I thought my viewers might find the following interesting.
An Islamophobic site titled Bare Naked Islam carried the following photo:
Now, any fool would suspect that this picture had been photoshopped. I mean, really, if Code Pink had called for the murder of American troops, wouldn’t they have brought public catastrophe on their heads?
After less than a minute on Google, I found the following at Sadly No, which located the original photo and even exposed the people who photoshopped it.
(Nicely done, by the way!)
So I, as a good citizen, alerted the good people at Bare Naked Islam to the error of their ways, not once, but twice. After they deleted my post the first time, I screensaved it the second time in anticipation of their next move.
I did not have long to wait for their next move:
(Notice the time on the lower right side of the computer screen.)
Boo-ya!
Somewhere in Hell, Stalin is blushing…
PS: The Bare Naked Liars are poor sports…
Now you see it,
and now you don’t! (This time it only took them about a minute.)
What follows is an article I was asked to translate. Midway through the translation, it occurred to me that it was marred by unsubstantiated statements and exaggerations.
Thursday, 29 Bahman 1388 [February 18, 2010]
Report on the Operation of the Cyber Army in Hacking Websites
During the past few months, the activities of the Iranian Cyber Army have been noted by the Iranian and even the international media. The theory that these hacker groups are connected to the Iranian government was strengthened when, after several sites were hacked, they issued warnings to the Green Movement. The scope of the measures taken by the Cyber Army discredits the theory that a group of Ahmandinejad’s admirers spontaneously carried out such acts. These messages and the nature of the sites chosen for attack indicate that there are hidden hands which support the Cyber Army.
A review of the political messages published by this group in recent months and the official statements of a government administrator of Iran’s aviation industry in defense of the Cyber Army provide a reason for a closer examination of Iran’s Cyber Army, research about which had heretofore claimed was composed of Russian hackers whose base was outside of Iran. But what is the Iranian Cyber Army and where is it based? Before considering these details, a few preliminaries are necessary.
Attack on Twitter
On the morning of Friday, 28 Azar 1388 [December 19, 2009], connection with the website Twitter was cut in some parts of the world and those who tried to access it were transferred to a message in English which read:
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.
Attack on Baidu
On the morning of Tuesday, 22 Dey 1388 [January 12, 2010], the website Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine, washacked. In a message on it, it was written: “The Iranian Cyber army has been launched in protest against intervention by foreign and Zionist sites in our country’s domestic affairs and the spreading of lying and divisive news.”
On 10 Bahman 1388 [January 30, 2010], The Iranian Cyber Army hacked the website of RadioZamaneh, changing its front page to a picture of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flag and the slogans “Ya Hosein (aleihum salam)” and “Persian Gulf”, under which it was written,
If the Leader commands, we attack
If he asks, we sacrifice ourselves
If he wants us to be patient and steadfast
We will sit down and take it in stride.
On 23 Bahman 1388 [February 12, 2010], those who tried to access the site of Jaras News, which publishes news of the Green Movement, were faced with this message from the Iranian Cyber Army on its front page:
Out of respect for the referendum which was held on 22 Bahman [February 11, 2010] and the people who voted and out of respect for the great nation and country named Iran … do not be a tool of those who live safe and sound in America and are using you as a tool.
A Prank on the Iranian Cyber Army
On 16 Bahman 1388 [February 5, 2010], the website Khodnevis, which is administered by NikahangKosar, wrote in the satirical column “False News”:
In an amazing and unprecedented step, the Iranian Cyber Army hacked the Mehrabad Airport portal so that those who try to access this site, namely airport workers, are directed to the Raja Rail Company when they type in its URL. It is said that the attack occurred in the early hours of the night and continued into Saturday, facing the airport with a serious crisis. The sudden occurrence of dozens of air accidents in the skies over Tehran as a result of the tower’s air traffic control communications systems’ failure was considered the most important danger which followed this attack, threatening the capital of Iran. Although experts believe that this attack was done by mistake and the technical difficulties were fixed an hour later, the Iranian Cyber Army, after hacking the Mehrabad portal, placed a flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran with a blue color [instead of the green color, which is the at the top of the tricolored flag], along with a message reading, “The Iranian Cyber Army warns all mercenaries who would sell-out their country that they will not be safe even in the skies.”
This satire, which was based on an altered version of part of the real message of the Iranian Cyber Army when it hacked Radio Zamaneh, was quickly reflected on Iranian news sites. A few hours later, the rumor spread of a mistaken attack by the Iranian Cyber Army on a government website became a means of ridiculing this group. Although a few hours later, these sites wiped this news from the various sites on which it had appeared, the rumor continued to spread, to the point that some large companies immediately signed multi-year contracts with internet security groups to strengthen the firewalls of their websites.
The Reaction of a Government Administrator
On 18 Bahman 1388 [February 7, 2010], only two days after this rumor spread, Morteza Dehqan, the acting manager of Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, in the process of denying the attack on this airport’s site in the course of a discussion with a group of journalists, called it news blackmail, saying,
When foreign agents failed to achieve their filthy ends after the elections, they tried to concoct a conspiracy based on an attack on Tehran’s international airport in order to disrupt the country’s security atmosphere, while no such attack occurred on the airport’s website’s portal and this news is a pure lie from start to finish. It is clear that the counter-revolutionary media has discovered the Iranian Cyber Army’s power and, out of fear of its power, wishes to launch accusations through which it can divert public opinion.
Nikahang Kawsar, who had already stated on his site Khodnevis that this news was a rumor, now, after the publication of the interview with the acting administrator of Mehrabad Airport, wrote in part of his report about this event, “ … When Mehrabad Airport’s acting administrator denied the report about the attack on that airport’s website, he defended the Cyber Army’s record, and we realized that our fake news had done its job. An official officer of the Islamic Republic defended the Cyber Army in such a way that it seems that this group is led by the [Islamic Republican] system.”
On Iranian Hacker Groups
During the past eight years, many groups of hackers were formed in Iran of which the most famous are Ashianeh, Shabgard, and Simorgh. These groups freely attacked various websites by taking advantage of the lack of implementing the laws of punishment current in Iran, in order to win fame as well as out of rivalry with other groups.
Following the rise in reports about hijackings of Iranian government websites and the spread of news in this regard, intelligence agencies became interested in the power of hacking tools and began their widespread efforts to control and guide such attacks.
Security and intelligence organizations, inviting infiltration groups’ cooperation, got them to identify and counteract opponents in the internet and form intelligence groups to control the flow of their information. Some time later, these people also taught hacking techniques to military technicians.
The Formation of the Iranian Cyber Army
The group Ashiyaneh was one of the first to join the circle of government infiltrators and set about wrecking the sites of the Islamic Republic’s opponents with the cooperation of the best hackers. Reports of this group’s activities were published in government media, such as Voice and Vision, Keyhan, and IRNA and were noticed very soon.2
Teaching the Military to Hack
Alongside the hacker group activities, supposedly private companies were organized as well whose primary duty was to recruit infiltrating forces, instruct military forces in cyber attacks, and prepare the necessary resources for such attacks. These companies were charged with training infiltrators and carrying out hacking projects for the Iranian Cyber Army. In the meantime, these companies would import technology needed by Iran’s security forces from Dubai. Among the managers of these companies is the son of one of the senior security officers who, utilizing his father’s connections, has been busy for years working with the military and security forces.3 After the formation of a company through the military budget, he has been busy recruiting expert Iranian infiltrators and, having formed a professional and firm group, has begun to accept cyber control projects in Iran and infiltrators for the government.
How Group Members Are Chosen
The plan for the formation of an Iranian Cyber Army was raised in 1384 [2005] in the Revolutionary Guards, but with the increase in propaganda against the ninth government, its execution was sped up. A while later, a very broad group was formed, the number of whose members reached more greater than a few. The Cyber Army’s unit for recruiting human resources works as follows: After recognizing a professional hacker, it contacts him and threatens him that if he does not cooperate, he will be sent off to prison.
Relationships and information of individuals are so controlled that even most of the group members are not yet aware of their collaboration with the Cyber Army. Considering the use of geniuses, the scientific level of the Cyber Army is very high, and considering the high record of activities of the infiltrators in Iran the power of this army in achieving its goal is comparable to similar groups which operate in the American and Israeli intelligence agencies. It is worth saying that the Center for Struggle with Organized Cyber Crime (the Sepah’s cyber troops) is composed of the same people.
In Ordibehesht 1388 [May 2009], Fars news service reported that the foundation Defense Tech, which is an American military and security agency, called Iran one of the five countries with the most powerful cyber forces, based on figures received from the CIA. This foundation declared that the Iranian Cyber Army’s budget is 76 million dollars, emphasizing that it is monitored by a group from the Revolutionary Guard’s cyber supervision team.4
A Short Time to Execute Instructions
Iran’s Cyber Army has so far not been able to breach the servers of the websites it is after, but has contented itself with simply stealing their domains. This method indicates the temporal limitations of the group for executing its infiltration operations. In the past few months, they have carried out orders transmitted by their chief using methods which require less time. In their attack on Twitter, they hacked the computer of one of the members of this company with a Trojan horse and were able, by utilizing his email, to reset the domain of his control panel. This was similar to the attack of 1383 [2004] tried by one of the Iranian hacker groups on one of the NASA websites.5 In attacking Jaras and other websites, the Cyber Army uses the technique of DNS Cache Spoofing which changed the domain.
Footnotes
1 We have seen no reference to this. The Financial Timesreported on January 13, 2010, that Iranian State Television was hacked.
2 Fars news agency claimed that Ashianeh hacked 400 Israeli sites, including Defense Minister Barak and Mossad. (January 7, 10, 2009 via World News Connection via Operation Grey Goose Phase II Report, p. 12. This claim seems exaggerated in the extreme.
3 The vagueness of the article on this point–not naming the government official, for instance–makes this story difficult for me to believe.
4 This is an interesting example of how American alarmism feeds the regime’s self-aggrandizement which in turn feeds the opposition’s alarmism. In fact, the analysis printed in Defense Tech was one man’s opinion based on sources he refused to declare. It was immediately challenged by an Iranian observer. The exchange, which is highly instructive, can be found here. The article’s author does not explain how he obtained such detailed information from such a secretive group.
5 This doesn’t seem to be taken very seriously. An article published in Wired (February 10, 2010) about probes of hack attacks on NASA does not even mention it.
Other Sources
I came upon some useful sources on Iran’s hacking community, which the above article considers a full-fledged army. Here is a very sober assessment from an Islamic website which considerably deflates this image.
Today, Massoud’s body was buried, but left a battlefield behind. The Hezbollahi brothers had mobilized from that morning and did not stop surrounding the body for an instant.
Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi
Loudspeakers and electric generators and eulogizers and very high-power stereo systems and organized pickup trucks were all at their disposal. The family and its circle had practically no control and gave up on the program. From the day that Dr. Ali-Mohammadi was assassinated, the officers came and went and insisted that his body be buried during the Tehran Friday prayers. The only point that the family could get its way on was its insistance that the burial ceremonies be held on Thursday.
Massoud’s home was surrounded by a crowd from the early morning. The police had closed all the points of entry. The area was packed with anti-riot forces in uniform and a crowd of plainclothesmen who had not so much as heard Ali-Mohammadi’s name until that day. His family wished to keep the burial services non-political and as dignified as possible. Friends and acquaintances gradually assembled. The home had no space for them. They all stood in the streets outside. A large crowd of people carrying cameras were milling around looking for a vantage point to film the scene. Most of them were from our own official media. Apparently, the foreign media which had representatives in Tehran was being cautious, fearing a repeat of past experiences. Of course, foreign media or its representatives could be seen here and there, but not many.
The brothers from the government who held a constant presence in Massoud’s house during this past day or two had prepared a martial music band, a bus to transport the burial squad, a eulogizer, a grave-digger, an ambulance, and, in short, whatever they thought they needed. Little Massoud was so dear to these gentlemen! He thought of every kind of death except this one. How could anyone imagine that a military officer, a minister, the president of a university, and dozens of other petty and major officials, from the moment he was assassinated, would line up at their home so that the programs for the martyr would be done all properly and nothing deviate from the plan!
It was about eight or nine in the morning when a middle-aged gentleman stood atop the minivan and took the microphone. At first, he spoke calmly and did not chant slogans. Apparently they had promised Massoud’s family not to take partisan political advantage of the services. But “razor and beard” and all the other resources one could imagine were in their hands from the very start. They did as they pleased. The first thing Mr. Microphone did was to extol the martyrs given by the university. He spoke of Martyr [Ayatollah Morteza] Motahhari and Martyr [Kamran] Nejatollahi [doc] (a militant professor who was martyred in the course of the protests and occupation by the university students in 1979 in the Ministry of Education’s office), placing Massoud Ali-Mohammadi alongside them. Next, he took a few minutes to announce from the microphone that the brothers who were ready for the funeral ceremonies to raise their hands. About 150 to 200 scattered among the crowd raised their hands to show
Massoud Ali-Mohammadi's funeral procession
they were ready and the guy on the minivan apparently reached the conclusion that everyting was in order and that enough people were ready to start the show. The coffin was removed from the ambulance and carried into the house and they started chanting special slogans. They tightly controlled the area around the coffin and permitted no family or acquaintances to get under it.
In burying the body, one usually chants ordinary religious slogans like “There is no deity but God and Mohammad is His messenger.” But the chief slogans in this show were of the sort, “Death to Israel,” “Death to the Hypocrites”, “This trampled flower is a gift to the Leader,” and so on. At best I could say that during the entire several hours of this show in which the loudspeaker issued slogans, the ordinary slogan of “There is no deity but God and Mohammad is His messenger” was not used more than a minute or two. And even on the one or two occasions when the “There is no deity but God” was said, when those present were ready to say the second half, “America is God’s enemy” was added and they continued on in their line.
It is a tradition in most burial ceremonies that when the deceased is brought to his home and before he is buried, a few minutes of silence be observed for the household in general and the ladies in particular to bid farewell to their loved one and express what is in their hearts to their God in the language of weeping and mourning and ease their heartbreak over the body of their dearly departed. But in this show, the brothers were apparently so nervous about the details that they did let not the loudspeakers go silent for even a second and the eulogizers and the professional sloganeers played their role in this show so well with the help of their powerful stereos that no one could even hear the weeping of Massoud’s relatives. It was heard that once, one of the gentlemen even snapped at the widow! Apparently, Massoud’s friends and family had no choice but to give in. His family was anxious lest the services collapse and obstacles be created to holding the remaining programs, such as the memorial service [held after three days] and the unveiling of the tomb [held after a week] and so on. Those who loved Massoud had no choice but to offer tears and seek his elevation and forgiveness for his pure soul. They had no choice but to stand aside and surrender Massoud’s body to strangers to do the best they could. People took Massoud’s coffin whose sole acquaintance with him began when he was a blood-drenched corpse.
A bit further on, forty or fifty of the country’s physics professors and researchers looked on teary-eyed and followed the crowd, along with many ordinary people from Massoud’s neighborhood or family or circle, estimated at over one or two thousand. The people who would bury him were at a crossroad. On the one hand, they all wanted to respect Ali-Mohammadi’s soul and to bury his body in accordance with the common tradition. On the other hand, there was the show underway ahead of them, all partisan slogans and partisan participants, and few there were who wanted to appear in a picture with that mob. The photographers of the official media all surrounded the minivan leading this group in motion and steadily followed the figures who were guiding the special atmosphere which prevailed among them.
A few minutes later, something interesting happened. A crowd of a few hundred students from Tehran University, especially kids from the physics faculty, were assembled behind a picture of Dr. Ali-Mohamnmadi and were following it in silence, except when they would now and then offer a salavat. They gradually opened up a gap between themselves and the government burial squad and parted from the show which had been prepared in advance. The burial squad gradually noticed this crowd and mixed in with them and separated from the ranks of the brothers’ official show. It was an interesting scene. The gentlemen in front suddenly saw that they had been abandoned. There they were, all alone. One or two of them angrily came to snatch from the students’ hands the poster behind which they had assembled, but the crowd resisted.
Gradually, the slogan “There is no deity but God and Mohammad is His messenger” arose from the crowd and filled the street. It was so loud that the brothers’ very powerful loudspeakers could no longer be heard. As the painters say, an interesting contrast was created. On this side, there were tears and “There is no deity but God.” On the other, the exasperating blare of the loudspeakers and “Death to the Hypocrites” and “Death to the opponents of the velayat-e faqih.” On the one hand there were sighs of grief over the loss of a beloved professor whom the students adored like his children and who were now being deprived of even bidding good-bye to his lifeless corpse. On the one hand, there was there was the rage and confusion of those who were anxious about Massoud’s body falling into others’ hands and were protecting it as if it were war booty. On the one hand, there was pure love and a sincere funeral held by those who saw that they had lost Massoud. On the other hand, there were cameras and the violent domination of those who felt that they had seized Massoud. On the one hand, there was the silence of the long-suffering which was the only refuge of the eternal slogan, “There is no deity but God.” On the other hand, there were five or ten people chanting slogans of “Death” and “Infidel” which were, in practice, used to eliminate the other. As soon as the brothers saw that the situation was getting out of hand, they retreated to close the gap between themselves and the green crowd and once more take control. To do this, they even drove the minivan they had been donated in reverse, when one of the ladies shouted, “If you run someone over, don’t say that the minivan was stolen!”
Around this contrasting tableau, there was a black circle of black-clad riot officers with various equipment which had surrounded the crowd, and motorcyclists who were going to and fro. Fear and anxiety filled the air and no one knew if the services would come peacefully to an end. Our friends counted over a thousand anti-riot police. Along the way, a great mass of several hundred of them were being held at the ready in a sports arena.
After an hour of this dual burial ceremony, we learned that the gentlemen had removed the body from the ambulance to the burial site, i.e., the Ali Akbar Chizar Shrine. The participants gradually dispersed and they each tried to reach it however they could.
Around eleven in the morning, the streets around the shrine were filled with the crowd and anti-riot forces. Massoud’s corpse was like war booty in the gentlemen’s hands. There were not even any means to easily approach their crowd. At the same time, people were concerned about the likelihood of a violent confrontation with the gentlemen and did not want to mingle with them.
Massoud’s friends and students were in practice deprived of reading prayers over his body or participating in the burial service. The gentlemen performed these services as they wished. While conducting the burial, the shrine’s gates were locked and we saw bits of
Another scene from Massoud Ali-Mohammadi's funeral
the services from behind the far side of the walls surrounding it. Amir would say that this scene reminded me of the Baqi` Gravesite, which can only be peered into from behind lattice walls.
Even during the burial, the loudspeakers uninterruptedly issued slogans. No one could even hear the sound of the funeral of those few bereaved among Massoud’s relatives who had been able to approach the burial site. It was as if the gentlemen were nervous lest the previous scenario at the burial would be repeated and the mourners would say things which were not to their liking in the course of their weeping.
It was not yet noon when Massoud was buried and it all came to an end. The grieving students returned to their residences and the members of the burial squad each went his own way. By the time the call went up for the noon prayer, there was no sign of the zealots who were worried lest Massoud’s body wind up into others’ hands. Their anxieties were at an end and they could now breath a sigh of relief and leave. If only we could have seen how many of those who had clung so tightly to Massoud’s body showed up to the graveside to recite the Fatiha. Massoud was only away from us these two days after the moment of his martyrdom. From now on, the spiritual effect which remains of him will not belong to some of those who were only present next to his corpse. Massoud was ours for fifty years, and he is still ours. It was only for one day that his coffin was stolen from us, and that’s over.
The Tehran University physics faculty will witness Massoud’s absence tomorrow and the students, despite their tears and sorrows, will earnestly strive to keep the torch of learning blazing in the land of Iran. His family, too, must get used to living without him. What a hard task! Is it possible to forget someone whose presence was felt the whole time he was here and around whom the atmosphere was filled with his energy? But there is nothing for it. One must live. God be their succour.
This blog's proprietor is Evan Siegel. He is a professor of mathematics. He has been a student of Iranian history, culture, and politics since the seventies. Click here to see his resume.
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This blog's proprietor is Evan Siegel. He is a professor of mathematics. He has been a student of Iranian history, culture, and politics since the seventies. Click 