NetBlocks says Iran blackout enters day 16 as arrests target Starlink users | Hacker News Reader

NetBlocks says Iran blackout enters day 16 as arrests target Starlink users

iranintl.com

43 pointsukblewis18 comments

With internet being practically shut down by the “government” except for a very few individuals connected to the regime, my family in Iran has no means to get the alerts about the areas that are getting or gonna get bombed or have been bombed and maybe able to the non existent shelters.

Does your family work at military installations?

Is the U.S. (or other) government posting somewhere publicly that they're going to be bombing some military installation in X minutes/hours?

Surprised the US hasn’t set up some kind of DTC-via-loitering drone technology to allow stock, unmodified cell phones to bypass the internet restrictions.

With air superiority they could do it indefinitely. It could be backhauled via Starlink, each one acts as a Stingray-style cell tower and you launch a couple of them over every major city. Would be slow for tens of thousands or millions of users, but quite technically possible. The same technology would also be practical for disaster relief anywhere else in the world.

Doesn't GSM require mutual authentication via ki that's stored on the sim card and only known to the operator? Getting stingrays to work is easy mode because all it has to do is relay the traffic while capturing the IMEI/IMSI in the process, but if you want to act as a real cell tower that's much harder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card#Authentication_key_(K...

I don’t know how many people in Iran have devices with eSIM support but with that you could probably do it. You would need internet access once to activate it but after that you could use the mobile network (and also provide a WiFi hotspot to other people to activate the eSIM).

You could airdrop simms to seed the process

What motive would they have to do that?

Giving Iranian civil society the ability to show the world what the government repression is like, and to organise resistance.

Someone should dig up the corpse of project Loon to deploy networking balloons over warzonez. Would be perfect for psyops/intel gathering.

i believe they range too tar and too high

Internet access in Iran was already spotty after the massacres in January [0]

[0] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/internet-shut...

Flagged. Can we please not boost obvious astroturfing campaigns? [1]

"According to The Wall Street Journal, "[some] journalists at Iran International have complained that management is pushing a pro-Saudi, anti-Islamic Republic line". WSJ quoted a former correspondent at the TV station commenting that "a systematic and very persistent push" was made during her time there. Azadeh Moaveni of New York University has charged the channel is an arm of Saudi Arabia: "I would not describe Iran International as pro-reform, or organically Iranian in any manner". Historian Lior Sternfeld [he] stated, "Just as Al-Jazeera promotes Qatari interests, so does this channel promote Saudi interests regarding Iran", while noting a softening in Mohammed bin Salman's attitude towards Iran from around 2021. By 2026, in the estimation of the international relations scholar Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Iran International was possibly being backed by Israel." [2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ukblewis

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_International#Editorial_i...

So is this a lie? Is netblocks also lying? Is everyone astroturfing?

I'm asking for critical thinking skills. This two-sentence "article" is literally just a screenshot of a chart on NetBlocks (which does its own reports, FYI, of which this is not one). Iran International is a Saudi-funded mouthpiece which astroturfs opposition to its enemies. The user who submitted it is not on HN for curious discussion and is solely focused on a pro-Israel, anti-Iran submissions.

HN should not be used as a platform to manufacture consent for war. This is not original, nor is it news, nor does it provide us with any developments. It is a transparent attempt to chip away the credibility of an enemy of Saudi Arabia.

You yourself have questioned sources before [1]. So what's your issue here? Why is it only acceptable for you to point out potential bias?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849715#46850128

> Curious who funds mintpressnews.com

> It’s a blatant translation of Islamic Regime propaganda websites.

> see KhabarOnline, IRIB, etc.

Looks like the person who replied to you also only comments on Iranian posts as well. The irony.

> You yourself have questioned sources before

Yup, no need to trust Iran International. You can check NetBlocks if you really care about the source. It’s not that difficult.

A government should not hinder its own people’s access to potentially life saving communication channels especially in war time. Whether it’s Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine or Iran. Pointing this out isn’t manufacturing consent for war and shouldn’t make one mad.

https://mastodon.social/@netblocks/116232059137625268

My point isn't whether or not it's acceptable. It's that this particular source (and the fact that it was posted on HN) is an attempt to astroturf support for war for the HN audience. This is meant to manufacture legitimacy for the US and Israel's illegal war.

As I said above: "This is not original, nor is it news, nor does it provide us with any developments." I am again asking you to think critically: how does posting this add to the conversation? Why would someone who only posts pro-Israel and anti-Iranian content submit this to HN?

Pointing out that this is propaganda shouldn't make you mad.

> In the same way that you mainly only post in threads to support toppling the Iranian regime

Oh I, like many of my people, have been posting and supporting toppling of this murderous dictatorship long before this war. I don’t even support the war and don’t think it’s the best way to get rid of the islamic regime.

> I am again asking you to think critically

Let’s: Why do jump in to defend an illegitimate regime so relentlessly. Isn’t it ironic you mention astroturfing?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com