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IRAN LAUNCHES AN ONLINE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
newsblaze.com ^ | April 1,2019 | Hassan Mahmoudi

Posted on 03/31/2019 11:30:36 PM PDT by hassan.mahmoud

Recently Facebook and Twitter revealed they had removed a network of accounts linked to the Iranian government that attempted to launch online Disinformation campaign. Microsoft said it seized 99 websites used by Iranian hackers to steal sensitive information and launch other cyber attacks. The company said the group, which it has been tracking since 2013, has tried to snoop on activists, journalists, political dissidents, defense industry workers and others in the Middle East, including some who were “protesting oppressive regimes” in the region. Hackers did so by tricking people in those organizations to click on malicious links disguised to resemble well-known brands, including Microsoft and its LinkedIn, Outlook and Windows products, Microsoft said in court filings. In another event, German court orders Spiegel to urgently remove two of his defamations about the People's Mojahedin The German magazine Der Spiegel was summoned by a Hamburg court to urgently withdraw two of its defamations about the People's Mojahedin. A court in Hamburg, Germany, has just ordered the weekly Der Spiegel to remove from its article of 16 February 2019 two defamations targeting the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or in Persian, MeK) and its members in Albania. The magazine was informed of the court's decision on March 22. According to the sentence, Spiegel must remove the two defamations within 24 hours of its February 16, 2019 issue, failing which the magazine would be liable to a fine of up to €250,000 or a six-month prison sentence. The magazine complied within 24 hours and removed the defamations in question from its German and English PDF version on its website. On February 16, in the aftermath of two major Iranian demonstrations in Warsaw and the Munich Summit (February 16-18), Der Spiegel magazine published an article full of gross defamation against the PMOI and its members in Albania. The office of the National Council of Iranian Resistance (NCRI) in Germany responded to this article by filing a civil suit in a court in Hamburg. The NCRI has requested an urgent action to remove two of these defamations while preserving its right to pursue in a normal judicial procedure the other false allegations contained in the article. On March 5, 2019, in an email sent to NCRI's lawyer in Germany, Der Spiegel wrote that the NCRI has no right to file a complaint about this article. But on 21 March, a Hamburg court sitting on which three judges were sitting rejected the magazine's claim and handed down its sentence after considering the two urgent motions filed by the NCRI. The award confirms that "the plaintiff has suffered damages" as a result of this article, and that the NCRI Berlin office is entitled to bring a civil action, as its scope also includes WIPO's activities in Germany. The two defamations that were the subject of an urgent action in the complaint of the German office of the NCRI are two sentences of the article that claim that "some defectors talk about torture" and that "many Mujahideen train three times a week to slit their throats with a knife, enucleate with their fingers and tear off their mouths" (sic). In both cases, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff. In the first case, the award states that "the civil party has demonstrated that the claim is incorrect". "The principles of journalism regarding a suspicion have been violated because WIPO has not been questioned about it," the court said in the second case. The defamations of the Spiegel were largely relayed by the clerical regime The February 16 article in the Spiegel was widely reported by the state media in Iran. The Mehr News Agency and the daily newspaper Khorasan have titled "Three times a week, the Mujahideen train to slit their throats with a knife". The Fars Agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, dedicated its front page to the "Report of the Spiegel of the Mujahideen camp: Members of this organization are training to kill". The Mizan News Agency, affiliated to the judiciary, has titled "In Albania, the Mujahideen train to slit their throats with a knife, enucleate and pull out their mouths". The Hamiane Velayat website has titled "Spiegel's shocking report on the savagery of the Mujahideen". Hundreds of other media outlets have reported this article with similar titles. The article has even been used as an alibi by some members of the regime's parliament, such as Allahyar Malekshahi, who referred to it to claim that the PMOI is training for terrorist acts in the heart of Europe. It must be acknowledged that such claims are very useful in Tehran to cover the many State terrorism cases circulating in several European countries. Since PMOI members withdrew from Iraq, where they have suffered several massacres of Tehran's henchmen, to settle in Albania, and especially after the widespread uprisings of December 2017 and the failure of the policy of complacency, the Iranian clerical regime has sought to escape its crises by multiplying, at astronomical cost, campaigns of denigration and misinformation against the Iranian resistance movement. These campaigns aim to persuade Western interlocutors that the people's Mujahideen are worse than the religious dictatorship in place and that therefore there is no alternation possible in Iran and that it is better to support the government in place.


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: albania; allahyar; angelamerkel; derspiegel; djibouti; eritrea; europeanunion; germany; hamiane; hassannasrallah; hezbollah; iran; iraq; khorasan; lebanon; malekshahi; microsoft; nato; ncri; pmoi; poland; sudan; twitter; velayat; walloftext; warsaw; wipo; yemen

1 posted on 03/31/2019 11:30:36 PM PDT by hassan.mahmoud
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To: hassan.mahmoud

I’m copying into Microsoft Word and double spacing!!

Looks like an important read but too tough for me this way.


2 posted on 03/31/2019 11:57:23 PM PDT by dp0622 (The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR)
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To: hassan.mahmoud

MUCH easier to read that way. :)

So, the German paper had written articles stating that the Iranian resistance were actual brutal killers, the Mujahideen?

Iran uses this to cover for their state sponsored terrorism?

Is that close?


3 posted on 04/01/2019 12:04:00 AM PDT by dp0622 (The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR)
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To: hassan.mahmoud

Billions of dollars funneled by Barack Hussein Obama to the Iranians.

What did Americans expect they would do with the money?

Collusion collusion collusion.


4 posted on 04/01/2019 12:24:47 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committee)
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To: a fool in paradise

no,no,no.

So called Iran resistance MEK was delisted by Obama regime.


5 posted on 04/01/2019 12:55:22 AM PDT by granada
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To: dp0622

Actually leftwing islam progressive MEK have won support from both parties, Dem and GOP, I mean elites. But European liberal media take aim at Trump government, try to portary it as a scandal.


6 posted on 04/01/2019 1:12:33 AM PDT by granada
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To: granada

Are there ANY real non-terrorist Iran resistance groups..

MEK is leftwing islam progressive? Hard to imagine any muslims like that.

But what do I know? :)


7 posted on 04/01/2019 1:18:06 AM PDT by dp0622 (The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR)
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To: dp0622

in 1970s MEK was a radical leftwing progressive group, very active in the movement against Pahlavi and western imperialism and respoonsible for several attacks on Americans (government&business) in Iran. You know, left wingers played a key role in 1979 Iranian revolution.


8 posted on 04/01/2019 1:39:47 AM PDT by granada
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To: hassan.mahmoud

Gosh, I wish facebook and google would find a way to protect us from words we shouldn’t hear. It’s too frightening to have a completely free and open internet./s

Yet another story where the indians are waving blankets, trying to stampede the buffalo herd (us) over a cliff.


9 posted on 04/01/2019 6:32:01 AM PDT by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: hassan.mahmoud

Don’t need it, we have our own disinformation service called the MSM-LSD alphabet news services.


10 posted on 04/01/2019 7:02:28 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~ Eat Sleep Fly Repeat ~)
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To: hassan.mahmoud

https://mashable.com/article/microsoft-phishing-domains-iranian-hackers/#muxFoOP6haqH

As Techcrunch points out, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer turned spy Monica Witt reportedly has connections to the hacker group. Witt defected to Iran and is currently a fugitive wanted by the FBI for alleged espionage. It is believed that Witt provided the Iranian hackers with intelligence regarding U.S. officials and her former colleagues.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2019/03/27/new-steps-to-protect-customers-from-hacking/

Today, court documents were unsealed detailing work Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has executed to disrupt cyberattacks from a threat group we call Phosphorus – also known as APT 35, Charming Kitten, and Ajax Security Team – which is widely associated with Iranian hackers. Our court case against Phosphorus, filed in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C., resulted in a court order enabling us last week to take control of 99 websites the group uses to conduct its hacking operations so the sites can no longer be used to execute attacks.


11 posted on 04/01/2019 7:11:31 AM PDT by sockmonkey (I am an America First, not Israel First FReeper.)
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