Does anyone know how Iranians are _actually_ communicating right now? I remember...

simonmales · 2026-01-11T14:17:13 1768141033

You might be referring to Bitchat.

westurner · 2026-01-11T14:21:32 1768141292

https://github.com/x011/smtp-tunnel-proxy :

> A high-speed covert tunnel that disguises TCP traffic as SMTP email communication to bypass Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) firewalls

petcat · 2026-01-11T14:24:18 1768141458

It seems like these smuggle-disguise protocols are almost always trivially detectable.

VortexLain · 2026-01-11T17:45:01 1768153501

Yes, but such tools aren't popular enough for the censor to specifically target.

westurner · 2026-01-11T14:28:37 1768141717

[flagged]

petcat · 2026-01-11T15:17:20 1768144640

what does this have to do with smuggling tcp connections over email

westurner · 2026-01-12T01:14:57 1768180497

At that time they created a bunch of spammy noise which caused the social media businesses significant expense.

They did that in order to run their foreign interference in US elections agenda, and their foreign agenda of late; and we don't like foreign interference in our elections either.

Note the fathers of the sarcastic TV show South Park, all bouncing around on their satellite internet access.

DetectDefect · 2026-01-11T15:37:42 1768145862

No mention of any security review, or even testing. Reason enough to stay away from such tools.

westurner · 2026-01-12T01:24:15 1768181055

Good point.

BurningFrog · 2026-01-11T15:40:43 1768146043

The only working communication I see mentioned on X is Starlink.

RickJWagner · 2026-01-11T15:46:35 1768146395

I saw a comment yesterday from a user claiming to be in Iran. I think he said StarLink was usable. ( Maybe that’s changed, though. )

_DeadFred_ · 2026-01-11T21:10:12 1768165812

Maybe better for an after the brutal theocratic regime crackdown discussion?

Imustaskforhelp · 2026-01-11T14:12:15 1768140735

I think IPv4 services are still present no?

So like they are very heavily DPI censored though and maybe govts able to spy on any messages you send right now but I feel like there is a still possibility that for the average communication, they might still exist but although heavily heavily censored/bad and I feel like protestors might not be able to communicate (which I feel like is the question you meant to be asking)

https://radar.cloudflare.com/routing/ir

So TLDR: protestors must have a hard time sadly and they may be using bluetooth mesh or other tech, only they can tell after we figure things out but also lets say some major services websites might still exist after all if they bypass the dpi censorship for IPv4 services.

In my opinion, I feel like Protestors must be using mesh based technologies as you mention. We'll see what really ends up happening after we get some reports from Iran.

tucnak · 2026-01-11T14:29:09 1768141749

It is said they pulled the plug for all peering on Thursday, although I would assume some kind of government-run ISP may be operational still (I haven't checked Cloudlfare radar)

Imustaskforhelp · 2026-01-11T14:36:12 1768142172

Pardon me but can you please provide me more context regarding it. I am genuinely confused about the ground state of reality in Iran right now regarding Internet access at all

can you please take a look at cloudflare radar and see what the current ipv4 connectivity means? Even Ipv4 was blocked for sometime but then it got back to normal in the graph shown in cloudflare radar

Can you please tell me what you mean by plug for all peering? Like complete internet blackout?

s800 · 2026-01-11T16:04:56 1768147496

Iranian address space is no longer in the public routing table.