War Has Been Declared

The last 100 years could easily be called a century that changed war forever. In each iteration we witnessed advancements in the art and technology of war that have never been equaled in the history of mankind. And with each iteration, we progressed our ability to destroy to a point where our capabilities were so alarming, simply the threat of war was enough to keep the peace.

Today we have a new war. It is a war waged on a very small battlefield with support from non-combatants around the world. It's a war of subversion, a war of information, a war with no boundaries, and a war with a new weapon. Twitter.

That's right, a week ago Twitter was a microblogging tool that most of the world had never heard of. Two days ago it turned into a lifeline for the Iranian people to tell the world what the mainstream media either would not or could not. By the end of the day yesterday, it had become a battlefield. For two days, while typical media sources were blocked by Iran's government, Twitter somehow had them stumped. While they could somewhat control what was coming in, they could not control what was going out. As people around the world began to pick up on what was going on, they started to run interference... creating anonymous proxies, setting up VPNs, and departing from generally accepted practices to protect the identities of those who were actually in danger. Twitter even postponed it's regularly scheduled downtime, realizing the gravity of the situation they had been drawn into by no action of their own.

Today, the opposition movement in Iran is hiding in plain sight, obfuscated by the noise created as people around the world flood the #IranElection topic at a rate that prevents my poor twitterfall view from keeping up.

Now the governments, always slow to pick up something new, have attempted to adapt. Instead of trying to prevent, the government in Iran has begun to create its own noise by attempting to lure those who desire to help but may not think about what they are doing, into providing information.

I continue to be amazed by the way events have been unfolding in this situation. My prayers are with those in Iran who are fighting a government they don't believe in and that they might one day be able to sit on a train, coming home from work and write whatever they want because they don't worry what their government might do about it.