:
         | Russia has been systematically shutting down the Internet for a
         | long time now, to disrupt Ukrainian drones. The effects were
         | very painful intially, especially re payment systems; people
         | were encouraged to withdraw and carry cash. Now they are
         | shifting more and more towards a "whitelisting" approach where
         | a handful of services continue to function while everything
         | else is turned off. As usual in Russia, people complain but
         | adapt.
        
       | falaki wrote:
       | Fortunately, the government cannot enforce complete blackout
       | because thousands of startlink terminals are active inside the
       | country. They have been complaining about it [1] to no avail.
       | Using these terminals activists and journalists continue to
       | upload videos of demonstrations to social media which has enabled
       | analyses that show demonstrations are very wide spread [2] and
       | continue to grow.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/RRB/Pages/Starlink....
       | 
       | [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre28d2j2zxo
        
         | tuhgdetzhh wrote:
         | Isn't it possible to jam the starlink receiver?
        
           | adrianpike wrote:
           | Yes, with the caveat that you'll need decent line of sight to
           | it.
        
           | falaki wrote:
           | I hear after the Ukraine war, Starlink became very good at
           | thwarting jamming. I am confident the Iranians are not as
           | sophisticated as the Russians in than front.
        
             | ReptileMan wrote:
             | The Russians are themselves heavy users of starlink.
        
               | null_deref wrote:
               | Can you provide a source for this claim?
        
               | esseph wrote:
               | Start here:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-
               | Ukrain...
               | 
               | Scroll down to Russian use.
               | 
               | Starlink receivers have been found in use in drones by
               | both sides in the war.
               | 
               | There's a lot of Open Source intel on this.
        
               | iammjm wrote:
               | Here, have a video of the russian cavalry with a Starlink
               | attached to a horse. Yes, you have read that right. 2026
               | btw. https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comme
               | nts/1q7i... Also: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-
               | news/2026/01/08/russia-sat...
        
               | TiredOfLife wrote:
               | Just the latest one
               | 
               | https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/2009240533944947050
        
               | nfriedly wrote:
               | Not the person you asked, but here's a couple of sources
               | that back that claim:
               | 
               | https://www.newsweek.com/russia-starlink-ukraine-gur-
               | elon-mu...
               | 
               | https://kyivindependent.com/nearly-half-of-usaid-
               | starlink-te...
               | 
               | Also, as I understand it, a big part of the reason USAID
               | was fed "into the woodchipper" was because they were
               | investigating SpaceX over Russian use of Starlink - see
               | https://gizmodo.com/elon-musks-enemy-usaid-was-
               | investigating...
        
           | EthanHeilman wrote:
           | Yes, but it is more difficult than jamming a typical radio
           | antenna because the starlink uses a directed beam rather than
           | a omnidirectional radio broadcast. This either requires
           | enormous amounts of power, targeting the satellite itself
           | with a directed radio beam, or getting between the satellite
           | and the ground station by bouncing a signal off the
           | ionosphere.
           | 
           | The above is for jamming directed beams in general. It is
           | likely that starlink has a number of other jamming
           | countermeasures.
        
             | edoceo wrote:
             | Multibeam too, right?
        
             | almosthere wrote:
             | my thoughts as well.
        
               | pc86 wrote:
               | What is the point of this comment?
        
               | ktm5j wrote:
               | What's the point of yours?
        
             | weregiraffe wrote:
             | >targeting the satellite itself with a directed radio beam
             | 
             | And good luck targeting enough Starlink satellites...
        
             | H8crilA wrote:
             | Just to add more details.
             | 
             | Beamforming is essentially yet another way to achieve gain,
             | just like one does with a directional antenna. The Starlink
             | terminal achieves a gain of roughly 33 dB, which means it
             | talks (and also listens) in the peak direction at power
             | levels that are around 2000x higher than what one would
             | achieve with isotropic antennas. 2000x sounds like a lot,
             | but it is actually not impossible to reach. Consumer
             | electronics sends at most a few Watts of RF power, but
             | serious jammers of the type used by militaries can run
             | kilowatts. If you consider the peak power used for brief
             | moments of time then you can get as high as megawatts - the
             | famous AWACS aircraft briefly flash half a continent at
             | somewhere around 1 MW, with average TX power of ~single
             | digit kilowatt.
        
             | spacemule wrote:
             | Bouncing signals off of the ionosphere is most definitely
             | not an option here. The bandwidth of the signals that
             | Starlink needs in order to provide service are far wider
             | than the range of frequencies that bounce off any layer of
             | the ionosphere. If you could get a 10GHz signal to bounce
             | off of the F layer, you'd have a lot of very excited
             | amateur radio operators who would start using that instead
             | of the moon as their reflector.
        
             | inglor_cz wrote:
             | Possible, yes, but the Iranian government almost certainly
             | isn't capable of doing so, much less across the entire
             | country.
             | 
             | Even Russians don't seem to be able to jam Starlink on the
             | Ukrainian battlefields.
             | 
             | China, maybe.
        
             | scoofy wrote:
             | Huge idiot here with an honest question: with starlink,
             | could a rogue actor just point a bunch of high-powered
             | lasers at the satellites and brick them?
        
               | Yizahi wrote:
               | Cheaper to launch a barrel of metal trash to the Starlink
               | orbits. Or a few barrels. Iran has rockets for that.
        
           | throwaway894345 wrote:
           | I've got to think it's easy to find starlink receivers--I
           | know they use a directed beam but they must give off a bunch
           | of lateral noise, right? Or does Starlink use the same
           | frequency bands as other common equipment such that it would
           | be difficult to distinguish starlink signals from others? If
           | the government was motivated they could surely start finding
           | these receivers, right?
        
             | BenjiWiebe wrote:
             | Well the better your beam is directed, the less lateral
             | noise there is.
             | 
             | A simple 3 element yagi has <1% of the power to the sides.
             | It has more of the power straight behind it, but still 1%
             | or so of the main lobe.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | Is 1% still quite a lot louder than other things in the
               | same band?
        
             | everfrustrated wrote:
             | From what I read, the Russians were targeting Starlink
             | terminals based on the built-in wifi access point not the
             | Starlink frequencies.
        
           | Noaidi wrote:
           | Destroy the satellites? I mean all that have to do is screw
           | up the trajectory of some of the satellites to cause
           | exponential collisions...
        
             | bhhaskin wrote:
             | Iran does not have that capability. But that would also be
             | an act of war.
        
               | Noaidi wrote:
               | No, it wouldn't be an act of war, it would be "a military
               | operation".
        
               | octoberfranklin wrote:
               | Flinging spacejunk pollution into orbit is extremely
               | simple if you have rockets.
               | 
               | Iran has lots of rockets.
               | 
               | Iran also has basically zero of their own satellites in
               | orbit that they care about.
               | 
               | Spacejunk is a highly asymmetric tactic.
        
               | yehoshuapw wrote:
               | they do have satellites. I'm less sure about how much
               | they care about them - but they are not cheap
        
               | octoberfranklin wrote:
               | That's my point. They have so few that sacrificing them
               | would be irrelevant.
        
             | some_bird wrote:
             | Ah yes, Kessler's space shredder, something to be feared by
             | all satellites!
             | 
             | It appears that we are very close to an unstoppable runaway
             | process of collisions in space. On one hand, nice that we
             | prevent rich guys from running away to other planets after
             | ruining this one. On the other hand, a lot of services
             | require GPS, it would be chaos if that were to disappear...
        
               | octoberfranklin wrote:
               | GPS is in geosynchronous orbit, insanely far from the
               | Earth's surface.
               | 
               | You can't get chain-reaction collisions to happen at such
               | an outrageously high orbit. That amount of mass you'd
               | have to put into orbit is just insane. It's like trying
               | to crash the moon.
        
               | wat10000 wrote:
               | Nitpick, GPS is about halfway to geosync. Your point
               | stands.
        
             | Noaidi wrote:
             | Ahahaahhaaa.... People are downvoting this! Ahahaaaahha!
             | 
             | Scared cause it's true? Ahhahaa no idea!
        
         | GaggiX wrote:
         | They are almost completely inaccessible to the average Iranian.
         | A friend of mine who has come a long way to fight Iranian
         | censorship told me that they essentially don't exist.
        
           | burkaman wrote:
           | There are ~100,000 users, about 0.1% of the population:
           | https://www.newsweek.com/starlink-usage-iran-skyrockets-
           | brea...
           | 
           | Compare that to the number of cell phone users which is very
           | close to 100%. All estimates of the number of mobile
           | subscribers or number of mobile phone numbers are greater
           | than the total population.
        
             | helloaltalt wrote:
             | How are there so many users, see my other comment but i
             | will ask here as well but starlink's american company and
             | sanctioned iran so how do the details really work?
             | 
             | And how do starlink recievers enter the country in the
             | first place?
             | 
             | This is good that there is still a way to get censorship
             | resistance even after all this perhaps joining it with
             | other protocols which can work via bluetooth,wifi etc. and
             | are more secure connecting to something like this, a secure
             | internet access point could be developed but I don't know
             | too much about it.
        
               | petre wrote:
               | Black market. We had satellite dishes in Eastern Europe
               | during communism. Bribe some people, shell out some
               | insane amounts of cash and it can be done.
        
               | helloaltalt wrote:
               | If black market's the only reason that
               | activism/journalism/outside contact is even possible in
               | the country
               | 
               | It doesn't seem much of a plan (very sadly, I wish there
               | was) which could be uncensored that much, some other
               | comment pointed this point too but if black market's the
               | case, then they would just hide whoever is using this
               | 
               | They would also most likely be very less in amount,
               | journalists etc.
               | 
               | But the average person, they are stuck without proper
               | internet
               | 
               | I thought that there are materials which can build
               | starlink and the only thing then you need is just
               | subscription or something
               | 
               | It's just sad to see that black market is the only way.
        
               | petre wrote:
               | Stop worrying. You don't have to liberate everyone. The
               | Iranian regime will screw itself up by attacking Israel.
               | 
               | It's usually smuggled parts if they're small enough.
               | Someone outside of the country usually makes the
               | subscription and they get paid somehow.
        
               | inglor_cz wrote:
               | As someone who grew up in late Communist Czechoslovakia,
               | you underestimate the black market. Its capabilities were
               | only comparable to the Secret Police itself (StB in our
               | case).
               | 
               | People in unfree conditions are crafty. Same with
               | information. Suppressed information spreads using
               | underground channels quite quickly.
               | 
               | For example, we knew almost immediately that there was
               | some nuclear disaster in Ukraine even though the official
               | channels didn't say anything for days.
        
               | scottyah wrote:
               | As long as starlink isn't forced to geofence an area,
               | anyone can buy a terminal anywhere and smuggle it in as
               | any other drug or contraband. The mini's are about the
               | same size as a laptop
        
               | syncsynchalt wrote:
               | Tools to evade state surveillance and censorship are
               | explicitly exempted from US sanctions against Iran.
               | 
               | https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expands-sanctions-
               | exception...
        
             | torginus wrote:
             | Possibly the number of users is even larger, if people can
             | share a terminal. Wifi 802.11s Mesh with Batman routing
             | scales very well to huge sizes.
        
           | helloaltalt wrote:
           | They must be smuggled inside the country and the dictatorship
           | can say anything they want and charge if they get caught so
           | they must be very few in numbers
           | 
           | I don't know too much about starlink but is there a way that
           | someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a
           | starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy
           | accesible parts from the world?
           | 
           | Because how would people get starlink device. I dont know the
           | mecanism of startlink though or how it works
        
             | falaki wrote:
             | Yes, there are NGOs and organizations that sponsor these
             | and pay for them. Here is an example: https://www.forbes.co
             | m/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-...
        
               | helloaltalt wrote:
               | Forbes asking me to pay
               | 
               | Elevate Your Journey Invest in your success with
               | unlimited access to trusted, in-depth journalism for less
               | than $1/week. Become a member today to continue.
               | 
               | here's an web.archive.org link if anyone's interested
               | which works
               | 
               | https://web.archive.org/web/20250301050041/https://www.fo
               | rbe...
               | 
               | Edit: WTF forbes still gives me a popup even in archive,
               | strange, but its less restrictive overall in the web
               | archive version so I am able to still copy and read the
               | version
        
               | shellwizard wrote:
               | No problem using uBO and FF
        
             | pantalaimon wrote:
             | > is there a way that someone can pay for other person's
             | usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from
             | spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world?
             | 
             | Starlink uses a pretty sophisticated phased array antenna,
             | so not something you can easily build in your garage.
        
             | maxall4 wrote:
             | Starlink receivers are actually very complicated. They make
             | use of a bunch of high-end FPGAs and a bunch of other
             | expensive and uncommon components. See this teardown:
             | https://youtu.be/h6MfM8EFkGg?si=m-sN6UW4nh8_HzPR.
        
             | torginus wrote:
             | I wonder how easy is it to get contraband into the country.
             | The country's huge, and with the current govt not being the
             | most popular or financially well off, I guess there are
             | quite a few border officers willing to make some extra
             | money.
        
           | BurningFrog wrote:
           | Those who have one surely keep that fact secret.
        
         | tguvot wrote:
         | in 2019 internet shutdown happened just before crackdown on
         | protests
        
         | bawolff wrote:
         | Probably the goal of the blackouts is to hinder organizing on
         | social media, discord, whatsapp, etc, not to prevent news
         | getting out.
        
         | themafia wrote:
         | > social media which has enabled analyses
         | 
         | Social media is such a narrow lens that I would be cautious
         | accepting that analysis at face value.
        
           | estimator7292 wrote:
           | > Using these terminals activists and journalists continue to
           | upload videos of demonstrations to an S3 bucket, which has
           | enabled analyses that show demonstrations are very wide
           | spread
           | 
           | Does that make you feel better?
        
             | themafia wrote:
             | If you want a sober and thorough analysis then using a
             | single source is a bad idea. This does not involve
             | feelings, in fact, quite the opposite.
             | 
             | If you want my feelings, then yes, I do think it's chilling
             | that people can satisfy themselves that a few select videos
             | from a foreign area is enough intelligence to make a
             | decision about war.
             | 
             | If you've never had the pleasure of working in a war zone
             | after the troops have left then I think you should ponder
             | the consequences of your analysis a little more deeply.
        
       | TechSquidTV wrote:
       | Government enacted shut down due to protests. I'd like to hear
       | more about how they actually do this.
       | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-cutting-internet-amid-dead...
        
         | immibis wrote:
         | Most likely they just go to the head of the ISP (I bet there's
         | only one) and say turn the internet off or else.
        
           | mywittyname wrote:
           | You assume threats need to be made.
           | 
           | One doesn't get to be the head of a business in a country
           | like Iran without being a True Believer.
        
             | ReptileMan wrote:
             | I doubt there are many true believers. Most of the top
             | brass are probably driven from sf interest. But loyalty is
             | beyond doubt. At least until the regime is winning
        
               | BurningFrog wrote:
               | It's enough to be a True Obeyer.
        
               | helloaltalt wrote:
               | Iran is kind of like russia thinking about it.
               | 
               | Russia's trying to censor some shit too by having outside
               | ipv4 or something (dont know what its called) blocked and
               | basically made a large intranet
               | 
               | But people could still buy vps and make it work somehow
               | 
               | So iran and russia are similar in that sense and this
               | kinda puts things more into balance but I am sure that %
               | of true believers/doing for self interest might vary or
               | something
        
           | thesdev wrote:
           | Yep, everything connecting to the Internet goes through the
           | TIC.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunication_Infrastructu.
           | ..
        
             | breppp wrote:
             | Ministry of Information is a name with a certain feel
        
               | zamadatix wrote:
               | I probably spent far too much time looking into why
               | they'd set themselves up with that kind of name... but it
               | just nerd sniped me too hard to pass up.
               | 
               | Translation tools claim (I don't know enough to verify) a
               | literal translation is "Ministry of Communications and
               | Information Technology". I.e. they handle telecoms & IT,
               | or "communications technology and information technology"
               | if fully expanded.
               | 
               | But why bother switching it around to "Ministry of
               | Information and Communications Technology" then?
               | Apparently because that's what the order we call it in
               | English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_com
               | munications... which surprised me because I didn't even
               | know that was a term and I've only ever worked in the IT
               | and telecoms jobs - WHTMA (We Have Too Many Acronyms).
        
           | deepriverfish wrote:
           | they don't need to say the or else part since they control
           | the whole country including the ISP.
        
         | RealityVoid wrote:
         | You might then enjoy this story that was on the front page a
         | couple of days ago:
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46505352
        
         | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
         | > Government enacted shut down due to protests
         | 
         | Not just protests, it's to prevent foreign interference (like
         | CIA) from fueling civil unrest and spreading AI deepfakes, as
         | seen in Myanmar and Brazil
         | 
         | https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
        
           | daedrdev wrote:
           | Wow its so nice this excuse just happens to shut down the
           | internet when an astronomically unpopular regime faces vast
           | protests after years of economic and political mismanagement
        
             | aprilthird2021 wrote:
             | Internet shut downs are really common in authoritarian
             | countries. India used to shut the Internet down in Kashmir
             | every other day, and in random states for random reasons
             | some as seemingly trivial as high school students taking
             | their board exams
        
             | ithkuil wrote:
             | Apparently a lot of people in the west too are assuming
             | that these protests are fueled by the west. At least that's
             | the most likely explanation for why so many left leaning
             | youth are not supporting Iranians while supporting
             | Palestine. Apparently the fight is not about freedom but
             | about (perceived) whiteness vs non-whiteness
        
               | irusensei wrote:
               | These people treat geopolitics as if they are watching an
               | avengers movie.
        
               | logicchains wrote:
               | >Apparently the fight is not about freedom but about
               | (perceived) whiteness vs non-whiteness
               | 
               | But the Iranians are white. The name Iran is literally
               | derived from "Aryan".
        
               | ithkuil wrote:
               | Yeah of course none of this makes sense. And yet it all
               | has real world consequences. It's all incredibly
               | partisan. If one just manages to take a step back and
               | watch this dynamic from outside it all seems so weird:
               | the islamist Iran backs Hamas, Hamas are Palestinians,
               | Palestinians are victimized by Jews, Jews have money,
               | capitalists have money, america is capitalist, america is
               | imperialist, ergo .... Islamist Iran is against
               | capitalist imperialism. The protests are against islamist
               | Iran ergo they are against the fight against capitalist
               | imperialism and thus they don't deserve solidarity, or
               | something like this.
               | 
               | I would really love to hear from somebody who is not
               | supporting the Iran protests to honestly tell me if I
               | misrepresented their position and in which way
        
               | Aloisius wrote:
               | I believe that was the point they were making.
               | 
               | While I don't think they're right that Iran is ignored
               | because Iranian protesters and the Iranian government are
               | both perceived as white by Americans (or both non-white,
               | depending on the person), it's undeniable that they use
               | the perceived non-whiteness of Palestinians and perceived
               | whiteness of Israelis as rhetorical ammunition.
               | 
               | This rhetorical device is a rather effective as Americans
               | have a tendency to view everything through their own lens
               | of "race"/color so casting the conflict as white people
               | oppressing non-white people _because_ they are non-white
               | is a powerful argument that is easily understood by
               | Americans.
               | 
               | That said, personally, I think Iran is ignored more
               | because Palestine is sucking all the air out of the room
               | than anything else, especially with all the graphic
               | videos/photos. Sudan on the other hand... there's really
               | no excuse for ignoring that.
        
               | shigawire wrote:
               | >Personally, I think Iran is ignored more because
               | Palestine is sucking all the air out of the room than
               | anything else, especially with all the graphic
               | videos/photos.
               | 
               | >Sudan on the other hand... there's really no excuse for
               | ignoring that.
               | 
               | Palestine has the focus because America tax dollars most
               | directly fuel the conflict and it is the most one-sided.
               | 
               | Iran is an internal conflict and Sudan is a civil war -
               | neither of which are as directly funded by the US. Also
               | neither has a perceived clear solution. In the case of
               | Israel, the US should have significant leverage that it
               | does not have in those other conflicts.
        
               | graemep wrote:
               | Aryan does not equal white.
               | 
               | Definitions of race are very culturally dependent. A few
               | decades ago South Asians were regarded as caucasian (I
               | have an American encyclopedia published in the 1950s that
               | says so), a century earlier so were some East Africans
               | (Somalis IIRC). The current western definition of white
               | does not include them.
               | 
               | Similarly the current American definition of black
               | includes people most of the rest of the world would not
               | consider black - we sometimes have to be told that some
               | people identify as "black" (what Americans call passing
               | as white).
        
               | FilosofumRex wrote:
               | No, they're just better educated about Iran than are you.
               | 
               | Iran provides substantial food, fuel, education and
               | healthcare subsidies to the average citizen and has a
               | very effective state bureaucracy which functions
               | independent of political appointees. Pensioners' checks
               | are issued regularly and social services are delivered by
               | charitable "Bonyads", which are run by local mosques,
               | which don't report to any government ministries.
        
           | perching_aix wrote:
           | I gave this a skim and a keyword search. Note that I'm not
           | familiar with the matter.
           | 
           | The article claims that the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar that
           | kicked off in 2017 has been substantively fueled by Facebook
           | propaganda efforts, with strong links to _Myanmar 's own
           | "security forces" (military)_.
           | 
           | > it's to prevent foreign interference (like CIA) from
           | fueling civil unrest and spreading AI deepfakes, as seen in
           | Myanmar and Brazil
           | 
           | In contrast then, you seem to allege that it was actually a
           | foreign interference campaign by the CIA? Or am I
           | misunderstanding what you're proposing?
           | 
           | Because if I'm not, I fail to see how what you linked
           | supports that at all. Even your mention of deepfakes seems
           | very questionable, as those haven't been a thing until late
           | 2017, by which point this cleansing effort was already long
           | underway. I further see that the US has formally condemned
           | these events, although of course that does not rule out
           | involvement.
        
             | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
             | CIA and Amnesty's claims aside, focus on how social media
             | fuels civil unrest, the real concern is foreign
             | interference, Iran has been a target for a very long time
             | 
             | The US wants a regime change, that's a fact, Trump has been
             | very vocal on the matter, and the NSA has the tools to do
             | what ever it pleases on the internet (e.g., PRISM)
        
               | perching_aix wrote:
               | People can focus on a lot of things and make any
               | arbitrary narrative emerge. My problem is exactly that I
               | do not find this angle compelling so far, especially in
               | light of the to-me-obvious alternative.
               | 
               | You started off by listing a bunch of things that did not
               | pass my smell test (and you have now walked back on),
               | then followed it up by what's essentially a scattershot
               | of vague gesturings. Why would I focus on what you tell
               | me to? Not only is any of these not compelling, I do not
               | find you a reliable narrator so far at all.
        
               | bawolff wrote:
               | You know what else fuels unrest - potentially not having
               | basic needs met by society. There is a major economic
               | crisis in Iran. There is an impending water crisis.
               | 
               | Social media is a new thing, but protests are old. People
               | protested in despotic regimes prior to social media, and
               | the triggering factors were basically the same as what is
               | happening in Iran right now.
        
           | breppp wrote:
           | or alternatively to shutdown information flowing out just
           | before the killing begins
           | 
           | https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-
           | release/2020/11/iran...
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | Pretty sure the CIA is perfectly capable of doing that
           | without the internet.
           | 
           | If anything its easier to spread rumours without the internet
           | to let people compare notes
        
         | averysmallbird wrote:
         | There's no single mechanism. Iran's internet is diverse at the
         | edge, and bottlenecked at the international gateway.
         | 
         | Censorship, throttling, and (presumably) surveillance occurs at
         | both layers. In some cases, also the region matters (Sistan and
         | Baluchistan for example have experienced extended blackouts).
         | In part that heterogeneity is because they still ideally want
         | to keep businesses or VIPs online to mitigate the economic loss
         | or logistical issues.
         | 
         | Consequently, the actual means of blocking tends to be on an
         | ISP basis: some will simply drop packets, some will have left
         | certain endpoints open, some will leave international DNS open,
         | etc etc. All that changes when activists notice, exploit the
         | opening, and then the ISP finds out. And then sometimes the TIC
         | (the gateway) will impose blanket limitations or throttling.
         | 
         | My impression is that Iranian intelligence cares less about
         | means than effectiveness, and ISP operators want to keep their
         | license, livelihoods and lives, so they figure out how to meet
         | the mandate. Given that this is something like the fourth
         | blackout in recent years, they've gotten enough practice that
         | there's few options out (that aren't Starlink).
        
           | helloaltalt wrote:
           | > Consequently, the actual means of blocking tends to be on
           | an ISP basis: some will simply drop packets, some will have
           | left certain endpoints open, some will leave international
           | DNS open, etc etc. All that changes when activists notice,
           | exploit the opening, and then the ISP finds out. And then
           | sometimes the TIC (the gateway) will impose blanket
           | limitations or throttling.
           | 
           | Your international dns is interesting post, can dns over
           | https still work like cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 (I don't think cf
           | would work but still) or any other service?
           | 
           | Is there any iranian person in here hackernews who can test
           | if international dns query works?
           | 
           | There are ways to send some very important data (although
           | small so a little limited but I think in current time if it
           | can help 1% it helps) that I saw that we can program dns to
           | send each other arbitrary data as well
           | 
           | In fact there is a tool which can in fact run dns queries and
           | create a sort of finger like protocol on it called dns.toys
           | https://www.dns.toys/
           | 
           | Which can basically have some cli application like experience
           | on top of dns and there msut be dns tools for communications
           | as well.
        
             | itintheory wrote:
             | The term you're looking for is "dns tunneling".
        
       | uyzstvqs wrote:
       | Can't wait for a certain dictator to get a cellmate, so that our
       | Persian and Kurdish friends can have freedom, including free
       | unrestricted internet access.
       | 
       | And for fellow HN users from there, here's some great stuff:
       | https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://bitchat.free/
        
         | huragok wrote:
         | MbS? MbZ?
        
         | throwaway894345 wrote:
         | I'm also curious about LoRA / sneakernet applications. Have
         | those been widely used in cases of censorship?
        
           | anakaine wrote:
           | Lora is fine if you want to send a very short message. Its
           | not useful for much else.
           | 
           | Its also not a prevalent technology compared to
           | general.internet/mobile phone.
           | 
           | Organising resistance with it is the pipe dream of those who
           | play with chips and antennas, but its not something thats
           | going to happen when crowds and mobs form up in a situation
           | like this. Not least because the hardware is not accessible
           | to your average citizen.
        
             | throwaway894345 wrote:
             | Yeah, that makes sense. I've curious if there are
             | sneakernet things for communicating messages between
             | passing mobile devices? Something that uses exist hardware
             | and is actually used in practice.
        
               | wiml wrote:
               | There are things like Briar, Scuttlebutt, Berty, Serval,
               | probably more I don't know of.
        
             | itintheory wrote:
             | There are real-world examples of non-internet networks
             | being created in authoritarian regimes. One example I've
             | read about is in Cuba [1] but I presume there are others.
             | 
             | [1] https://restofworld.org/2020/the-life-and-death-of-
             | snet-hava...
        
         | sigmonsays wrote:
         | how does Yggdrasil work if ipv6 is dead?
        
           | rnhmjoj wrote:
           | Yggdrasil uses exclusively IPv6 for routing on its own
           | overlay network, but not on the Internet. See
           | https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/faq.html#does-
           | yggdrasil-...
        
         | croes wrote:
         | Like when the US removed Saddam?
         | 
         | How did that wirk out?
         | 
         | You need more of a plan than just get rid of a dictator.
        
           | swat535 wrote:
           | Iran can end up in a much more dire state. It can end up
           | another Syria / Libya.. or worse another aggressive group
           | like Taliban can take hold of the central government.
           | 
           | I also fear that the looming, imminent war between Israel and
           | Iran is going to make things works. I'm expecting Israel to
           | start a conflict within the next 6 months (or sooner) with
           | the aid of United States.
           | 
           | This is the weakest IRGC have been. Many of their allies have
           | been crippled, they have water issues, economical issues and
           | now protests.
           | 
           | I think that securing Venezuela's oil aids this, should IRAN
           | attempt to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, it will allow Israel
           | and United States to maintain reserves (to what extend, I
           | don't know).
           | 
           | I think things are going to get difficult for Iranian people,
           | no matter what.
        
           | tonymet wrote:
           | We have a pro this time
        
           | reissbaker wrote:
           | It worked out poorly _for America_ -- we got stuck in a long
           | expensive war that we got basically nothing from -- but for
           | the average Iraqi? I 'd much rather be an Iraqi citizen than
           | an Iranian one, and that wouldn't have been true in the 90s.
           | Saddam was pretty evil -- and a bad leader. Iraq's GDP per
           | capita is 6x higher today than it was in 2002, a year before
           | the invasion.
        
             | csb6 wrote:
             | It worked out pretty poorly for the average Iraqi. Hundreds
             | of thousands of Iraqis were killed (some estimates put it
             | at around 1 million), and millions of people became
             | refugees.
             | 
             | Citing the relative GDP per capita number is reductive and
             | doesn't give a good picture of the average person's life.
        
         | aprilthird2021 wrote:
         | The Kurdish separatists and militants allied with the wrong
         | country and they have very little chance of a state of their
         | own.
         | 
         | Iranians though, sure, things can change with or without the
         | current govt
        
           | Qwertious wrote:
           | >The Kurdish separatists and militants allied with the wrong
           | country
           | 
           | Which country is that? Last I checked, the Kurds were helping
           | out the US a couple of years ago and got absolutely screwed.
        
         | switchbak wrote:
         | Sure, a US invasion of Iran would undoubtedly lead to good
         | things. And how can you say the Kurds are friends of the USA
         | (I'm presuming you mean friends of the USA) given how many
         | times they've been abandoned?
         | 
         | Just take a look at what happened to Libya, sometimes removing
         | a "bad person" will cause a far worse situation to evolve. Like
         | literal human slavery.
         | 
         | I will never cease to be amazed at the amnesia that arises when
         | folks in power decide now is a good time to sell a war to the
         | people.
        
           | anakaine wrote:
           | In Iran they have had several police forces join the
           | protestors at this point. Hopefully its a theme that
           | continues and includes the military.
           | 
           | It only takes about 30% of the population supporting the
           | regime plus military intervention to hold onto power. For
           | some time now it seems that they've been below the 30% mark.
        
           | cestith wrote:
           | Sadly for the Kurds I'd say they are still pretty good
           | friends to the US, as poorly as it's been reciprocated.
           | 
           | As for the rest of what you said, no notes.
        
           | themafia wrote:
           | > a US invasion of Iran would undoubtedly lead to good
           | things.
           | 
           | I think their neighbor would disagree.
           | 
           | > sell a war to the people.
           | 
           | If you have to sell the war, then you have no business
           | conducting it.
        
           | keybored wrote:
           | All correct. But something needs to be frontloaded.
           | 
           | 1. Even if removing <bad government> would be good for that
           | country, that doesn't give some other state the _right_ to do
           | it. We let these entities get away with murder because they
           | are our friends and they have the biggest guns, that's it.
           | 
           | 2. Always interrogate the real reasons why a state is doing
           | it.
           | 
           | Now only after that we get to the facts like all those times
           | it ended horribly for the people that <state> was supposed to
           | help.
        
           | DrProtic wrote:
           | Even as we speak Kurds are getting attacked near Aleppo by
           | US-backed ex-Al-Qaeda president of Syria.
        
         | andrepd wrote:
         | Yes, both Venezuela and (in your hypothetical) Iran would
         | certainly be better and not worse after US intervention. How
         | could they not, with such a great track record (Iraq, Lybia,
         | Chile, Guatemala,...)!
        
       | jccx70 wrote:
       | Soon free Coca-Cola for Iran.
        
       | breppp wrote:
       | Map of protests:
       | 
       | https://pouyaii.github.io/Iran/
        
         | ukblewis wrote:
         | Can you please re-share this as a separate link? It deserves
         | it's own attention
        
           | breppp wrote:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547303
           | 
           | There was a recent post containing a (different) map of the
           | protests that was flagged, but here goes
        
             | ukblewis wrote:
             | The mods here seem to definitely have an agenda... but they
             | can't silence us
        
       | helloaltalt wrote:
       | marcosdumay's comment of here explained situation (giving it more
       | attention)
       | 
       | they can censor IPv4 when they want, but they don't know how to
       | censor IPv6. So they block it entirely.
       | 
       | This is the reason why they aren't blacking out IPv4
       | 
       | From my own experience, my ex gf was iranian. She was using
       | discord via some psiphon vpn or something iirc idk how she got
       | access to it but she had it.
       | 
       | I didn't trust psiphon that much so I asked her to install proton
       | vpn and it did work. I wanted to play minecraft with her so
       | prismlauncher but resources couldn't be downloaded so I made her
       | download protonvpn so that she can play minecraft with me/install
       | it (piracy was forced and also at that point necessary)
       | 
       | She was using tlauncher which somehow worked but tlauncher was
       | russian spyware and prism launcher was open source
       | 
       | I talked to her about how she could use stablecoins crypto but
       | crypto was illegal so ended up not suggesting it in the end to
       | prevent inflation or talked to her about gold which is wild
       | considering its like 3-4 months after we broke up but inflation
       | is at 50% now.
       | 
       | Anyways the point being that protonvpn worked and other vpn
       | worked too.
       | 
       | My question is, would things like protonvpn work after this
       | blackout? I mean marco's and other comments in a thread explain
       | to me that ipv4 can be blocked by them so I presume vpn's for
       | ipv4 would shut down. And so vpns would most likely be using ipv6
       | which got blocked down
       | 
       | So does that mean that now Iranian people can't access vpns?
       | 
       | I also saw the other day some video about how when people called
       | Iranian numbers from outside countries some random AI robot ass
       | voice called and asked who are you and who are you talking to?
       | And gave pause, and the most logical explaination to it was that
       | the govt was recording these things so dont say anything to them.
       | It was a creepypasta video.
       | 
       | Briar might help but Briar still leaks some metadata when I
       | talked to their authors or heard about it online.
       | 
       | Instagram isn't blocked in Iran so are these social media apps
       | still there after the blackout?
       | 
       | This raises so many questions and wtf is happening in the world
        
         | esseph wrote:
         | It depends on how they do it, but you can shut down the router
         | ports that connect to the rest of the world easily if they
         | want.
         | 
         | Internet participation is voluntary between countries.
        
         | sosborn wrote:
         | Most of what's happening in the word can be boiled down to
         | either someone craving power, or someone in power desperately
         | struggling to hold on to it.
        
       | amir734jj wrote:
       | I'm an Iranian and this protest is very different because it's
       | not about a specific government policy ... It's about the
       | totality of the regime. Unfortunately, government has been
       | following the same old brutal playbook by killing protesters and
       | cutting off the Internet.
        
         | FilosofumRex wrote:
         | that would make it much more suspicious the protests are being
         | orchestrated from outside by CIA/Mossad...
         | 
         | The "regime" is a republic with regularly held presidential (8
         | presidents in 45 years) and parliamentary elections. What would
         | you like to replace it with? Monarchy
        
           | amir734jj wrote:
           | I would like people not to get killed when they protest
           | 
           | I would like the internet not to get shut down during the
           | protest
           | 
           | Am I asking too much?
        
             | FilosofumRex wrote:
             | No, it's just exactly what CIA/Mossad are asking for, too -
             | you're in good company
        
               | amir734jj wrote:
               | You think I am CIA/Mossad for asking people not to get
               | killed when they protest? I expected HN community to be
               | better. Shame.
        
             | cramsession wrote:
             | Who was killed? Mossad agitators. Maybe they shouldn't be
             | conducting attacks on Iran.
        
       | oncallthrow wrote:
       | I sometimes feel like declaring a fatwa on IPv6 too, to be fair
        
       | helloaltalt wrote:
       | Quick question but would tor work in this case?
       | 
       | Is this the first country which genuinely effectively is able to
       | ban tor?
       | 
       | Because even in China, tor can work through bridges or some other
       | methods and even Chinese firewalls aren't so extreme as iran
       | right now.
       | 
       | Edit: forgot that north korea exists so I guess the second
       | country but even in north korea there was this chinese
       | interviewer or japanese interviewer who contacted people in north
       | korea ig and those north koreans then interviewed for the first
       | time completely uncensored north korea and it was brutal (a girl
       | saying both her parents died and she was so so skinny i think) ,
       | they then went and smuggled the tapes from north korea to china
       | and then to japan and then the company/production company or
       | something blurred the peoples faces involved for anonymity.
       | 
       | There's also this 1 steam connection in north korea so its just
       | gonna be a mystery if we ever see a north korean person using a
       | tor but I am 99% sure that it wont but north korea also got 1
       | steam connection so you never know.
        
         | flotzam wrote:
         | Tor can reach IPv6 destinations through IPv4 entry nodes, if
         | that's what your asking.
        
           | helloaltalt wrote:
           | IPv4 is sanctioned/heavily restricted in iran as well, I mean
           | very high filtering
           | 
           | The reason they didn't do this for ipv6 is because ipv6
           | obviously has a lot more addresses and so they just ended up
           | blocking it whole.
           | 
           | Atleast that's what I read in one of the comment threads
           | discussions in here
           | 
           | I don't think that in iran there would still be any available
           | ipv4 entry nodes that they would allow. They would
           | filter/block it as well?
        
             | flotzam wrote:
             | Right, I should have written "IPv4 bridges" (which can be
             | obfuscated and distributed out of band), not "IPv4 entry
             | nodes": https://bridges.torproject.org/
             | 
             | But you can reach the IPv6 internet through those too.
        
             | bawolff wrote:
             | > I don't think that in iran there would still be any
             | available ipv4 entry nodes that they would allow. They
             | would filter/block it as well?
             | 
             | That's what bridges are for.
             | 
             | Blocking is a cat and mouse game. It depends how heavy
             | handed they are about it, but unless they totally cut off
             | the external internet, its unlikely tor is 100% blocked,
             | although it might be effectively blocked for most people.
        
               | adamfisk wrote:
               | Tor is used relatively little in Iran -
               | https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-
               | country.html...
               | 
               | Other tools are much, much more popular, such as Psiphon,
               | Lantern, MahsaNG, etc.
        
       | weregiraffe wrote:
       | A communications disruption could mean only one thing...
        
       | jrochkind1 wrote:
       | I remember reading about how Venezuela had an internet blackout
       | preceding US attack, presumably the blackout was an attack by US
       | "cyber". Ah, here we are. https://securitybrief.co.uk/story/us-
       | cyber-attack-on-venezue...
       | 
       | The discussion here assumes that the Iranian government is
       | responsible for this blackout. I actually don't understand enough
       | about network routing to undestand the OP dashboard linked to or
       | be able to answer this question, but could it instead be the work
       | of an opponent preparing to attack Iran?
        
         | GaggiX wrote:
         | Iran has shut down the internet nationwide several times
         | before, this is nothing new when there are protests.
        
         | cosmicgadget wrote:
         | Seems more likely that an authoritarian regime is suppressing
         | protests. Unless there has been a troop buildup of which I am
         | unaware, there's no imminent invasion.
        
         | TiredOfLife wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46538001
        
       | labanimalster wrote:
       | The discussion about Starlink is interesting, but with only ~0.1%
       | of the population having access, the real story is the 99.9% who
       | are cut off right now. The asymmetry between those who can
       | broadcast to the world and those who can't is staggering -- and
       | even among that 0.1%, many are too afraid to broadcast anything,
       | knowing the risks.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | The key is that the 99% can transfer data and such internally
         | to the country; the 0.1% can then leak it out.
        
           | jszymborski wrote:
           | but, regrettably, at a trickle
        
           | esafak wrote:
           | How effectively can they share data domestically during
           | blackouts?
        
             | octoberfranklin wrote:
             | Carrier pigeons.
             | 
             | And hamsters.
             | 
             | Don't underestimate the hamsters.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | Especially ones in a station wagon full of tapes hurtling
               | down the highway.
               | 
               | But seriously?
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | There are mesh networks, but even so IPv4 isn't down, and
               | people can share files p2p.
        
               | adamfisk wrote:
               | Theoretically this is true, but in practice it's not.
               | Most p2p services rely on the global internet in some
               | way. The BitTorrent DHT, for example, is unlikely so
               | self-heal in the event of a completely inaccessible
               | global internet.
               | 
               | Things like HolePunch have a lot of potential here, but
               | you'd need an Iran-only DHT, and it's just not deployed
               | at scale.
        
       | OhMeadhbh wrote:
       | Oh. Looks like they're not announcing V4 networks as well now.
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | We live in interesting times
        
         | tryauuum wrote:
         | I wish interesting times would come without the castrated
         | internet
        
       | AlessiaFiorella wrote:
       | How many conspiracy theories can people suggest instead of
       | accepting that peaceful Iranians want to live and not be
       | concerned that they won't have water or food to eat
        
       | MantasPetraitis wrote:
       | Free Iran from the terrorists
        
         | cramsession wrote:
         | Iran is already doing a great job resisting Zionist terrorism.
        
       | gunalx wrote:
       | Its for times like this briar or similar applications are super
       | useful. Also memory sticks. To bad distributing is not to simple.
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | I just spent the better part of an hour, trying to track down
       | anomalies, in one of my servers (Iran feeds us a lot of data),
       | only to find DNS (IPv4) is not resolving. It worked fine, just a
       | bit earlier.
       | 
       | Ah, well...
        
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