Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with iran

What did Hitler think of Iran?

tumbleweedjack — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:38:31 -0800

My mom seems to be under the opinion that Hitler and Nazi Germany were 'fans' of Persia/Iran, and that one of the reasons the Shah at the time changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran (meaning "Land of the Aryans"), was to appease Hitler. I can't find any evidence to support this claim. Can someone clear this up for me?

Paper Topic on Iran?

howgenerica — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:14:12 -0800

What's an interesting aspect of Iranian society/ Shi'i Islam that would lend itself well to a 10 page expository essay? Nothing too controversial - my professor is Iranian. Just something interesting to write/ learn about. It has to be pretty specific. Thanks for suggestions!

And Iran, Iran so far away

oinopaponton — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:17:17 -0800

I have a very generous offer for a place to stay and Farsi-speaking guides should I choose to visit Iran. Ergo, I have some questions about post-election Iran and the best way to organize this trip, if I go. I've looked through the history, but the latest question about visiting Iran was asked before this summer's election. Has anyone been since then, or is anyone there now? As a single American woman staying with a wealthy family in Tehran, what could I expect? I'm aware of dress/behavior expectations, but I'm more curious about what day-to-day life would be like, including but not limited to reasonably unmonitored internet access. I don't speak Farsi, but I do speak French-- am I right in thinking that this would be at least marginally useful?

Bonus: I'm really interested in Iranian archaeology, to the point where (assuming all my graduate school applications aren't rejected) I'll soon be working on a very closely related MA or PhD. Is there any way that I could visit an active archaeological site? I'd be comfortable contacting professors at American universities and asking to visit their sites; is this something that a professor at, say, University of Tehran would be okay with?

If I go, it won't be for at least six months, and probably more like nine. I know things are liable to change in that period of time, but I want to know what I can expect before I get my heart set on going. Thanks!

Simple background source on Iran election protests 2009

leticia — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:14:06 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good, general overview source on the June 09 election, protests, and aftermath in Iran? I need something to link to as a backgrounder. I'm googling around for an online source that won't be too hyperdetailed (Wiki's page on this is rather long) but will give an overview, but I thought I'd also ask MF folks for recommendations.

many thanks in advance.

BiH vs Iran.

acidic — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:03:50 -0800

I am thinking of attending a Bosnia & Hercegovina - Iran football match in Sarajevo. What should I know first? I am not much of a football fan but this seems like too interesting an opportunity to pass up! So I am interested in football facts as well as more social facts about the teams, history etc. I assume there are no safety concerns in attending such an event (a friendly) but if there are please tell!

Why no strike strategy in Iran?

bardona — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:09:11 -0800

Why hasn't Mousavi called for a general strike?

How to contact Iranians

Galen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:16:15 -0800

Is there an online white pages for Iran? A friend of mine started greencandle.org. He wants to link to a white pages like directory for Iran. However, we can't find one, no matter how much we google.

Any suggestions? Do any of you from Iran or who've traveled there remember an Iranian version of white pages online?

List of clean and clear Iranian government transgressions against morality?

GenTso — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:29 -0800

Iranian government's worst recent and verifiable transgressions? I realize we mostly all agree a more democratic Iran is better than the pseudo-democratic, mostly theocratic system they have now, and thus we side with the pro-Mousavi protestors. But I am trying to find/put together a list of the Iranian government's worst transgressions in relation to the recent elections and resulting protests. (I have searched Mefi to no avail, and my Google-fu is not helping with clear answers as much as I thought it would - I am guessing partly because of the lack of reporters allowed - I find a lot relying too much on unverifiable sources like Twitter.)

So far, I have come up with (1)Restricting Twitters, (2) Restricting foreign reporters. There is, of course, the constant violence against protesters, but some protesters seem to be willing to get violent themselves, making murky the otherwise clear moral advantage they had. (Hoping more to find more clean and clear, irrefutable violations offensive to anyone's moral sensibilities.)

SSH through the AS12880 / DCI Iranian government-run firewall?

thewalrus — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:54:42 -0800

Iranian firewallfilter: How to make SSH traffic not resemble SSH traffic, when examined by a deep packet inspection device (Ellacoya, Narus, etc)? Other advice on specific types of VPN from within Iran also welcome. I've been following the news about Iranian Internet censorship for a few years now, but obviously started paying more attention in the last couple of weeks. There's two interesting papers examining AS12880 (DCI)'s Internet transit from Arbor Networks:

Iranian Traffic Engineering

Deeper Look at the Iranian Firewall

Misc:

Robtex page examining AS12880's uplinks to the world

Rense page, strange changes in Iranian Internet transit

What I'm wondering specifically is methods which can be taken to make SSH traffic look -less- like SSH traffic. Assume that a person inside Iran has root on a European-colocated FreeBSD or Linux system (or root on a VPS/Virtual Machine) running the latest OpenSSH. The sshd would of course be listening for incoming connections on a nonstandard port, it could be any port, or multiple different ports. If I remember right OpenSSH now defaults to SSH2/AES but can also use Blowfish. Are there any methods that can be used to disguise the initial SSH handshake and packet headers? Any special tricks from the client software end, assuming that the client (OSX or Linux) can run any ssh client that will compile on it?

Is VPN traffic (Cisco, or Juniper-Netscreen SSL-VPN) less likely to trigger flags or get blocked than SSH?

Does anyone have firsthand or secondhand experience of Windows Remote Desktop / RDP 5.1 being blocked from within Iran?

Doing what I can...

hellboundforcheddar — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:06:47 -0800

Iran, right now: There have been calls for Twitter users worldwide to change their settings to Tehran time.. to make it difficult for authorities to track actual tweets out of Iran.

Does this sound like it could be effective cover for Iranians?

Shareef Might Like It

AlbatrossJones — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:01:31 -0800

[Iran_Minutiae_Filter] I heard a few days ago that Former President Rafsanjani was going up to Qum to see if the Assembly of Experts had the votes to remove Ayatollah Khamanei from the position of Supreme Leader. How long would something like that take to happen? Would it have happened already if they had the votes? The Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts are very strange legislative/governmental bodies, so I am trying to get some sense of time frame here.

-The Assembly of Experts is 86 people and has to meet twice a year [which, I'm guessing, means they don't meet very often].

-Rafsanjani is the head of this assembly [he was elected as such].

-He went to try and count these votes maybe 2-3 days ago. How long would something like that take? Would it take effect immediately? Is it possible that he called the assembly together and is now just waiting for things to get worse with the protests [i.e. more state-sponsored brutality] before he calls the vote?

Sorry -- I am very genuinely curious about how removing a Supreme Leader works.

Viva la Revolution?

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:58:56 -0800

IRAN ELECTION FILTER: I am looking to create a few web pages to mirror some information back in to Iran. What editor should I use that will recognize Arabic script and what tags do I need to use to define the language when writing the HTML? To clarify a bit further, I have the text already in Farsi. I am looking to take information that is on pages that have been blocked/filtered by the Iranian government and put it in a simple plain text only page which I will host on a server that I have access to. I tried to use Notepad++ to create the pages but it does not like Farsi. Also I have never created a web page in another language so I don't know what tags to put in to define the language. Please help!

Do Iranians litter?

atchafalaya — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:04:08 -0800

Is Iran cleaner than Iraq? I've been to a couple of Arabic-speaking countries, and one thing I noticed was the piles of trash everywhere. Pervasive litter.

I recently saw a slide show about Iran, and the lack of litter in public spaces surprised me.

Is Iran different in that respect?

Yes, I know Iran is not Arabic.

Help me track this package from Iran!

estherbester — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:40:09 -0800

Help me track this package from Iran! I have a tracking number but no idea who the carrier is. Someone in Iran mailed us a package for work (a video cassette) and I don't know where I can enter the tracking number: in the email they said they sent it "by coliy post no:RRxxxxxxxxIR from IRAN-TEHRAN-15" (where each x is a digit)

The most promising lead was http://tntsearch.post.ir/ but the number doesn't work when I enter it.

Axis of evil, here I come!

number9dream — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:33:35 -0800

I'm going to Iran in a couple of weeks and I need some help with my planning. I'm going for an academic conference/summer school in Tehran for 12 days. After that I have a further 10 days to explore on my own. I am going to go to Esfahan and Shiraz at least after leaving Tehran. I would like to go to Masuleh in the north if I have time, but that's in the opposition direction as Esfahan and Shiraz, so I'll see how it goes when I'm there.

Relevant personal data: I am a white male, Canadian citizen, late twenties, traveling alone. I don't speak Farsi but I am learning a few phrases of introduction, how to ask directions, find the bathroom, ask for a glass of water, etc. I am not religious at all.

I like seeing historical stuff like ancient ruins, old mosques and other architecture, etc. I like museums, but I have limited patience for them. I really enjoy wandering the streets of cities, just seeing what life is like there, people-watching, and just generally trying to immerse myself in the culture.

I have a few specific questions:

1) How much money should I bring (per day)? I'd like to keep costs relatively low, but since it's very difficult to get more cash when in Iran, I don't want to underbudget and then get in trouble. I'll be staying in budget hotels but I don't want anything really grotty, and I won't be eating in fancy restaurants.

2) What sort of dress is appropriate? Obviously I am going to attract some attention anyway, but I'd rather not stick out too much based on my attire.

3) Any recommendations for places to go/things to see in or around Tehran, Esfahan, or Shiraz? Or some other places that you think I should go instead?

4) Any cultural or legal quirks I should be aware of? I know the basics, eg be respectful of Islamic values, don't photograph prisons/police/military sites, don't hit on Iranian women.

5) Anything else?

Thanks!

Surfing in Tehran

milagu — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:25:36 -0800

My friend is in Iran and wants to get through to blocked internet sites on her Mac. Does anyone have any experience doing this through a proxy? So far nothing she has tried has worked.

I just want some sad vocals

azarbayejani — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:54:01 -0800

I'm looking for Middle Eastern folk music, preferably the kind with really awesome singing. What are your recommendations? Earlier today I downloaded an ambient liveset by Klimek from mnmlssgs and was particularly intrigued by a little vocal snippet at the beginning of the mix. It's about 30 seconds into the mix. I'm pretty sure it's a field recording, but if anyone could identify it and lead me to more music of the type, I would be forever indebted to you.

I was raised in a home where lots of old Iranian music was played around me, but I can't really seem to find a lot of this stuff in a digital format (all my parents' stuff is disorganized and on tape). About two months ago, I did find an amazing album of Mugham by Alim and Fargana Qamisov on Amazon. I also like Hossein Alizadeh's collaboration with Djivan Gasparayan on Endless Vision. I was also very interested by a documentary on Qamisov I found on youtube. The thing I liked about the documentary was that a majority of the music was vocals-only, but the album I bought was accompanied by music.

I know there are probably a LOT of places where I can get music like this. I also know I kind of gave a pretty broad description. I just want to know where I can get the best, most moving recordings.

So, any recommendations for vocal-heavy, preferably kinda sad, Middle-eastern music?

Who put the Rang in the ... oh, never mind.

mykescipark — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:19:37 -0800

Persian music aficionados, tell me what you know about Golhaye Rangarang. Earlier in the year, I stopped by L.A.'s finest Iranian record store and picked up a couple volumes of a series called Golhaye Rangarang (or Ranga Rang, depending on who you ask). I'd like to do more serious investigation into the series, but I can't seem to find out a damn thing about it.

The rumors I've heard is that they were part of an Iranian national radio series which aimed to preserve the very finest in Persian classical music and poetry, and enlisted pretty much all the legendary composers, writers, and performers in the country's community to do so. I seem to also recall something about them being the only remaining artifact of this particular endeavor, but this is all feeling very abstract in my head and I just can't recall details.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a single Web site about it. Can anyone fill me in? No such thing as too much information.

(And yes, I could always go back and ask the fine folks at the store, but as nice as they are, they have often fielded my previous scholarly inquiries with bemusement. UCLA Ethnomusicology this ain't.)

Where can I buy things from the Persian-speaking world in Vancouver BC?

thewalrus — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:47:36 -0800

Vancouver Persianfilter: Where can I find Farsi language books, Iranian style clothing, preserved foodstuffs/snacks and authentic Afghan or Iranian (or any Central Asian style) style carpets and household accessories in Vancouver BC?

Gandhigh Jump

Christ, what an asshole — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:20:20 -0800

After looking at this map, I'm curious as to why South Asian and Middle Eastern countries are vastly underrepresented in the Olympic games. What exactly are the economic, political, religious, or cultural factors that play into this?

Blowback

wilful — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:14:20 -0800

Have the US or UK Governments ever formally acknowledged or apologised for their role in the 1953 Mossadegh/Iran coup? Is there any general recognition amongst the commentariat about the how and why of Iran's suspicion/distrust towards the US and UK?

Cost and method of translating a technical book into Farsi?

thewalrus — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:08:31 -0800

How much would it cost to translate a large, highly technical computer book into Farsi (Persian)? What method would be best to accomplish this? The book in question would be about 400 to 600 pages and consist of highly technical UNIX / computer networking material. About the same level of complexity as the current edition of an intermediate to advanced level O'Reilly TCP/IP, BIND or Linux book. Some of the books we are looking at translating are more technical and involve optical and/or RF theory, or other more specialized vertical industry knowledge which is much less common than intermediate level x86 Linux/BSD skill.

The technical concepts within the book would not be translated into Farsi - for example, we're not going to translate line by line the output of a 'dmesg' command on FreeBSD 6.3 into a foreign language. Unix concepts which have their own names in English and unix CLI stuff will remain in English. This would be similar to the way I have seen Japanese Linux/BSD software developers work, with the code, CVS and system operating in English while the documentation is in Kanji.

However all of the 'this is how you do this' part of the book would need to be translated. The descriptive sections talking about how, why and where a computer or networked set of computers are doing a particular thing, the whole narrative of the book. The skill of the English to Farsi translator would need to be of a fairly high level, to deal with abstract concepts and explanations of highly complex systems.

At first glance it seems like such a service performed within the boundaries of North America would be relatively expensive. Many of the native Farsi speakers who have the knowledge to translate such a book into Farsi are already employed full-time at another job, work for some 3-letter intelligence agency, or so on. I'm aware that Iran has an extremely young population compared to the rest of the world and a large number of unemployed (or underemployed) university students.

Can anyone estimate how much it would cost to hire a masters English student from a major school in Iran? Would doing something like this possibly be helpful towards their course credit or CV? Can anyone estimate the monthly salary for a relatively skilled English-speaking unix/routing/telecom geek inside Iran?

Where's the truth?

pelican — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:23:25 -0800

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is only seeking "peaceful nuclear activities"; Presidential Candidates contend Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Which is right? I can't trust sources from my own country (U.S.) What does a more objective (is there such a thing?) view say?

The real story behind Iranian IEDS?

stratastar — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:48:57 -0800

Shaped Explosive Charges - and Iranian "involvement" how much do we actually know about shaped charges in Iraq? So, the administration has come out to the press full on with the story that the Iranians are supplying shaped charges, which may or may not be true. Leaving aside the political stuff, I want to find out about actual Iraqi abilities capabilities of making these things....

One of the points that they are making is that these are precisely machined devices, and there are no known factories capable of making these in Iraq, and so these things must be coming from another country. This, well, sounded like baloney. Actually, most likely because this sounded like very much like recycled baloney. The same story (true or not) was being peddled LAST MARCH, before it got overtaken by the reality of how really awful the situation in Iraq actually was! Note that the Routers link quoting General Pace as denying the existence of evidence is dead but quoted here.

A quick search on metafilter (google was useless) provided a couple comments and links: (one by insomnia_lj making the point that these things have been around since WWII.

Before this becomes chat-filter can anyone provide insight into what's garbage and what isn't? Can a modern charge capable of penetrating an Abrams be home-made in Iraq? Is there any reliable information on U.S. evidence except this secret meeting in Baghdad?

How do you pronounce Vafai?

ND¢ — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:46:36 -0800

How do you pronounce the last name Vafai? I think that it is Iranian.