Iran’s escalating internet crackdown has pushed millions toward VPNs and offline tools, deepening a nationwide communication crisis.

Read Full Article: deccanfounders.com/2026/07/news...

#DeccanFounders #InternetBlackout #Iran #Telegram #VPN #MeshNetwork #BitChat #WestAsiaWar

Putin’s Internet Blackout: A Chaotic Drive to Cut Off Russians From the World

Putin’s Internet Blackout: A Chaotic Drive to Cut Off Russians From the World www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/w... #Russia #Internet #InternetBlackout #Roskomnazdor #WiFi #MobileInternet #Ukraine #UkraineWar #Iran #OONI #VPN #Moscow #StPetersburg #Kremlin #WhatsApp #Telegram #Belarus #Drones

Russia slowly trying to splinter its internet from rest of world, analysts say Telegram is increasingly blocked and mobile internet users face blackouts in effort likened to Iranian shutdowns

Russia slowly trying to splinter its internet from rest of world, analysts say www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m... #Russia #Internet #InternetBlackout #Roskomnazdor #WiFi #MobileInternet #Ukraine #UkraineWar #Iran #OONI #VPN #Moscow #StPetersburg #Kremlin #WhatsApp #Telegram #Belarus #Drones

Contact with the outside world is being cut off. A nationwide #InternetBlackout limits communication & keeps information from leaving the country.

Executions are carried out in #DigitalDarkness.

Families are left in the dark about the fate of their loved ones.

8/9

Iranian Volunteers Build Their Own Missile Alert System as State Cuts Internet Iran lacks an official missile warning system, so volunteers created Mahsa Alert. Now a record-breaking internet blackout threatens to silence even grassroots efforts.

Iranian Volunteers Build Their Own Missile Alert System as State Cuts Internet

#Iran #InternetBlackout #CivicTech #MiddleEast #AusNews

thedailyperspective.org/article/2026-03-25-irani...

Iran's Internet apartheid: Who stays online, who stays dark Inside Iran's two-tier internet system: state officials get unfiltered access while 99 per cent of citizens face an 18-day blackout.

Iran's Internet apartheid: Who stays online, who stays dark

#Iran #InternetBlackout #DigitalRights #AusNews

thedailyperspective.org/article/2026-03-17-irans...

‘A massive headache’: Russians move to walkie-talkies as internet blackouts hit Moscow Kremlin appearing to ramp up control over online activity, as it tests new ‘whitelist’ system of website restrictions

👇🇷🇺"‘A massive headache’: Russians move to walkie-talkies as internet blackouts hit Moscow" #Russia
#walkieTAlkies #InternetBlackout #Moscow

Iran President apologises to neighbours for attacks The armed forces have so far acted with

Iran’s nationwide #internetblackout entered its second week on Saturday, with the public still cut off from vital updates and alerts 168 hours after the shutdown was imposed,

www.newsinc24.com/news/iran-pr...

How Journalists Are Reporting From Iran With No Internet After strikes killed senior Iranian officials, Iran cut off internet access. Journalists are relying on satellite links, encrypted apps, and smuggled footage to report from inside the country.

Coordinated #Israeli and American strikes hit a military compound in Tehran on Saturday, killing dozens of senior regime figures including #Iran’s supreme leader, Ali al-Khamenei.

Within hours, the government-imposed a near-total #internetblackout, cutting the country off from the outside world.

Iran is under a near-total internet blackout, with connectivity at 4% as the US conducts attacks. This follows a similar blackout during last month's protests. Many are once again resorting to Starlink & VPNs to stay connected. #Iran #InternetBlackout #NetBlocks #Starlink #VPN

Iran plunges into near-total internet blackout as US-Israeli strikes continue Iran's internet connectivity collapsed to 4% of normal levels on February 28 as US and Israeli strikes continued.

Iran's internet connectivity collapsed to 4% of normal levels on February 28 as US and Israeli strikes continued. Bne IntelliNews #Iran #InternetBlackout #USIsraeliStrikes #FreedomOfSpeech #DigitalRights

#Russian airports have had multiple outbreaks of chaos due to the #WarInUkraine 🌻 But that's not the issue here. The issue is #Russians are looking at the #Iran #InternetBlackout & thinking/saying, that could now happen here & it's not a pleasant possibility.

When the Internet Goes Dark, We Go on Air During Iran’s total communications blackout after the January 8 massacre, Radio Zamaneh returned to shortwave and satellite broadcasts to break isolation and deliver independent news and analysis nightly. Since the night of January 8, 2026, the Islamic Republic has fully shut down the internet, severed communication channels, and turned the country into an islanded slaughterhouse. In the wake of a massacre on a scale that shocks even by the standards of the regime’s own bloody record, with thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested by many reports, the blackout did more than silence people. It imposed isolation, cutting off millions from one another and from the outside world. To bring some light into this digital darkness and to break the imposed isolation, Radio Zamaneh made a decision that is both practical and deeply political: to return to radio. This was more necessary than ever because this blackout has gone further than previous ones. In earlier shutdowns, the national intranet often remained available, allowing limited access to some domestic services and basic financial transactions. This time, even that channel was cut. In many places, landlines, SMS, and mobile networks were also shut down, pushing the country into a near-complete communications freeze. Returning to the airwaves The decision was made with urgency. A few days after the blackout, on Wednesday, January 14, 2026 (24 Dey 1404), colleagues in Amsterdam agreed that contact with people inside Iran had to be restored as quickly as possible. Two days later, it was clear the plan could be carried out. The first official broadcast went on air on Tuesday night, January 20, 2026 (30 Dey 1404). Every night, Radio Zamaneh goes on air for 30 minutes. It opens with a curated selection of the day’s most important news, then turns to one feature drawn from our reporting on the ongoing uprisings, and closes with brief analysis. How to listen Since then, Radio Zamaneh has been broadcasting a nightly 30-minute news and analysis bulletin for audiences inside Iran, followed immediately by one repeat broadcast. The regular schedule is: • Shortwave (SW), 49-meter band, 6010 kHz • Every night at 23:00 Iran time (GMT +3:30), with a replay right after until 00:00 This bulletin is also available through Toosheh, the satellite-based distribution network, on the Yahsat satellite, frequency 11766, another route built for moments exactly like this, when the state tries to turn distance into a wall. A signal that still reaches The shutdown brought us back to the oldest and most resilient form of connection: the airwaves. When access is taken away, the task is simple. Find another way to reach you. Returning as an independent radio signal in the middle of a blackout means refusing the regime’s basic wager: that if it can cut cables and block platforms, it can also cut relationships, break attention, and control what is real in its war over narrative. One former political prisoner recently described this blackout as a form of solitary confinement, with one crucial difference. This time, the punishment is collective. Zamaneh is back to carry news and analysis, to reflect your voices, and to insist that the wall of censorship will not hold. One message we received captured the point in a single line. A listener in Qom told our colleagues they could hear Radio Zamaneh at night during the blackout. Proof that the air still travels, and that connection can be rebuilt even under pressure. When the internet goes dark, we go on air.

When the Internet Goes Dark, We Go on Air #Iran #InternetBlackout

When Governments Shut Down the Internet, Satellite Connectivity Keeps Communities Alive Direct-to-Cell satellite technology can keep people connected when authoritarian regimes cut internet access. Join the movement to make humanitarian access a reality.

“Direct-to-cell satellite internet can bypass censorship and internet shutdowns, connecting ordinary smartphones directly to satellites—no special equipment needed. This technology could save lives in Iran and beyond.”

#d2c #iran #internetblackout
https://www.direct2cell.org/

[IDEA] National Mesh - prevent an internet Kill Switch event · Issue #592 · bettergovph/bettergov Project Title: National Mesh Project – National Resilient Mesh Infrastructure Submission for: BetterGov.ph Theme: Digital Sovereignty, Disaster Resilience, Public-Private Reciprocity, and National ...

github.com/bettergovph/... #communitymesh #internetkillswitch #internetblackout #resiliency #opensource I expect submarine cables being cut, storms, and civil disobedience in the future. strangely our company core strengths is distributed democratic and decentralized systems. #scifi

Iran is enforcing a permanent internet blackout. Connectivity is down to 0.2%, isolating 92M citizens. This "extreme digital isolation" is masking the killing of over 3,300 protesters.

➤ Read the article and see our sources: s.vp.net/SmWpC

#Iran #InternetBlackout #HumanRights

Jan. 8, 2026
Kashan, #Iran
People throwing ROCKS (because they have no other weapons) while being shot at by regime officials/proxies.

Caption reads: “Kashan: ‘Go back — they’re firing into the air.’”

This was likely the bloodiest day of the #protests countrywide

#internetblackout

In the Dark: The Mass Killings After Iran’s Internet Blackout After the January 8 blackout, killings, mass arrests, and hospital intimidation surged as officials downplayed the toll and rights groups warned a massacre unfolded beyond public view. The internet blackout that began on January 8, 2026 (18 Dey 1404) did more than cut communications. It changed what could be seen—and what could be denied. The shutdown came on the eleventh day of protests, as unrest spread to more than 100 cities, with bazaar strikes, university assemblies, and escalating nighttime confrontations. As connections collapsed, reports of killings and disappearances surged, while independent verification became harder than ever. Across tallies, the safest conclusion remains: the confirmed death toll is already in the thousands, and the real figure may be higher—possibly much higher—because the blackout and fear have slowed verification. But numbers are also abstract. What matters is that a qualitatively distinctive violence—historically unprecedented even against the Islamic Republic’s own bloody record of street repression—has been unleashed in ways no statistic can fully capture: coordinated lethal force across cities, bodies removed at speed, families searching among bags and containers, and a whole country pushed into darkness while the killing continues. What we know about the scale—and why the numbers don’t match No single death toll can be treated as definitive. The blackout, threats against families, restrictions on journalists, and reports of rapid removal of bodies from streets and medical centers have sharply limited what can be independently verified. What exists instead are competing counts and claims, each shaped by what can still be documented under extreme conditions. Several figures now dominate public reporting: * HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency) has compiled one of the most detailed running tallies. By day 18 of the protests (January 14, 2026 / 24 Dey), HRANA reported 2,615 confirmed deaths and at least 18,470 arrests, alongside hundreds of protests across 187 cities. * CBS News, citing two sources inside Iran on January 13 (23 Dey), reported at least 12,000 killed, possibly up to 20,000, saying the figures were based on information from field activists and hospital medical records. * Reuters, citing an unnamed government official, reported around 2,000 dead over two weeks. * Other rights reporting has cited 1,134 wounded with severe injuries and 97 broadcast forced confessions; 12 children among confirmed deaths; and 147 killed from military and pro-government forces. These gaps are not just disagreements; they point to a system built to hide violence. The communications blackout and blocked phone lines have repeatedly been cited as a barrier to independent verification. At the same time, scattered images that reached foreign media reportedly showed rows of body bags near Tehran morgues. The massacre after the blackout: what changed after January 8 Human rights organizations describe January 8 (18 Dey) as a turning point. Amnesty International says that since that date, security forces have carried out widespread, organized, unlawful killings of unarmed protesters on a scale it describes as unprecedented—even by Iran’s own history of abuse. Amnesty also argues the blackout was imposed to conceal the true scale of violations and erase evidence. A consistent pattern appears across rights reporting, verified footage reviewed by Amnesty, and witness testimony cited in its findings: * Live fire used widely and repeatedly against largely unarmed crowds. * Shooting from elevated positions—including rooftops and buildings linked to state forces; Amnesty says witnesses it interviewed described sniper deployments in some areas. * Upper bodies targeted—head and torso—with reports of metal pellets used alongside firearms. * Hospitals overwhelmed, while intimidation and pressure disrupted treatment, documentation, and normal record-keeping. * Bodies removed rapidly; families searching among body bags, trucks, containers, and improvised storage sites. Amnesty says it reviewed dozens of verified videos and images from at least ten cities across multiple provinces and conducted interviews with medical workers, witnesses, protesters, and informed sources. Kahrizak: from the symbol of 2009 to the evidence field of 2026 Kahrizak carries a long shadow. In 2009, it became infamous as a site of torture, abuse, and the killing of detainees—followed by impunity for senior officials. In January 2026, Kahrizak returned to the center of reporting again, this time tied to the handling of the dead. Videos circulating from the area around Kahrizak’s forensic medicine facilities showed families searching among hundreds of body bags. Amnesty’s analysis of one set of videos pointed to more than 200 body bags in view; a digital counter inside one facility reportedly reached 250. Reports also described transfers to Behesht-e Zahra—Tehran’s main cemetery and burial complex—and storage in warehouses and containers. Not every image can be independently verified under blackout conditions, but the reporting converges on a single reality: the dead are not only being produced at scale—they are also being processed as a logistical problem. Mass arrests: the second front of the crackdown While killings escalated, arrests multiplied. HRANA’s compiled count places arrests at at least 18,470 by January 14. Regional reporting has added grim detail. Hal Vash reported at least 550 Baluch protesters arrested in the past five days in Zahedan, Chabahar, and Iranshahr, describing violent round-ups—including women, men, and children—and families unable to locate detainees amid severe disruption of communications. Released detainees described transfers to collective holding sites with blindfolds, humiliation, and violence, alongside threats of heavy charges such as “moharebeh” (commonly framed as “waging war against God,” a charge that can carry the death penalty) and the risk of execution. Many detainees reportedly suffered injuries from batons, fists, and kicks. State-linked messaging has presented a different picture. Tasnim, citing police security, claimed 297 arrested, reported two killed and 17 “neutralized,” and announced 20 cases alleging links to “terrorist groups” connected to Israel. The Intelligence Ministry, meanwhile, publicly framed arrests in Tehran neighborhoods as countering “sabotage” and “terror.” Wounded, missing, and the hospital battlefield The wounded remain the hardest category to count nationwide. FIDH and LDDHI cited reports that one hospital in Tehran received at least 500 injured with severe eye injuries, alongside broader claims of thousands injured. Amnesty describes medical centers overwhelmed by gunshot and pellet wounds, while families searched for missing relatives—sometimes finding bodies rather than survivors. When hospitals are pressured, raided, or forced into silence, the wounded become invisible: people avoid treatment, records disappear, and injuries go uncounted. This is part of why the death toll is contested—and why the real human cost exceeds what any list can show. Security-force deaths and the state narrative Reports also record deaths among security and pro-government forces. HRANA’s compiled statistics list 147 killed on that side, including at least five civilians described as government supporters. State messaging emphasizes these deaths to justify escalation, framing protests as armed “terrorism” rather than mass dissent. This is central to the official story: turn the street into a battlefield, then argue battlefield rules apply. What officials are saying Officials have largely denied the scale. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has publicly claimed the death toll is not “thousands” but “only hundreds.” At the same time, the judiciary’s posture points to escalation: the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, visited a prison holding protest detainees and promised fast and public trials, saying cases tied to “violence” must be handled quickly. Rights groups warn that speed in this system often means coerced confessions, lack of due process, and executions. Officials have also pushed responsibility outward. After Donald Trump urged protesters to continue and said he was cancelling talks until the killing stops, Ali Larijani responded by naming “the real killers” as Trump and Netanyahu—an inversion that underscores how far the state is willing to go to deny responsibility at home. What international bodies and rights groups are saying Amnesty International’s message is blunt: the world must act to end impunity for an unprecedented killing campaign. It calls for urgent international steps—special sessions, investigations, and criminal accountability pathways, including referral to the International Criminal Court. FIDH and its member organization LDDHI have warned that patterns of widespread, systematic violence—combined with mass arrests and the blackout—may amount to crimes against humanity. Their reporting highlights direct firing of live ammunition at heads, necks, and eyes, and reports of heavy weapons mounted on trucks. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned the violence and called for an immediate stop to the killing and the restoration of internet and communications. He also rejected the state’s attempt to justify violence by calling peaceful protesters “terrorists.” A story the state wants to erase The blackout is not a technical detail in this story; it is part of the violence. It cuts coordination, blocks evidence, isolates families, and gives the state space to act without witnesses. That is why the numbers keep changing and the estimates swing so widely. And that is why, regardless of where the final tally lands, the central fact remains: a level of organized lethal force, and a scale of disappearance and terror, has been unleashed—then covered by darkness.

In the Dark: The Mass Killings After Iran’s Internet Blackout #Iran #InternetBlackout

Digital Siege: How Iran’s Internet Blackout Works—and Why This Time Looks Different As protests surged nationwide, Iran’s blackout cut people off from the world, disrupted daily life, and strengthened repression by blocking coordination, evidence, and outside contact. The nationwide internet blackout began on January 8, 2026 (18 Dey 1404), on the eleventh day of the protests—at the moment the uprising reached a new peak. Demonstrations had expanded to more than 100 cities, with strikes in the bazaars, assemblies in universities, and nighttime protests intensifying to the point that, the same night, images circulated of cities such as Tehran—at least in some areas—effectively occupied by protesters while the regime appeared to lose control. In that context, authorities reportedly drove connectivity to below 2% of normal levels, cutting tens of millions off from the outside world. Human rights groups warned the shutdown was designed to conceal lethal repression and prevent documentation; monitoring groups described it as a “digital war” waged by the state against society. The blackout also hit everyday life: when Iran’s international links are severed, many services break even for users inside the country because lots of “domestic” apps and sites still rely on foreign infrastructure. In past shutdowns—for instance after the Aban protests in November 2019, when people rose up against a sudden fuel-price hike and the crackdown was hidden behind a near-total cutoff—people inside Iran could sometimes open locally hosted sites, but crucial functions often failed, especially anything tied to secure connections: payment gateways, banking, maps, verification, and encrypted messaging. What people saw when the blackout hit The cutoff began late in the evening on January 8. Soon after, many Iran-based websites became unreachable from abroad. Inside the country, the picture was often chaos: some services partially worked, others didn’t, and even when a page loaded, key features could fail. The shutdown didn’t just block news and social media; it also jammed basic tools people use to live—money transfers, work systems, logistics, and medical coordination. How the regime shuts the internet down The term “kill switch” is widely used in English to describe a state’s ability to shut down or sharply restrict the internet nationwide. In practice, it is not a single button but a set of controls that can choke connectivity at a few key points. At the center of this system are the main pathways that carry data between Iran and the global internet—especially international routing (often discussed in terms of BGP), along with choke points such as DNS disruption and direct orders to internet providers. In plain terms, the state does not need to monitor every individual connection if it can close a few major gates. When those gates close, it is not only Instagram and WhatsApp that disappear. Many Iranian services depend on resources outside Iran—security certificates, cloud services, software updates, maps, and verification systems—so even the “internal internet” can become unstable quickly. How the kill switch works in practice In the simplest version: a state-controlled center can order providers to throttle or cut traffic, disrupt international routing, and interfere with key systems like DNS. The shutdown can be sudden or gradual, but the outcome is the same—connectivity collapses to a tiny fraction of normal and everything from communications to banking and essential services is affected. In Iran, this control is described as centralized and operational—managed through cyber command structures. It does not stop at fiber and cell towers: reports also describe efforts to locate and disrupt satellite alternatives. One part of that involves tracking satellite “ground terminals” (like Starlink dishes) and attempting to interfere with them; another involves jamming and GPS interference that can make satellite links unstable or unusable in some areas. NetBlocks’ CEO Alp Toker has described this as a war by the authorities against their own population using digital tools, and warned it could last days or weeks—especially if the goal is to hide crimes and keep the outside world blind. Why this shutdown feels different This time did not look like a single move. It looked like an escalation that used several older methods together: disruptions that hit hardest during the hours when people usually gather; worse connections in active protest areas; and then a plunge into a near-total nationwide blackout on January 8. The point is not only to stop people from posting videos. It is to stop people from organizing in real time, and to slow the flow of evidence when the streets are most dangerous. The long build-up: how Iran got here Iran did not start with full shutdowns. First came filtering—blocking platforms and restricting access to news. Then came “slow internet” tactics: keeping services technically reachable but making them so weak that they become unusable. After that, the state leaned into targeted disruptions—especially mobile networks in specific neighborhoods—so protests could be cut off locally without declaring a national blackout. And once VPNs became widespread, the pressure shifted to secure traffic itself: making encrypted connections unreliable so people cannot easily bypass filters or share files safely. A nationwide blackout is the last step in that ladder: a decision that the costs of shutting down the country are worth paying because the larger fear is losing control of the streets—and losing control of the story. “National internet” and why it matters The state has spent years building internal infrastructure so it can keep some services running while cutting people off from the world. This is often described as the National Information Network (NIN). The promise is “independence.” In crisis moments, the result is control—and a cheaper, easier shutdown. Even with that system, a deep cut can still break local services, because modern networks are tangled together in ways ordinary users never see—until the day everything fails. Who can actually press the button A cloud or CDN company cannot usually shut down a whole country’s internet by itself. That kind of shutdown happens at the backbone level—through state-linked infrastructure bodies and major telecom operators. Still, companies that help expand domestic hosting and routing can matter indirectly: the more daily life is pushed into a controlled domestic ecosystem, the easier it becomes to isolate the population during a crisis. How people try to stay connected anyway Even during a near-total blackout, people look for cracks in the wall. Satellite internet like Starlink is one of the biggest—because it connects through satellites rather than Iran’s fiber and towers—but it is illegal, expensive, often smuggled in, and authorities try to disrupt it through jamming and GPS interference. Border-area connectivity can also happen in some places: people near borders sometimes catch signals from neighboring countries, though it is patchy and not available to most. Foreign eSIMs can offer short windows of access but are costly. And rare fixed-line workarounds come and go. These are not just “tech tricks.” In moments like this, they can decide whether footage reaches the outside world, whether families can locate missing people, and whether the wounded can get help. What the blackout is really for A shutdown like this is not only about censorship. It is about isolating people at the exact moment they most need each other and the outside world. It is about buying time—time to repress without witnesses, time to control the story, time to break coordination. That is why rights groups warn that intentional blackouts are not neutral “security measures.” They are part of the crackdown itself.

Digital Siege: How Iran’s Internet Blackout Works—and Why This Time Looks Different #Iran #InternetBlackout

Iran internet blackout enters seventh day, isolating 90mn people Iran's near-total telecommunications blackout enters seventh day, passing 144 hours and ranking among longest disruptions on record whilst isolating over 90 million people.

Iran's near-total telecommunications blackout enters seventh day, passing 144 hours and ranking among longest disruptions on record whilst isolating over 90 million people. Bne IntelliNews #Iran #InternetBlackout #Telecommunications #HumanRights #Censorship

🔴A film from the uprising, which has recently arrived from the heroes of the city of #Arak, shared with us despit great difficulty, during the internet outage.
Date: 18 January 2015

#iran #iranrevolution #iranprotests #jinjiyanazadi #internetblackout #freeiran #iranrevolution2026

Original post on dair-community.social

Look, if you are interested in #DigitalSovereignty it is important to realise that the #Iran #InternetBlackout is not really that. It is not the sort of damaging loss of services we have seen recently with #Crowdstrike or #Cloudflare.

The National Information Network of Iran or #IranianIntranet […]

Trump promises ‘help is on its way’ and tells Iranians to ‘keep protesting’ US president gives clearest signal yet that he might take military action against Tehran over killing of demonstrators

Trump promises ‘help is on its way’ and tells Iranians to ‘keep protesting www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... #Iran #IranProtests #Tehran #Economy #Rial #Inflation #Depreciation #InternetBlackout #Protests #Kermanshah #HumanRights #NationalSecurity #MasoudPezeshkian #UnitedStates #DonaldTrump

Iran has now been under a total internet blackout for more than 88 hours. #scandinaviannewsagency #Iran #InternetBlackout #Breakingnews #Snnfinland

Despite a total internet blackout entering its 5th day, the streets of the capital, Tehran, are alive with defiance tonight. 👊🦁🇮🇷

#IranProtests #Tehran #22Dey #IranRevolution #FreeIran #InternetBlackout #Iran

#IranProtests #InternetBlackout
Thousands will be killed by the regime. They are calling the protesters terrorists and saying they were waging war against god.

confirming numerous deaths at the hands of the Islamic regime.

The world is watching.
Iran is not alone.

#DigitalBlackoutIran #InternetBlackout #IranProtests
#FreeIran

#DigitalBlackoutIran 96 hours with out phone or internet service.
What has the regime been doing to the people. I heard there were riversbof blood. #InternetBlackout #FreeIran

Some organizations say over 2000. There are reports of bullets not just shot not paintballs. They are aiming for the eyes and head. I have seen the video. It is difficult to verify because of the #InternetBlackout Difficult to say when you can't verify but you see it to be true.