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Iran can now track Tor users. Tor users in Iran more than doubled to 2,800 after the 2009 presidential election. Tor, the onion-routing tool that allows users to visit the Internet without betraying what sites they are using, is now traceable by the Iranian security forces. UPI quoted Andrew Lehman, Tor's executive director, as saying the number of Tor users in Iran doubled, to 2,800 after the last election there and the protests that resulted.

The Iranians have employed "deep packet inspection" to follow Web traffic that would not normally be visible. Tor has known it was vulnerable to this type of software but had not yet developed armor against it.

As I've stated elsewhere, we are a tech news blog, so humanitarian and political crises are not our bread and butter. That said, so much of the Jasmine Revolution has been augmented with social media that I think a brief (and insufficient) breakdown of what's happened in the last week would not be inappropriate. There is no new tech news here, only important news. The loss of lives that can't be undone. The tide of revolution seems to be breaking on a particularly rocky shore.

If you have different death-tolls, please post links in the comments

• Bahrain: 12; one reporter detained, another ejected (source, here and here)
• Egypt: 13 in Muslim-Christian riots, possibly fomented by disbanded security police, rapes (source and here)
• Libya: 1,000+; four reporters missing (source and here)
• Oman: 6 (source)
• Yemen: 40 (source)

Libya shuts down the Internet again. Libya shut down the Internet for a brief period in mid-February. Then again on March 3, it shut it down completely and it has remained off.

This has not had what we can presume is the desired end of this action, the end of the revolt. Nor has it kept information from getting out of the country. As we've mentioned elsewhere, a lot of the information we get is distributed by Libyan expatriates who are in contact with protesters inside the country.

Internet blocked in Tripoli. According to journalist Lisa Goldman, who is in touch with several sources in a position to know, the Internet is being blocked in Libya's capital city of Tripoli. Long-distance land-line telephone service from the city is also down and mobile service appears interrupted, although that has yet to be confirmed.

Inspired by Tunisia and Egypt's uprisings, Libyans began protesting at the beginning of last month. Given that, among other reasons, Libya's leader, Col. Moammar Qaddafi is far less connected to reality than the former leaders of those countries, this uprising has been much bloodier and more resembles a civil war than a large-scale protest. As many as 1,000 Libyans have been killed in the fighting.

Syria cracks down on bloggers. As the Jasmine Uprisings go on in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere, Syria has gone in the other direction, arresting bloggers. In the last month, Ahmad Abu Al-Kheir and Firaz Akram Mahmoud have been arrested and Tal Al-Mallouhi was sentenced to five years for her imaginary spying. A host of other Syrian bloggers remain jailed.

Although Syria recently loosened up its Internet filtering, this is clearly just a PR move. Remember, as awful as one death is and despite how violent the deaths of more than 500 Libyans may seem, the father of Syria's leader killed between 20,000 and 40,000 people in Hama in 1982. These people are monsters.

Protesters killed in Bahrain. In the latest Middle East uprising, Bahrain went into the streets on this week, filling up streets and roundabouts.

Last night, however, it went pear-shaped as Bahrain security forces attempted to "close" the square. Between tear gas, tear gas canisters, beatings, rubber bullets and possibly live fire, three have died. Over 200 were injured, 60 are missing and dozens arrested.

Lord. Where to start? Well, some things happened in Egypt this week. I can't think of a better way to cover them than to start a week ago, and end with today's developments.

Egypt's Internet blackout. For only the second time in history (the first being Burma during the Saffron Revolution), a country cut itself off completely from the Internet.

Twitter blocked in Egypt. On January 25, in response to massive protests, the Egyptian government blocked Twitter, which protesters were using to spread the word of movement around Cairo and other cities.

The next day, January 26, the government sporadically blocked Facebook and Google services, among others. Later in the day, Facebook and Google seemed to be largely functional.

Minister Slim. Blogger, free speech proponent and ReadWriteWeb France contributor Slim Amamou was arrested during the recent uprising in Tunisia. Then he was freed. Then he was made Minister of Sports and Youth. I'm not sure what more can be said about that. It was a weird, mighty journey. It was one of those trajectories that make you tremblingly afraid that change and improvement are possible even in a post-lapsarian world like ours. And that should scare the hell out of you.

There has been a lot of gibberish about the Tunisian protests, which sent the tinhorn president of 23 years, Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, into exile and brought the young, the laborers, the mouthy, poets, freaks and everyday people into a position of influence. It was a "Wikileaks revolution," it was a "Twitter revolution." Well it was a confluence of circumstances and a largely non-violent cry, in chorus, by the people of Tunisia is what it was.

Tunisian Protests Result in Massive Online Crackdown. On December 17th, a young unemployed university graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, burned himself to death in Sidi Bouzid to protest the economic situation for young people. His death inspired large protests and resulted in the government killing of three protesters so far.

With a non-existent media, Tunisians took to the internet to share information on the protests. This resulted in a savage censoring backlash by the Tunisian government. Anonymous, the 4chan-allied, Wikipedia-defending hacker group, subsequently targeted the government's official site and that of the prime minister, shutting both down.