Cyber warriors join fight against censors and foil Iran’s bid to silence bloggers

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6531831.ece

[...]
Ehsan Zahedani, 27, is sitting at a table, checking his Facebook page. The student of politics and Iranian studies at nearby UCLA has more than 1,950 “friends” and his profile page is filled with posts, pictures and links to videos on YouTube — all about the protests in Iran.
Mr Zahedani is part of an informal online network across Southern California working to support the protesters on the streets and broadcast their message to the world.
[...]
A guerrilla war of slogans and strategies has played out on Twitter and websites such as YouTube as protesters have sought to get round the Iranian Government’s efforts to shut down communications outlets. Iranians in California are determined to do their bit to make sure that the censors do not win. Web-savvy supporters have pitched in to give technical support to those in the homeland trying to get round the blocks.
[...]
They have set up proxy servers, which can help to bypass censorship by hiding the identity and location of users. Hundreds of proxy servers all around the world have been set up for use inside Iran and, as they have been shut down, others have popped up.
One blogger put up an “Iran Election Cyberwarfare Guide” detailing how activists could support Iranian tweeters. Advice included: “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.”

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Net response to Iran shows we are all newsmakers now

·Coverage of the Iran uprising shows the beauty of the internet - connecting us to events in another country.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/17/twitter-socialnetworking

The internet is a brilliant machine for spreading information. Data shoots across the network at the speed of light, passing from one node to another. It's unmotivated by fear or repression or greed, and can shine a torch into the darkest corners to help bring what was hidden to the world.
The uprising in Iran has been a perfect case in point - despite state censorship, the suppression of journalists and the shutdown of communications - the story has been covered from almost every angle: and the internet has played a vital part in getting the information out.

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US must rein in Israel's nuclear arms

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/22/nuclear-arms-israel-iran-obama

The surprise announcement by Rose Gottemoeller, a US assistant secretary of state, that America would like every nation – including Israel – to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) has sent shockwaves through Tel Aviv, confirming the fears (or hopes, depending on who you ask) that the Obama administration is initiating a major overhaul of its policy on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
The Israeli government will certainly challenge the Obama administration on this issue, as Israel is not likely to ­co-operate, to put it mildly, with the state department's new logical, fair-minded approach to non-proliferation.
It was none other than Avigdor ­Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, who declared – with a quite a bit of ­chutzpah – that the US government would adopt whatever policy Israel dictated. But Israelis should realise that the American president cannot be reduced to a puppet of the Israeli government[!!!].
Bearing in mind the possibility of an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, it is critical that the US pursue a robust non-proliferation policy, and demand that all countries in the region sign and implement the NPT. This is the only way to prevent another war in the Middle East.
When Israeli leaders talk about halting the Iranian nuclear programme, it is a barely concealed threat of a military strike. Just last month, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz published an article by its senior commentator for military affairs calling for Israeli military action against the Iranian nuclear project. When the most liberal daily paper publishes such an article, alarm bells should start ringing.

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