2009

Dear Friends, I was recently interviewed in the studios of Eesti Raadio for BBC’s Digital Planet, which airs globally each week on the BBC World Service. I spoke on what I saw and heard at the recent NATO conference on Cyberwarfare in Tallinn. Download the MP3 here. More from BBC here.

The Iranophile blog “Is this Ta’arof?” shows how to use Greasemonkey and the new Google Translate tool to help better understand what’s being said in Persian on Twitter. Of course, Google’s translation ability is still in alpha, and likely isn’t 100 percent accurate, but it’s better than nothing. This should work on Windows, Mac or Linux equally well. If you’re not techy and don’t understand the difference between a cup of java and JavaScript, fear not! This takes about a…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the new Persian tech tools from Google, Facebook and Apple is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): NYC – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston – 4 pm Eastern –…

I guess folks over at Google and Facebook have been reading my Twitter messages and my blog — or more likely, simply sped up processes that were already in motion. Google announced about 90 minutes ago that it had added Persian to Google Translate, while Facebook is about to launch its Persian-language version of the social networking software. In my brief test, it seems like the “alpha” moniker is quite valid. While Google Translate was able to handle the Persian…

So I speak a little Persian and read it very slowly, so I’m hoping that you guys can help me out. I’ve got a bunch of searches in FriendFeed that I’d really like to have more people take a look at so we can get some more information out in the English-speaking online community. http://friendfeed.com/search?q=تظاهرات http://friendfeed.com/search?q=تظاهرات+میدان+امام+خمینی http://friendfeed.com/search?q=توپخانه http://friendfeed.com/search?q=راهپیمایی http://friendfeed.com/search?q=موسوی

CCDCOE conference, June 18 Nart Villeneuve, “Tracking GhostNet”: One of our staff has been working with Tibetian communnities for 10 years. Art of investigation: raise more questions than answers. This is good, as we have limitations. Data is hard to come by. Organizations are not generally willing to collect their data or provide you with samples of malicious files, you have to cultivate sources, and earn trust (within NGO community). We hear a lot of news coverage, they’re often incomplete,…

CCDCOE conference, June 17 Kenneth Geers, American representative to CCDCOE: – Even if you took a tank or a jet fighter, you could hardly count the number of processors on it. – Next year US military will have more unmanned than manned aircraft – It’s not just about vulnerability and exploit — but where does that meet national security? All presentations, have elements that speak to why nat’l security planners would find it interesting. – This is the best city…

Xeni asked me to compile a list of what I’m reading regarding the Iranian election and its insane aftermath. Beyond the obvious traditional media (NYT, BBC, NPR, PRI), these are mainly what I’m paying attention to: Twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=near%3ATehran+within%3A15mi http://irantwitters.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/stopAhmadi http://twitter.com/iran09 http://twitter.com/mousavi1388 Related: http://youtube.com/mousavi1388 and http://flickr.com/mousavi1388 and http://sites.google.com/site/mousavi1388/ http://blog.twitter.com/2009/06/down-time-rescheduled.html US State Department told Twitter to change its update time http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWBT01137420090616 Main sites: http://tehranbureau.com http://www.irantracker.org/ http://garysick.tumblr.com/ http://mag.gooya.com/english/ http://iranian.com/ http://tehranlive.org/ Established Media: Who’s Fighting Who in Iran’s Struggle? / TIME / By…

Via Nayareh Tohidi: [Redacted] reports his own observations on the course of events of 15th June 2009 in Tehran I left my home in Tajrish along with my family at 3 p.m. We went down Valiast Street which is the main northern-southern avenue in Tehran and entered the Evin Exp’way which leads to Enghelab Street. We knew that people are supposed to gather in Enghelab Sq. (Revolution Sq.) at 4 and march toward Azadi Sq. (Freedom Sq.). From Gisha Bridge…

My brilliant and beautiful wife, Rebecca, has just had two poems and a review of hers recently published She appears in the latest edition of Parcel, and the Avatar Review. That last one also includes audio of her reading her work, too! She’s also just reviewed Moongarden by Anthony McCann.