Iran Intelligence Alert! political conspiracy, rogue activists, or spies?

Revised March 28, 2010

This page documents some alarming and unethical behavior by a dangerous rogue political party and criminal operation. Please read the information posted here carefully and do your own research. This document is being updated regularly as our investigation continues. Please check the comments section and document revision date for the latest updates.

We need your input and help. Our lives have been threatened, our credibility attacked, and it seems this group has some powerful friends in the media. We hope that by sharing our experiences, we can prevent other people from being harmed. This is not political propaganda. This is a real story about real people who have been damaged.

Public Investigation of Reza Pahlavi, Iran Cyber Army, and the monarchist alliance with MKO terrorist organization.
Other key suspects include: Mehdi Saharkhiz (onlymehdi on Twitter), Austin Heap (Austinheap on twitter),
Maryam Rajavi maryam-Rajavi, Melody Moezzi (melodymoezzi, Lily Mazahery (lilymazahery), twitter user Tehranweekly, twitter user Oxfordgirl, Josh Shahryar (jshahryar on twitter), & twitter character Persiankiwi.

This is a public intelligence brief and investigation called: Operation Blacklist. These briefs are compiled because The struggle for freedom, democracy & human rights in Iran is a very serious and dangerous situation for those inside and outside Iran. We must do everything to keep people safe and to provide accurate and timely intelligence.

Introduction

We feel there is a serious problem with a political party or government moles/spies on twitter using the hash tags #iranelection and #sog. It involves the false twitter profile of Persian Kiwi; a well known tweeter during the Iran election crisis. It also involves a group called anonymous and a website called: whyweprotest.net. This online problem may be about a hidden political agenda; or it may be an operation to track protestors and undermine the green movement inside Iran.
The operation apparently is using virtualization, proxy servers, and paying people to tweet.
The suspect group of people, automated twitter bots, & fake twitter profiles (sock puppets) retweet public news and spread disinformation. They call themselves "Sea of Green" and claim they are an online movement supporting the protestors in Iran. They play mind games, create false characters, and covertly attack certain people/websites involved with the green movement and democratic struggle. They collect donations for false or outdated causes and they try to drive traffic to certain sites such as WhyWeProtest.net & DailyNiteOwl.com.

The people of iran want the dictatorship to be replaced with a democratic system that has proper checks and balances. Shunned by most Iranians as fundamentally undemocratic, we feel strongly Reza Pahlavi and the Mojahedin-e Khalq are not a viable alternative to the current government in Iran. There is also the possibility that the money funding their operation is coming from western intelligence agencies such as MI6. From what we understand, the monarchists and MKO have reached a power sharing agreement. Reza Pahlavi wants to be Shah of Iran, while maryam Rajavi is supposed to be the President. FYI:People describe MKO as being no different than Joseph Stalin or the Khmer Rouge. MKO is a Marxist/Islamic fundamentalist group with cult like behavior. They are a terrorist organization that has murdered many innocent civilians.

The operation seems to be well organized and involves over 100 twitter profiles. We believe that whoever is funding this project, is damaging the green movement & the fight for democracy in Iran.

The information on this page is based upon our opinions and experiences. Your research, input and feedback will help us discover the truth. Please use the ad comments feature to contribute your content,. In addition, please vote and tell us if you think we should keep this list and why/why not.
http://iran115.org/list

It started with josh Shahryar

Josh Shahryar aka Niteowl aka @Iran_Translator was the publisher of a collection of compiled tweets which he called Green Brief. He constantly asked for information about protests and other resistance activities. He also seems to have very good sources about events on the ground in Iran. According to his tweets, he advocates slow change through reform and opposes any type of violence. From other tweets, it appears he supports anarchy and claims he does not like any type of government. According to a Google search, here is his bio:
Afghan Blog on "Afghanistan, Terrorism and Islam
A place for people who are looking for NO BULLSHIT information
Created on 2008-07-20 04:36:44 (#16136554), last updated 2009-12-03
12 comments received, 115 comments posted
Basic Info
Name: Josh Shahryar
Location: Israel
Website: http://www.jihadwatch.org
Bio
I'm an Afghan journalist living in self-exile in the United States.

This blog is semi-professional for the moment and how professional it is is going to depend on your feedback and whether I like it. I'm an atheist and I believe in democracy, free enterprise with some government regulation and rights for all. In other words, you could call me somewhat of a libertarian. I am not affiliated with any political parties within Afghanistan or abroad. I'm, however, a strong proponent of globalization.

Finally, if you have any questions about Afghanistan, terrorism, Taliban, leaving Islam or the War on Terror, please feel free to contact me. I'll help you as best as I can no strings attached. My email address is dbosca@gmail.com"

He updated this info on December 3, 2009. before he disappeared, he claimed he was not Iranian and that he was from Israel. Then he started claiming he was a journalist from Afghanistan. Now he claims is first language is persian.

The danger is not in the collection of public tweets Josh Shahryar compiles and calls news; rather the information people are sending to him from Iran and outside Iran. According to a tweet by a user called Zolqarnain: Strange things happened in Iran after he began publishing his briefs. Many people who had been in chat rooms and were known to have had communications with his publication started disappearing off the internet. Some say he is a young adult living in Sacramento; other say he is a journalist in Afghanistan.

We believe this person is very dangerous. Based on our personal experience with him, we feel strongly he is either a criminal or a political operative. After we started tweeting that we suspected he was a spy; he stopped publishing the green brief and disappeared. He reappeared just before the 13 Aban protest. He blamed his disappearance on depression.
http://dailyniteowl.com is his website.

We sent Josh Shahryar some personal information which he did not use properly. In our opinion, his behavior is very strange and unprofessional.

We had sent him a story by email about our work in Iran. We told him about how one of the founders of this organization had to escape from Iran. We also told him the founder was blind. We explained that we had videos & pictures to prove our story.

Instead of trying to gather evidence about what we had told him, he started attacking our group as a sham. Then, after somebody spoke to him by Skype, he deleted the statements. However, his followers, bots, and sock puppets did not stop attacking us. Strangely, he blames the bots & sock puppets on Sanguinarious, a member of anonymous and moderator of whyweprotest.net. One example of these characters is Rage4iran. Twitter id: http://twitter.com/rage4iran

At one point, Shahryar claimed that he had called a truce and that all of these people attacking our organization act independently. He also claims he retracted his statement about us being a "complete and utter sham"; which he never has. All he did was delete the comment from his timeline. Later on, he blamed Sanguinarious for the attacks from bots and sock puppets. Sanguinarious is his website administrator for the website DailyNiteowl.com. Sanguinarious also runs WhyWeProtest.net. Apparently this site was originally created to fight the church of Scientology.

Austinheap is a person living in San Francisco. He claims that he is a hacker. From what we understand, he has a marketing degree. Austin Heap says he is creating an untraceable network which will bypass all filtering in Iran. But, in order to do this; he has been asking for donations and USB thumb drives. Not one person has come forward to say the network actually functions in Iran. He also claims that he must distribute these thumb drives to the people who will use this untraceable network. So, anybody who wants to use this untraceable network must plug in his thumb drive to gain access. Further his project is illegal according to everything we understand about US law. He has to get special permission from the state department in order to export the type of encryption software described. Further, many people can easily bypass filters in Iran without plugging in a thumb drive and have no need for such a network which could be compromised; if it hasn't already. There are several options for how to do this which goes beyond the scope of this page.

Austinheap got press coverage in the BBC, new York Times, and a couple other papers for making lists of proxy servers available during the election crisis. He seems to be very good at working the media. I have tried many times to communicate with him and ask him why he attacked our organization. He never responds. Then we offered him $1,000 if he could prove to us his network functions in Iran. He still would not respond. We had somebody else try speaking with him: and Austin heap told that person that we had "called him a fag & a murderer", which again was very strange.

We feel strongly he is not being honest about his activities. Example: Austinheap personally confirmed tanks were rolling in the streets of Tehran, then he deleted the statement from his twitter account. In summary, his behavior is very shady. Further he associates himself with people like tehranweekly who does nothing but spread disinformation and retweets news. According to tehranweekly, we are under house arrest by the FBI, we are IR agents tracking IP addresses, and we use keystroke loggers on the hash tag iranelection. And that is just the beginning.

Here is Ten Reasons why we think Austin Heap is a scam:
http://iran115.org/austinheap-haystack-scam

Austinheap is connected to Josh Shahryar, Sanguinarious, and many others on this blacklist. Sanguinarious says haystack works in Iran and that anonymous helped test the system in Iran. We started suspecting Austin Heap when he began a disinformation war against our organization on or about August 15, 2009, with the following tweets:
"http://iran115.org and @iran115 is COMPLETE and UTTER sham. Evidence will be provided tonite #iranelection (via @iran_translator"
http://topsy.com/tb/iran115.org/
Here is another tweet from @austinheap: "Some reading about the iran115.org scam: http://is.gd/2sqmm -- be safe online people.3:31 PM Aug 21st from Tweetie"
http://twitter.com/austinheap/status/3459966210
Austinheap's website:
http://haystacknetwork.com

Here is a discussion about Austinheap and filtering in Iran.
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/keeping-your-anonymity-iran/7484-haystack-n...

We believe these people are extremely dangerous. We also believe haystack network started by Austinheap is a very questionable project. It seems the group anonymous and the website iran.whyweprotest.net are also involved. Many of these people on the blacklist were put on the list because they seem to be sock puppets or part of the same group. Several of them are asking for donations for false purposes. They tweet misinformation and false news. They repost outdated videos and information. They also create multiple twitter accounts. They attack people and twist words and logic to fit their agenda. Some of them appear to be very trustworthy people. They all use the hash tags SOG & #iranelection on twitter.

We ask: who has the motive? Who has the means? Based upon our own experiences & initial investigation: we believe it is Reza Pahlavi, the MKO, or an alliance between these two groups. Both groups have the logistical capabilities of pulling off this type of operation.

This is one of the most cruel, dishonest, and unethical political groups we have ever witnessed. It seems they are also quite effective. They raise money for austin heap/hay stack network, organize endless petitions, retweet public news about Iran, play strange mind games, hold Friday prayers, organize sing alongs, talk about love, and attack people if they disagree with them or if they don't like their politics. They also make threatening phone calls. Most of them are not even Iranian.

This online political operation is taking advantage of people who want to belong to a cause and they seem to be very good at manipulating. They make up false stories, they spread disinformation, and they use proxy/VPNs to hide duplicate accounts on twitter.

Is this a group of hackers? Is it agents working to Destabilize Iran? Is it a political party that is trying to discredit our work? Because obviously they could care less about democracy. If you read our manifesto and constitution; you will find that our only focus is achieving freedom, democracy, & human rights in Iran.

Here is a website dedicated to attacking iran115 from anonymous & whyweprotest.net: http://iran.whyweprotest.net/keeping-your-anonymity-iran/33356-questions...
There are several theories about who these people are. None are good. At best, it is a pirate group & crime ring focused on making money. At worse, they are paid agents of a very unethical political group.

Possible theories:
1. They are a crime ring of hackers, pirates and college students. See links: Iran Activists Get Assist from ‘Anonymous,’ Pirate Bay | Danger Room | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/iran-activists-get-assist-from-a...
Anonymous Iran: Pirate Bay and 'Anonymous' Back Iran Activists | NowPublic News Coverage
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/anonymous-iran-pirate-bay-and-anonymous...
Somebody speculated that there was an alliance between anonymous and a foreign group
and money was being exchanged behind the scenes.
2. They are paid agents for a political faction who is trying to discredit our organization. If this is the case, their behavior has been very undemocratic and dishonest.

The following is a list of users who we think are suspect and who should be watch very closely. We ask you to please be very careful when dealing with these individuals. Keep in mind: some on this list may just be followers guilty of retweeting what they thought were reliable sources.

If you think you should not be on this list or would like to discuss the blacklist: please call our US bureau. PHONE: 202-509-0933 or contact us using the form at http://iran115.org/contact

Note: These users are starting to change their names on twitter. But you can still find them with a search when you search for contacts. We believe the top twenty are part of the leadership.

BLACKLIST:

Reza Pahlavi PahlaviReza
Maryam Rajavi maryam-Rajavi
Melody Moezzi (melodymoezzi)
Lily Mazahery (lilymazahery)
Fred harrison (Fredharrison)
Kim Anabel
Mehdi Saharkhiz (OnlyMehdi)
JShahryar aka iran_translator aka Josh Shahryar aka Niteoww aka Green Brief
@austinheap aka haystack network aka Censorship Research center
Sanguinarious
OxfordGirl
lissnup
tehranweekly
sahar1972
@jadt65
JoanneMichele aka jmswfc)
ScrewTheMullahs
kcbbMN:
jandyh
CHWN
MsVFAB
besalamati:
XTRABallots
sannri
bewDful
play4iran
pray4iran
buddy_luv
t4tx
xtraballots
3fatcats
mrzand
shokufeyesib
royasmusic
Shhh528
jocarva
Shahriar
greenthumbnails aka grnthmbnls:
@perry1949
topastro:
@smirkitty
@TweetSmart101
@petaluma1
@cbn2
@EvilmongrMobstr
@artemis_ia
@FRANCE7776
@ladyallein1
@Khoshkeledoc
@TNTIran
@PERSIA_NEWS_2
@4rrow
@khazelton
@miamigrass
@fianna22
@osumom311
@roxxlala
@Mwolda
skotmaudlin
FELDart:
@CaNitten:
@papacass84:
Pacificshores1
pascaluccelli
manydrums?
dadashiii
The_FNGa
boofaust
darkstarr65
pepe_corrs
Parsa_SH
Whizzbizz
vimal55:
democraticiran:
uncoolbobby:
clownfish79:
IranAzadMa
Sonja_Jo:
Bantrybay
Iran Revolution (K11984)
Tdivicenzo?
mehdiomidi
Jbroks86
scorpusmaximus
DrFausty
ew (edwand)
eadvocate
nicholbrummer
VivaSOG:
revmagdalen:
MexCAN
bbottehond
foxbutters:
kiraber
masih09
AtlSafa
Coffee_n_Cream
Pippsta
vr_quarksoup
VickyBell
germantoenglish
Featheredsprite
Eowyn9
_Weava
theveni1
TonyTrainor
@behzad77
Chewka_xoxo
808lika)
Tressa_Kaye
iranenglish
PERSIA_MAX_NEWS:
Whizzbizz:
@jonitchr
@roelassie
@shariatmadari
Dryah:
oculusnonvidit:
@brielmusik
libra0071 (per there request)
SuziLeVeaux:
beshnaveed
jomhirani
jonitchr
shadien
hussupussy
iranpr
rupertbu
@thomas_adolf
shary1972
@syndproject
dapana2
ksquared3:
ussypussy
Dan Campbell (tsrmlis) on Twitter
Blckpaw
Shelly Mategko (keewatinrose) on Twitter
Arianirani
oli2be
PersianKiwi
Ana Mal (Anahita999) on Twitter
meridith (meridith09)
Jomhouriyeh Irani (jomhirani) on Twitter
Azadi (shirdl)
GreenVote_Iran (GreenVote_Iran)
Dputamadre (Dputamadre) on Twitter
Reneboucheaux
DominiqueRdr
Media4iran: ...
Jean_ie
tiny gnome (DrRevo) on Twitter
IranWWP
Iranlaya (masih09) on Twitter
9_10:
BlackerList:
rodneystack:
SaloumehZ
kasiabwb
DariusSassanian
change_for_iran
KevinScottDC
Mel Copeland (maravot) on Twitter
kelly (theskyrevolving) on Twitter
Cybrludite (cybrludite) on Twitter
Usul (edwand) on Twitter
Cynthia (Cynfullll) on Twitter
stirringleaves:
tallnoe:
maravot:
MoneyGuyBK:
ISA-army18tir
Iman Kevin Scott (ImanKevinScott) on Twitter
@ImanEowyn
@Mexcan22
#United4Iran
Ana Mal (Anahita999) on Twitter
watsongs2012:
@RTfromIran
@ImamShhh
IranAngel
@ImamShahla
GreenQuran:
_free_Iran_
Azadiii
IranRiggedElect
media4iran
ImamShmangy:
o_lucky_me:
ThinkIran
Vattandoost
Lukeskitchen
PrimoGoo:
Ripple1967
Kaschel
jmoghari:
Disturbed_Rick:
Gloriadefeo
mikeforzion:
FreeIranVVV:
michadelsol:
DGipsie:
kayemcmoore (kayemcmoore) on Twitter
dirtundermanail
Cathee Boswell (catheesterling) on Twitter
sephir0t
Max (kiaoramate) on Twitter
AnthonyEastwood:
duncangibbs:
LaJacobine:
PresHarryTruman:
MagsNews:
lysssandros:
o_lucky_me:
hilldoc
Zahunda
sohraya
Sonja_Jo:
tigeryang329
Harry_Kelly
humanity1953
SemperHicErro
Iranpr
tallnoe
sanjive01:
terri3111:
hishamwyne
PatchouliW
@prmros
Bolonee:
green_is_beauti:
Japi3:
Patriot0987
missfunnyface:
Joey19912
DJWhiteHype
devlar14freedom:
whozits
MsNashville:
@secularmuslim
Codeman177
Christine Thompson (redcrossmom) on Twitter