The Hacker Factor Blog

The Internet Storm Center periodically mentions about fraudulent domains. Basically, right after a major event, scammers will register domain names related to the event. "There was a hurricane? Quick! Register domain names!" It is not just that it might happen, it is certain that it will happen.

Similarly, major events are associated with doctored images. Even though Iran has cracked down on mass media coverage, I have been waiting for the doctored images to arrive. Well, they're slowly trickling out.

A Few Drops Form A Flood

Iran has barred the mass media from reporting on the situation in Iran. Most reports of the post-election rallies are from citizens with cell phones and digital cameras. They take the pictures and post them -- with little time for any image modification. So far, this flood of visuals seems clean and not modified.

In contrast, the Iranian government and government-run media are taking their time to release images. The delay means that they have time to modify images.

The DailyKos reported on one doctored image that appeared in the government-run newspaper.

People in the background were replicated in order to hide the edge of the crowd. In effect, they hid the true size of the crowd.

However, there is another problem with this image: it is undated. It was released in the media to show that there are ongoing post-election rallies for the incumbent Ahmadinejad as well as for challenger Mousavi. Up until this point, videos and footage had only shown pro-Moussavi rallies and not any for Ahmadinejad.

But there's a problem... As I mentioned when Iran released doctored missile photos: they didn't just modify photos. They modified old photos. Their 2008 missile launch was supported by photos from 2006. I did not just expect doctored images from the Iranian government; I expected doctored images from old photos! And I wasn't disappointed.

Here's the original:

The timestamp in the image's meta data matches the date from the open directory at the government-run MEHR news: Monday, June 08, 2009. That is BEFORE the election. They didn't just doctor a picture, they doctored an old picture.

To date, I have seen no photos of any post-election pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. Although there are reports of pro-Ahmadinejad rallies, they mainly come from the government-run media and do not include photos that can be dated or collaborated with non-government photos. Consider the number of citizen photos that are coming out, one would think that someone would have captured at least one picture of a pro- rally...

Rewriting History

Ahmadinejad has a long history of rewriting history. For example, he is believed to have been a key hostage taker during the US embassy hostage crisis in 1979. Of course, Ahmadinejad has denied the association.

I'll let you decide whether the 1979 hostage taker looks like today's Ahmadinejad...


Then there was the conflicting reports around a boating incident in the Strait of Hormuz. Although the US has acted questionably, the Iranians supported their contradictory claims by releasing footage from a totally different incident.

And then there is his denial of the holocaust, claim that there are no gays in Iran (even though they keep killing the ones they find), and more...

With this established track record, it certainly comes as no surprise that Ahmadinejad would claim to win the election. Regardless of how the population voted.

A Reason to Riot

There are many reasons to question this election's outcome. First, it should have taken days to count all of the votes, but it only took hours to declare the winner. Second, presidential nominees normally win in their home districts. I mean, nobody expected Obama to win in Alaska -- Alaska went to Palin. Yet, Moussavi's own hometown allegedly went to Ahmadinejad.

More interesting are reports of a suspicious death. Quoting the Guardian:

The man who leaked the real election results from the Interior Ministry - the ones showing Ahmadinejad coming third - was killed in a suspicious car accident, according to unconfirmed reports, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.

Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran.

Asgari had reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces.

Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.

This situation is definitely becoming a tsunami.