Friday
Dec182009
Iran: The Regime Takes On (Hacks?) Twitter for Moharram
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 7:34 
UPDATE 1320 GMT: HomyLafayette offers an important correction on the text used by the "Iranian Cyber Army" (see 0945 GMT): "The red text on the green flag in fact reads, 'O Hossein, peace be upon him,' referring to Imam Hossein, a key figure in Islam and the 3rd Imam of Shiites." It is Hossein's death that is commemorated in the month of Moharram that starts today.UPDATE 1010 GMT: Twitter has posted, “Twitter’s DNS [Domain Name System] records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.”
UPDATE 0945 GMT: When FoxNews caught up with this story, they included this information:
"Above the flag, in Arabic, read: 'Hezbollah is victorious.' On the flag, in red Arabic writing: 'Yassin' (an Arabic name written in bold) then in smaller Arabic print 'the feast of peace'. Below the flag was more written in Farsi."
0755 GMT: We just found the screenshot of Twitter's website when it was "occupied" by the "Iranian Cyber Army". It is the same text and image that appeared on the Green Movement's website Mowj-e-Sabz on Wednesday.
I woke this morning to find that Twitter was running extremely slowly and sometimes grinding to a halt. Indeed, since 1200 GMT yesterday there have been serious slow-downs in delivery of messages.
Service is now picking up, but the hot story is that Twitter was hacked yesterday by the "Iranian Cyber Army" with this message:
THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMYiRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM
U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….
NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.
Sharp-eyed EA readers will recognise that "Iranian Cyber Army" is the same group that took over the domain of the Green Movement's website Mowj-e-Sabz/Mowjcamp earlier this week.
The Latest from Iran (18 December): Moharram Begins
Yet, in this apparent victory for Iranian cyber-warfare, there lies I think a greater admission of defeat. If Twitter has not been that important in the challenge to the regime's legitimacy since the Presidential election of June, why try to knock it out --- raising the ire of millions of users who so far have had little interest in the events in Iran --- at the start of Moharram? That seems more a confession of worry than an assertion of strength.
And it is one thing to take out an opposition website; another to try and still one of the most significant global shifts in the use of the Internet. For a few hours, yes, but for all of today? And the next day? And all the way to the likely mass protests on Ashura on 27 December?
So, if the Iranian Cyber Army did indeed take on and for, at least a moment, knock down Twitter....it may be time to look up the definition of "Pyrrhic victory".
Reader Comments (24)
I think Iran115 just blew a fuse is all. lol
TheVeni,
I just wish he wouldn't blow it when I'm trying to catch up with likelihood of big events today....
S.
Speaking of hacking, for the last 3-4 days the Iran Human Rights Activists site has had a message in Farsi on their home page instead of their normal site. Does anyone know what it says?:
http://hra-iran.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=66&Itemid=293
HAHA by hacking twitter they will bring more attention to the dictatorship of the IRI from the western people and their media. I hope they keep it up :P
Speaking of things.. I have been having trouble with your website the last few days, link has been broken a couple of times, I hope your not next!
Catherine,
It says, "Site is under renovation, Please try it later."
Anna,
I had problem accessing EA as well.
Scott,
For me the problem was on December 17 around 12:00.
Megan and Anna
I had this probleme as well !
Dear all,
Thank you for concern. Our technical problems have been with our hosting service, NOT with a denial-of-service attack. Special entry on this being posted soon,
S.
Arabic is the religious language of Islam, like Latin is the religious language of Catholics, so we've seen a lot of things have Arabic mottoes or prayers on them, it's not that unusual.
Rev Magdalen,
That's what I thought but wanted to check --- anything unusual in the words used?
S.
Scott that would be a question for Josh! Could just be some snippet that somebody picked up off of a Hezbollah site, all I know is that a lot of the translations that come through will have a section that says "[Prayers in Arabic]" on them so it seems it's not unusual for people to tack them onto things. Just saying it doesn't necessarily mean it didn't come from Iran just because it has Arabic on it.
I would say that the whole thing was a hoax by bored teens but it seems weird they'd hack mowjcamp too, I can't see teens getting a kick out of doing that. It's hard to believe an official Iranian Regime hacker force would be so hamfisted though! Everyone just laughed at that goofy message, it scared no one!
This hacking means that even if they had any weaknesses in computer science, thanks to russians, they are able to control everything especially twitter and the opposition's sites, therefore iranian young people will have trouble sending the informations outside the country during this month !
I find this flag very strange , because on it you can see writting " ya Hossein"; it's the flag waved by Moussavi's supporters especially during this month of Moharram !
Scott
It's not " Yassin" it's " Ya Hossein " !
Is it a game of our "Artesh" , and they want to cover their tracks ?
Ange,
Thanks --- have noted in our updates, although I think this would be case of pro-regime group trying to claim Hossein and thus Moharram.
S.
Catherine the site states in PERSIAN, that it is under routine work. Please use the English term "Persian" when in English contexts, the term "farsi" is to be used in Persian contexts. We would never say, "I speak francais," but use the proper English term "French." Thank you.
Hossein -
Unfortunately, that distinction is not well known or understood over here in the U.S. (I'm not sure about other countries; perhaps other people can say.) You are likely to hear it again and again. Not only do most people here think that "Persian" and "Farsi" are interchangeable, but many (incorrectly) think that "Farsi" is the preferred term.
An analogy I'd make is this: I'm from the American South. In America, people from the North are called "Yankees" or "Yanks". It is simply incorrect to call someone from the South a "Yankee". In fact, some Southerners would be insulted by this. However, people in Australia, the UK, and many other parts of the world call ALL Americans "Yankees." Somehow, when the term "Yankee" got popular abroad, it was misappropriated and misunderstood. However, by now, that usage is so widespread that its virtually become correct in those parts of the world.
I'd say that "Farsi" falls in the same category - it is used so commonly in American English by now, that you'll find it almost impossible to correct every single person who uses it.
Speaking of language, I wish that the Iranian Cyber Army had just written in Persian. If they had written in Persian, I would at least have a halfway decent chance of translating their words to understandable English. Whatever the heck they wrote today, I have no chance at all of translating it into understandable English. LOL
Re: Ange in #13, I think you are more worried than you need to be. We've seen nothing at all since the election to suggest that regime supporters, with or without Russian help, could successfully paralyze all the different ways that Iranian greens get information out to the world.
That said, Twitter does have a history of being taken down pretty easily (unfortunately.)
Homeylafayette Blog has a great translation and analysis of the hacker message here:
http://homylafayette.blogspot.com/2009/12/twitter-homepage-hacked-by-iranian.html
To me the thing that's most significant is the poetry in Persian at the end of the message, because that would be hardest for non-Iranians to fake. This poem seems to match perfectly with the mentality of the Basiji described in the recent Channel 4 defector interview. It describes an absolute loyalty to the Supreme Leader and warns that it's only through his order to be still that the hackers, whoever they are, restrain themselves. It would be great to find out if this poem is original or if it could have been copied from somewhere.
There seems to be a general consensus growing that the term "hezbollah" used probably refers to the generic sense of that word and not the political party in Lebanon. It's possible that Basiji or AN supporters might think of themselves as being "hezbollah" or "party of god" just meaning "religious people".
Oh you already updated with the Homeylafayette blog! You're so fast! :-) Got to wake up pretty early to sneak one by Enduring America!
[...] [...]
@ Hossein RE Please use the English term “Persian” when in English contexts, the term “farsi” is to be used in Persian contexts. We would never say, “I speak francais,” but use the proper English term “French.”
Thanks for the tip. I'd never thought about how 'Farsi' used in a sentence in another language would sound to an Iranian. Very strange indeed! On the other hand, I'm a student of linguistics and was just repeating the technical name you'll find in textbooks. But I'll use Persian here from now on. I - a Spanish speaker - have a comparable problem when I hear someone say something like , "We're staying at the La Posada Hotel" - 'la' meaning 'the' in Spanish. An Italian friend of mine goes nuts every time she sees a sign for 'pomodori tomatoes' in the supermarket. :-) Kevyn Scott's analogy with Yanks now used for all Americans is also very true!
But now you have to convince Homylafayette not to commit the same error ;-)
http://homylafayette.blogspot.com/2009/12/twitter-homepage-hacked-by-iranian.html