As someone born in Iran, trying to reach family yielded the same results. An AI voice picks up the phone and talks about hope, but not in a religious or war timed thing, more budhist zen definition of hope. It's surreal. Other than that, a discord server with almost 7k members had 20 people online (who are probably not in Iran). Communications have been almost completely been broken off.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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talks about hope in English or Farsi?
In English.
Not sure how long they'll work, but here's the direct link to the audio from the article.
https://public.flourish.studio/uploads/2281856/4a7cec60-ca22-4eb3-9590-80874d2f9b84.wav
https://public.flourish.studio/uploads/2281856/f54efe40-97a4-428f-8019-04edd7451c82.wav
The second on is creepy as all hell
This almost seems like a Black Mirror episode
This is chilling
From Venezuela living abroad, had the same output on a different situation.
Family was traveling to EU from Caracas, called directly without texting first via cell phone to get an idea of how ready they where to depart and all the anticipation for the trip and boom, seems like someone I don't know is handling the phone.
Thoughts racing on my head: we're they kidnapped, were they kidnapped? What is actually happening?
I tried to reach out using other providers and even going trough a landline, same output. A voice saying they'll get to the phone soon and calling them to come and pick up the device. Super unsettling.
Then my wife's phone rang via WhatsApp and it was them, they were there saying are ready for the trip and that all was on track unbeknownst to all the events.
So, without going into a lot of detail I think is by design from the current administration of narco dictatorship in Venezuela. A friend's and family VoiP company loyal to their leaders routing by default on their own carrier once the calls go onshore within their network.
A way to make money out of this is routing calls trough a maze of providers of their own to catch a "a quarter a minute" and spread unsettling thoughts on the general population who has family abroad.
After this we all started a group on Signal and hoped for a better way to communicate privately.
Consider getting VoIP phone numbers from a jurisdiction that's much less hostile, so you have another number available to use
The article criticized the closing of the Internet by Tehran, but the Internet is clear vulnerability that can be exploited in times of war.
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Wow, that audio is super unsettling. On its own it would seem innocuous, but with the context of trying to contact somebody in a country that's on the verge of being nuked, it's downright horrifying.
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