Google announced today on its official Google+ page that its Speak2Tweet service is back for Syrians who need to get messages out of the country. The service works by allowing people to call a phone number and leave a voice mail. That voice mail is converted into a Tweet that anybody can view.

Google8 hours ago

A little less than two years ago, when Internet access was cut off in Egypt, we worked with Twitter to launch Speak2Tweet, giving the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection. 

In the last day, Internet access has been completely cut off in Syria. Unfortunately we are hearing reports that mobile phones and landlines aren’t working properly either. But those who might be lucky enough to have a voice connection can still use Speak2Tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+90 212 339 1447 or +30 21 1 198 2716 or +39 06 62207294 or +1 650 419 4196), and the service will tweet the message. No Internet connection is required, and people can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

#SyriaBlackout   1434    137 Powered by socialditto

As Google noted, it appears that some cell and phone lines are also down across the country as well. That could definitely hurt the amount of messages that can get out, but there’s already been quite a few messages posted to the service in the last 15 hours. Some of the messages are obviously prank calls, but a few are legitimate calls for help from a people caught up in a war they didn’t ask for.

Murad, an activist who has ties to various Arab nationalist groups, filed a complaint against his opponent at Amman’s First Instance Court on Monday, stating that Shawabka had attempted to murder him. “He was going to shoot me and he should be punished for that,” he said.

Prosecutors are currently investigating the matter. However, since Shawabka didn’t point the weapon directly at Murad’s head, for example, trying to pin attempted murder on the man is a little difficult. Although pulling a gun during a heated argument, especially one that’s being broadcast to a large group of people courtesy of a satellite system, is definitely cause for concern, attempted murder might be out of the equations. Still, prosecutors seem to think there could be serious charges levied against Shawabka for his behavior.

These sort of violatile debates are apparently quite common on Arabic-language television programs, with hosts often booking guests who violently oppose one another. The Shawabka/Murad debacle shows just how extreme these debates can get, particularly when these individuals simply cannot stand the sight of one another.

Mohammed Habashna, who hosted the debates between the two political adversaries, was a little shocked by how the events played out. ” I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. “It was like the Wild West, but we needed horses in the studio.”

If you’re curious to see the incident for yourself, check out the video below.

The latest release from Wikileaks is called the Syria Files and it hopes to shed some light not only on the current conflict, but the politics and decisions that led up to the violence that now consumes the country. Over 2 million emails from over 680 Syria-related domains cover the history of the region from August 2006 to March 2012.

Wikileaks is once again partnering with press outlets around the world to share the information contained in the documents. Wikileaks themselves will be presenting much of the information, but the AP, alongside other international press outlets, will be publishing their own stories based on the leaks over the next two months.

Julian Assange, currently fighting extradition to Sweden and seeking asylum in Ecuador, said that the material in the leaks is not only relevant to Syria:

“The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it.”

What Assange means is that the emails reveal the part that other countries have been playing in the conflict. It was only until recently that people started to pay attention to the conflict, but it has been going on for over a year now. It’s not beyond the realm of reason to assume that one or two of the major powers have had a hand in the conflict. We won’t know for sure until the emails start getting published though.

Wikileaks also revealed that 42,000 of the leaked emails were infected with viruses or trojans. Those emails may have been traps set by the Syrian Electronic Army, the group that targeted Syrian protesters with fake Facebook phishing attacks. Weirdly enough, the same group also attacked the LinkedIn blog. Maybe the emails will provide further clarification on why the Syrian government hates social networks so much.

If you want to take a look at the Syria Files, just head over to Wikileaks to check them out. Here’s hoping that these leaks will have a positive impact and help stop hostilities in Syria.

The reinforcements were a direct result of Syria’s attack on a Turkish fighter jet last Friday, prompting NATO to announce that they fully intend to defend Turkey if need be. However, the organization did state that the actions the country is currently taking to secure its border “are measures they are taking themselves”.

Problems between the nations have increased as of late following the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a once-peaceful demonstration that has recently turned very bloody. An explosion at the Justice Palace in Damascus on Thursday only further illustrates the level of devastation currently taking place within the country.

Following the attack on the fighter jet, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that they had updated their rules of engagement to deal with such issues. Should any Syrian military forces approach the border that separates the territories, Turkey will treat them as a direct threat.

Despite the potential danger lurking just beyond the horizon, Turkey has not asked NATO for any alliance action. According to an anonymous official, “What they wanted was to make sure that NATO is with them if it comes to defense of their territory. We have plans for the defense of Turkey. They exist; they have long existed.”

In an effort to express just how serious they were about the recent attack, Turkish officials issued a warning to Syria, stating that the country “will act with determination to use all its rights within the international law against this hostile act.” To illustrate their point, state news outlets showed footage of military vehicles and anti-aircraft weaponry amassing near the border.

He made the find during a 2009 trip and is eager to return and further explore the site. But he says regional conflicts make such a return trip nearly impossible. “It’s something that needs more work and I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.”

The monastery that is currently found on the site is believed to have been built in the late 4th or early 5th century, he said, and contains several frescoes from the 11th and 12th century depicting Christian saints and Judgment Day. Mason told an audience at Harvard that he “believes it was originally a Roman watchtower, partially destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt.”

Mason believes that he found tools that date back to the neolithic era or the early bronze age. The tools, he believes, are 6,000 to 10,000 years old. To put that in perspective, Egypt’s oldest pyramid is 4,500 years old. Mason hopes to return to the monastery to excavate under the church’s main altar — he believes he’ll find an entrance to underground tombs there. He also hopes to return to strange stone formations he found in the desert, which he dubbed “Syria’s Stonehenge.”

Tens of thousands of soldiers have defected from the Syrian army but this is the first defection of an air force pilot during the current 15 month long uprising against President Bashar Assad. The air force is considered to be incredibly loyal to Assad’s regime and this defection suggests even Assad’s most trustworthy allies have become dubious.

The defection came just hours after U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford posted an open plea urging the Syrian military to abandon their posts and join the opposition. He warned that those that do not could be prosecuted for war crimes if Assad’s government fails.

“Members of the Syrian military should reconsider their support for a regime that is losing the battle,” Ford wrote on the Facebook page of the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. “The officers and soldiers of the Syrian military have a choice to make. Do they want to expose themselves to criminal prosecution by supporting the barbaric actions of the Assad regime against the Syrian people? Or do they want to help secure the role of the professional military in a democratic Syria by supporting the Syrian people?”

He goes on to site precedent, comparing this regime to the Balkans and the International Criminal Tribunal that was formed to hunt down war criminals.

“There are parallels to the Syria case in the Balkans. In 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICYT) was created to bring to justice those accused of atrocities in the Balkans conflicts. The ICTY indicted 161 people – military and civilian – from foot soldiers to municipal employees to military officers at all levels to heads of state for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against non-combatants and combatants. The charges against them ranged from directly targeting civilians, mistreating individuals (detained combatants and civilians) in custody, terrorizing the civilian population, using disproportionate force against military objectives, and forcing the deportation or displacement of the civilian population.”

Ahmed Kassem, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said they encouraged the pilot to defect and followed his activity until the jet landed safely in Jordan.

In a statement, the Syrian Defense Ministry said: “At 10:34 a.m. Syria time we lost contact with a MiG-21. The pilot onboard was Colonel Hassan Mare’ei Hammadeh was on a routine sortie [in] southern Syria. Pilot Hamadee is considered a deserter who betrayed his country and his military honor. We will follow the usual procedures adopted in such cases. We will request from Jordanian authorities to return the aircraft.”

Jordan, who is not involved in the Syrian conflict and wishes to keep it that way, was at first hesitant to accept the refugee. Jordan officials have said that they ultimately decided to accept him because his safety was not guaranteed if he were returned home, possibly facing torture or execution for his desertion.

According to CBS News, Jordan has taken in over 125,000 refugees since the crisis and Syria is actively seeking their return. The two are frequent and long-term trade partners, with trade estimated at $470 million last year.

Speaking of Syria, some of those software sanctions have been lifted. Google announced today that they are now able to offer Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome to the residents of Syria. I don’t know how much use they will have for it since they’re in the middle of a war.

Still, it’s nice to see that those not involved with the conflict can now gain access to what is arguably the world’s most popular Web browser. The addition of Google Earth could also probably help those who want to avoid the regions that are currently embroiled in conflict. I wonder if we’re going to see any pictures of the country on Picasa?

It would appear that Google has to fight the U.S. export controls to get this software into the hands of the people in these countries. As has been proven in many uprisings around the Middle East, the use of technology to communicate has been key in the numerous successes that we’ve seen. Google shares this sentiment by saying that they have to walk a thin line between complying with U.S. sanctions and offering people the tools they need to “communicate, find and create information.”

While we may have our own gripes with Google and their practices here in the U.S. over privacy and other issues, I think it’s only fair to give them this one. There doesn’t appear to be any ulterior motive except getting technology into the hands of people who actually need it. While we’re just sharing pictures of cats, access to technology is a matter of life and death in a country like Syria.

I don’t want this to devolve into one of those, “Think of the starving children in Africa” stories, but Google did good today. We need more people lobbying for the delivery of essential information technology to those fighting for independence the world over. Besides, it should help level the playing field since the government has been using technology against activists.

One of the new malacious applications in circulation is called FacebookWebBrowser.exe. An unsuspecting user might see it as a legitimate Facebook security app, and click to download. Below are some screens of the malware in action, courtesy of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc.:

From here, FacebookWebBrowser.exe uses a keylogger to gain access to whatever – email, YouTube, Facebook, Skype, financial institutions, etc. – As if those who oppose the Syrian government didn’t have enough to worry about besides murder. The EFF points out that Ghalioun has been targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army for allegedly having a hand in leaking emails written by Syrian president Bashar Assad. The emails in question paint a picture of a flippant president who seems to be generally uninterested in events surrounding the civil unrest in his country.

Another instance of Syrian Electronic Army phishing surrounds fake Facebook sites being hosted at a site called Cixx6. A screen below depicts a false Facebook Login field:

The fake sites log information that unsuspecting users enter while attempting to access their accounts. It is also noted that a user’s Facebook friends might also be victims of malware, and that any links posted by friends on walls or sent in messages might be compromised. And, judging from the screens above, one should be cautious of URLs while accessing Facebook. When one is used to accessing a certain site over and over, it is easy to be duped by a fake site that looks very similar to the real thing.

The order, which is effective as of 12:01AM EST on April 23, 2012 (today), describes how the “the governments of Iran and Syria are endeavoring to rapidly upgrade their technological ability to conduct such activities.”

Cognizant of the vital importance of providing technology that enables the Iranian and Syrian people to freely communicate with each other and the outside world, as well as the preservation, to the extent possible, of global telecommunications supply chains for essential products and services to enable the free flow of information, the measures in this order are designed primarily to address the need to prevent entities located in whole or in part in Iran and Syria from facilitating or committing serious human rights abuses. In order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergencies

President Obama also included some financial restrictions in the order as a means to communicate a cautionary message to technology companies that do business within the two countries. According to comments from senior administration officials obtained by the Washington Post, today’s order was designed specifically to raise awareness among companies that provide technology to Iran and Syria and how their products might be making it easier for authoritarian governments to keep their boot heels on the necks of the political opposition.

Technology use in countries such as Syria and Iran has so far been a double-edged sword for protesters. On the one hand, communication technology such as internet access and mobile phones have been vital to organizing the opposition as well as continuing to keep the outside world informed of what is happening in the countries (and even then, we still know so little).

On the other hand, those same technologies have been employed by the governments in order to quell and suppress the opposition. In addition to the standard spying and communications blackouts, Syria has gone so far as to deploy fake versions of YouTube and Facebook, sites that have been crucial in how activists have maintained communication, in order to infect computers with malware. Additionally, recently leaked emails of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad show how the government has used social media as a way to muzzle the opposition and promote pro-regime propaganda in the outside world.

Iran has been less subtle – although only slightly – with how it manipulates technology into squashing any opposition forces. Prior to today’s order, President Obama has previously admonished the Iranian government for diminishing the access to reliable online communication. For the past two months, Iran’s government has shut down all access to various popular websites such as Gmail, YouTube, and Google, and some reports indicate that the government may have shut down the entire internet at times. These blackouts typically occur during times of expected political unrest, such as around last month’s elections.

Iranian authorities have also made no secret about their plans to eventually launch a nationalized internet by early next year. Depending on which government official you want to pay attention to, this nationalized internet could mean that the general internet will be permanently blocked in Iran or that the two internet services would be coexist (although it’s hard to imagine that the general internet would still remain unrestricted given that’s kind of the point of a national internet).

Once users have visited the page, they’re asked for their YouTube log-in info in order to leave comments but in addition from sponging up your personal account info, it installs some nasty malware disguised as an update to Adobe Flash Player. It should also be noted with much gravity that if you did enter your YouTube log-in on this page, you just handed over the keys to your Google account and all services associated therein. Doubleplusungood.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided the following screenshot of the Fakey YouTube. Although the decoy site has already been taken down, the EFF advises people to be on the lookout for similar traps.

I’ve included below some closer screen captures of pertinent regions of the webpage. I know it’s easy to slip into the habit of assuming that the site you’re visiting is the same old website you’ve always visited, but typosquatting is a growing problem and now that authoritarian governments are taking a page out of scummy internet scammers, it’s all the more important to double-check the URL of the website whenever you visit it, especially if you detect that something is the slightest bit awry or unfamiliar.

(Just a note: if you ever end up at a site with the word “wankbook” in the URL and you aren’t actively trying to visit a site with the word “wankbook” in the URL or title, you should probably leave that site. For many reasons.)

Additionally, if you’re ever asked to install software, be mindful of the request and verify that you aren’t on a malicious site waiting to infect your computer with some nasty malware.

This low-blow from the Syrian government isn’t only a means to prevent members of the opposition from broadcasting and finding updates about what’s happening in the country via YouTube, but it’s doubly evil because it’s siphoning users information while also punishing them with computer-crippling malware.

The following are instructions from the EFF’s website find out if you may have been infected by the malware.

To see if you have been infected, look for the following files:

These files are “system files” and will not be visible by default. To change your settings to make system files visible in Windows 7, Start–>Control Panel–>Appearance and Personalization–>Show hidden files and folders, then select the radio button called Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives. Remove the checkbox labeled “Hide extensions for known file types.” Remove the checkbox labeled “Hide protected operating system files.”

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\sysglobl.exe
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\mscordbc.exe

On Windows 7 systems, you can find them here:

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\sysglobl.exe
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\mscordbc.exe

If you have definitely been infected, though, you may be left with one really inconvenient choice in order to purge your computer of the malware: re-install Windows. If anybody has happened across similar malware sites like the Syrian government’s YouTube fake-out, feel free to share info in the comments below to let others know what to watch out for.