Here is a pretty insightful post from someone at slashdot.org. Before you start blabbering about him being a right wing whatever, remember this is from a reputable tech site.
Iran has NOT "offline" (Score:5, Insightful)
by
daveschroeder (516195) * <[ude.csiw.tiod] [ta] [sad]> on Wednesday February 06, @10:18AM (
#22321066)
Homepage
...and has NOT lost net connectivity.
One router in Iran -- the one that happens to be used by
Internet Traffic Report [internettr...report.com] -- is unreachable. As are dozens of single points on the internet in many states in the region.
A quick perusal of, e.g.,
newspaper web sites in Iran [onlinenewspapers.com] finds every one I have tried working fine, including all state-run media. As is the web site of the
Government of Iran [www.iran.ir] and numerous other government and press web sites physically located in Iran.
See for yourself. [google.com] (And yes, I am aware that simply ending in .ir does not mean the site is necessarily physically in Iran, but you can
easily verify [arin.net] that nearly all of them are.)
I know all of you are just itching to believe it's a US information operation (I love some of the articles..."a secret Pentagon strategy called 'information warfare'" -- uh, guys, I hate to break this to you, but it's not a secret) to cut Iran off from the internet in advance of the secret Iran invasion that Bush -- er, Cheney -- is oh-so-obviously planning.
No one ever said that one ship damaged all the cables. What was said was that a single ship probably cut two cables in a particular area off Egypt. But that has been called into doubt
in that location. Unfortunately, it isn't clear exactly where some of the cables have been damaged, so simply because one area didn't have a ship doesn't mean it wasn't possible for it to be damaged elsewhere.
Even
if someone is cutting the cables, as telecom and undersea cable experts believe is unlikely, it would be better to actually consider the facts of the situation, instead of feeing the conspiracy mill with garbage like "Iran is offline" when it clearly isn't? How about waiting until the cables are raised to see what kind of damage has been caused?
But if you want to believe one guy's blog post that "Iran is offline", which ends with:
this author actually dug a bit deeper and found a trail that leads from the owners of most of these internet cables all the way back to some very, very large companies in the U.S. and in the U.K. Which companies you ask? Who is behind this?
Well, that's the topic for my next post. You'll have to subscribe to my RSS feed and stay tuned for my findings. Don't worry, the wait will be short.
...then be my guest. How convenient! If we want to learn "which" big evil companies are behind what is obviously a US operation to cut Iran off from the internet, all we have to do is subscribe to his ad-laden blog!
Or, we could perhaps consider that
"[m]ost telecommunications experts and cable operators say that sabotage seems unlikely." [iht.com]
Or, we could perhaps believe the facts, which is that Iran is not "offline", as I have illustrated above.
It seems that the premise to this story -- namely, that Iran is "offline" -- is patently incorrect. So, since that is untrue, what are the motivations of people who want to believe this is a prelude to war?
That lying about it somehow serves a greater purpose?
Oh, and by the way, for all you pushers of the Information Warfare theory, keep in mind that it runs both ways. I wouldn't be surprised before Iran picks up on the conspiracy stories and starts promoting that itself. What a great way to detract attention from its continuing defiance of the world community -- no, not just the US -- on its nuclear processing.
