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miohtama
On other news, Iran is banning IPv6, UDP, DNS, ICMP to tighten the blackout
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/permanent-ban-ipv6-forced-nat...
pwdisswordfishq
It's no longer a ban / blacklist. It's a whitelist with extremely strict rules and DPI inspection. You can connect to example.com ONLY if it is whitelisted, and only if you use this specific IP and Port, with this specific TLS handshake fingerprint and certificate, and the first N packets follow these timing / length patterns.
A few weeks ago a very clever way to bypass the SNI whitelist was introduced [1] (SNI spoofing for cloudflare!) but it was subsequently blocked. Some claim that at this moment all outbound TCP connections are terminated inside the firewall / ISPs and therefore methods like [1] based on injecting fake or problematic TCP packets no longer work. It seems like even SYN-free TCP connections (again, breaking protocol) are no longer accessible.
wesselbindt
Are there other sources than a linkedin post? I try to be a bit more critical of information in times of war. God knows we've been lied to before, by all sides. I've seen janitorial schedules be presented as a terrorist sign in sheets.
miohtama
The LinkedIn post has the original Persian text attached.
Also there is no point to lie about this
clydethefrog
Related story - in February 2026, the baggage of a Dutch diplomat was confiscated. It contained three Starlink satellite modems and seven satellite phones, concealed inside a suitcase.
https://karat.substack.com/p/a-diplomatic-suitcase-at-imam-k...
adiabatichottub
I learned from a BSides presentation that Ukranian military are using Starlink trancievers placed in pits to beat ground-based signal detection. Do with that what you will.
wmf
I heard that Iran is just looking for Starlink SSIDs so if you turn off Wi-Fi they won't find it.
pwdisswordfishq
The user has to be more careful. If he has installed any official Iranian apps (like banking or communication) or even visits such a website their IP address will be recorded and most certainly looked into. Even if they use split tunneling for domestic websites, some apps intentionally try to ping unreachable servers from Iran (For instance "Bale" might ping a sentry instance hosted outside of Iran, normally inaccessible from the domestic intranet) to catch the more careful users.
tantalor
Wouldn't they be easily detected from airborne drones?
XorNot
No, because the collimating effect on the beam would still require you to have line of sight to the emitter, and if a drone is able to get that close without being intercepted then something else has already gone wrong.
But this is also an example of weird absolutist thinking about military tactics: is it unbeatable? No. Does it complicate the surveillance and detection picture? Yes.
pwndByDeath
Are you under the impression that the starlink terminals in Iran are for US military?
undefined
fuckthecia
[flagged]
tardedmeme
russia started a war to invade ukraine. hope this explanation helps
jasonvorhe
It doesn't because it's historically inaccurate.
inglor_cz
Russia/Muscovy also started their long imperial expansion in the mid-1500s, with the wars of Ivan the Terrible. A well-known CIA plant, of course. /s
Most of Europe east of the Elbe has personal experience with Russian imperial rule, and 90%+ people will tell you "never again". The rest are mostly traitors hoping for jobs under a new occupation regime.
Calling what happens in Ukraine an "ethnic conflict" is like calling the genocide and deportation of American Indians "a heated dispute over lucrative real property" or calling the Atlantic slave trade "movement of affordable workforce". It is a freaking war of conquest motivated by sense of entitlement of a rotten empire which hasn't yet fully understood that its heyday is long gone and now is learning the hard way.
The German imperial madness took two massive military defeats to dissipate. Let us hope that the Russian imperial madness will finally suffer the same fate in front of our eyes. At this point of history, having New Tatarstan there instead of Russia would bring Eastern Europe a lot more peace and prosperity. We could call the new entity a Silicon Horde.
hrmon
US military "tested" some of its new weapons during the last war on Iran, in one case killing more than 15 kids [1]. So US tech is famous for improving life quality in Iran.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/world/middleeast/us-preci...
ajewhere2
15? There were more than a hundred girls killed in their school by an american missile, just in one of the strikes among many, many thousands. And I think it is just a small part which escaped the western information blockade on the war you started with Iran, most of what happened is not reported.
UltraSane
Just because the US sucks doesn't mean the Shia Theocratic thugs ruling Iran don't ALSO suck.
jmyeet
Excuse the pedantry but it's probably more accurate to describe Iran as a military dicatorship more than a theocracy. Yes, there's a Supreme Leader but the day-to-day government is really run by the IRGC. Not that one is necessarily better than the other, mind you. It's a bit like describing the UK as a monarchy (yes the British monarch is more of a figurehead than the Ayatollah is).
But look at all our self-proclaimed enemeies (eg Cuba, North Korea, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran) and all of that end of becoming a varying degree of autocratic. None of these countries ends up wanting to be a US puppet. I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
You might be tempted to say apartheid South Africa but there's a key difference. South Africa wasn't an enemy. It was an ally. Sanctions don't work on enemies. They only work on allies.
However unpoular the IRGC or the Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and Israel are less popular. We should never forget that the Ayatollah is a direct product of US inteference as we couped their democratically elected government to install a brutal regime under the Shah. Look up the history of SAVAK some time.
tgma
> I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference [sic] (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
That's one of the lines people spew as if it is a tautology without actually thinking about its accuracy. Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, need more examples?
Iranians right now also tend to disagree with you too...
CodeArtisan
>I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
When Japan occupied the Netherlands East Indies in the early weeks of 1942, many Indonesians celebrated, seeing the Japanese army as the fulfillment of a prophecy attributed to Jayabaya. He had foretold a time when white men would establish their rule over Java and oppress the people for many years, only to be driven out by "yellow men from the north." According to Jayabaya, these "yellow dwarves" would remain for one crop cycle (interpreted as 3 1/2 years, corresponding to the duration of Japanese occupation), after which Java would be free from foreign domination. To most Javanese, Japan was seen as a liberator, as the prophecy appeared to be fulfilled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayabaya
(To One Piece readers) I remembered this from this post https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/xb3lx/spoilers_jo...
sixsevenrot
> I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
Think of:
West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Baltic States, Balkans
1659447091
> I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
Panama
strogonoff
An argument can be made that in a global trade system everyone is, to a degree, an ally, since we all depend on each other economically.
A counter-argument could be that sanctions, when overused[0], weaken that very point by reducing this interdependence.
[0] This is not an opinion on whether or not they are currently overused.
FridayoLeary
>However unpoular the IRGC or the Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and Israel are less popular.
That's just wishful thinking on your part. Every iranian i speak to curses their regime and praise trump and netanyahu. Their level of support for the people bombing their country is incredible.
fchicken
We are not the good guys in iran
marcosdumay
On the specific concerns of giving internet to civilians, yes you are.
I just don't know if those civilians will trust you. They have plenty of reasons not to.
walrus01
Wanting the ordinary Iranian civilian to have uncensored, properly functioning broadband Internet service (no better or no worse than what you have sitting in your house right now) is a good thing no matter where you stand on the topic of current military action by either side.
Jabrov
You are not we
Mikhail_Edoshin
The person takes the responsibility; you are excluding him from the society that you implicitly claim to represent. These two are very different intentions.
tim333
I'm not sure either side in Trump vs the Ayatollahs is good. I feel for the ordinary people though who are the ones wanting Stalinks.
mlmonkey
Maybe we need to start a GoFundMe to sponsor some of these Starlink terminals.... ?
rblatz
It’s the death penalty for anyone caught with one.
Levitz
Per the article, it's seemingly not?
>Last year, the Iranian government passed legislation that made using, buying or selling Starlink devices punishable by up to two years in prison. The jail term for distributing or importing more than 10 devices can be up to 10 years.
pwdisswordfishq
Yeah but then Hesam died [1] ... yesterday in jail before having a trial. He was 40, wasn't an activist and had two daughters.
EDIT: To provide more context: Let's say that "John" is arrested for having had "illegal internet access" (not even owning a starlink). Even if he has a trial, the prosecutor can, and will, argue that he could have used his a secure channel to collaborate with the Mossad and CIA. If they find any unfavorable social media posts on his phone (and believe me, they will) they will say that he has endangered the national security by encouraging unrest and violent protests. This would then amount to waging war against God and death penalty.
If his phone is so clean that they don't find anything, it must be the fact that he is an agent, a mercenary. They will torture him until he confesses to having collaborated with Mossad. They will then air a forced confession on TV.
John might get lucky and have a caring family member from IRGC. In that case you might be right, he will only receive a prison sentence. If he had had a higher ranking IRGC family member he could even go further and start selling his starlink VPN for around $5 / GB. It's not even a hypothetical situation, I had to buy one of these (and it indeed was a starlink connection) four weeks ago ...
throwawaypath
Shocking, but it may soon be (or is currently) true:
"Iran Prepares Death Penalty Law for Starlink Internet Use"
https://iranwire.com/en/news/145471-iran-prepares-death-pena...
nickff
The regime has killed 40k of their own citizens; they don’t seem to be going through due process and sentencing in court…
nullsanity
Per reports as of a few days ago, yes there are very much murdering people with starlink. Last year was before the current crisis. People are being murdered in the streets daily by the regime, and ordinary people are desperate for it to end.
Pay08
In all fairness, that's true for a lot of things in Iran, and some of those are not actually enforced or only enforced some of the time (which is where the forcibly transitioning gay people thing came from).
squigz
Some things are worth the risk.
donkey_brains
The point being that we need to not incriminate these people.
undefined
m00dy
I know how to smuggle starlink devices in a mass scale into Iran.
dotancohen
Starship?
pixel_popping
are meant to fly...
dotancohen
How much stars would a Starship ship, if a Starship could ship stars?
walrus01
Netblocks has been doing some very good work tracking the presence or absence of known IP blocks previously announced by Iranian ASNs. The charts really speak for themselves.
For those who don't keep track of backbone ISP topologies: Iran has 3 or 4 major entirely government controlled ASNs which all domestic ISPs are obligated to be downstream of.
The government controlled AS run all the international transit connections (at the BGP level) and also the physical fiber/longhaul DWDM systems into a few neighboring countries. It makes it very easy to cut off all the downstream domestic only ISPs.
aitrender
[flagged]
stefantalpalaru
[dead]
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After having supported activists in egypt during the arab spring I've come to learn that it's all just coopted regime change nonsense sprinkled with "feel good activism" for Westerners. No one in Egypt is even remotely better off now. Just let Iranians deal with this on their own. From what I've researched, our impression of what their lives are supposedly like is totally shaped by intelligence services and cointelpro media anyways so why bother to get involved. We'll only make things worse for the average Iranian.