this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025

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513

A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone (apnews.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

126 comments fedilink hide all child comments

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.

“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.

“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”

Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.

They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.

Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.

It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.

Only the second most terrifying story I've read today

(page 3) 27 comments

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago

Consider getting VoIP phone numbers from a jurisdiction that's much less hostile, so you have another number available to use

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The article criticized the closing of the Internet by Tehran, but the Internet is clear vulnerability that can be exploited in times of war.

[+] [email protected] -45 points 1 week ago (8 children)

It's also something that allows people to organize to overthrow an oppressive authoritarian regime.

But this particular authoritarian regime is apparently good because they want to wipe Israel off the map, so I guess we need to pretend everything they do is for the best.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Motherfucker: who started the war

[+] [email protected] -26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are greater power responsible for the actions of their proxies?

Before you answer, remember the answer to that question applies to both sides in this conflict.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (52 children)

What proxy? Israel bombed Iran unprovoked directly, no proxy there.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (10 children)

The most prevalent proxies are the houthis and Hezbollah, which Iran has been arming, financially supporting, and influencing for about two decades now so they can attack Israel without getting themselves into an all out war with Israel and the USA, which they know they would likely lose.

Argue all you want about whether or not Israel should have bombed Iran, but calling it unprovoked is extremely disingenuous.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Iran sucks, Israel sucks too.

I don't want Israel wiped off the map. I just want Netanyahu to crawl in a hole and off himself like his hero Hitler.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why did the authoritarian regime wait until now to turn off the Internet?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well according to the Democrats, I should always support the lesser of two evils, so now Iran is good. /s

For real though, it’s called critical support. You can support Iran’s right to defend against genocide while simultaneously criticizing their human rights abuses.

[+] [email protected] -15 points 1 week ago (10 children)

So it's ok for you to give "critical support" to an authoritarian regime, but super bad for someone to give "critical support" to Israel for fighting against an authoritarian whose proxies massacred villages? Why isn't Iranian proxies massacring villages, Iran itself firing missiles at civilian populations (including a hosptial) something you don't consider to be genocide?

How do you determine which genocide you support and which genocide you're against?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Attacking civilians doesn't automatically make it a genocide. If that were true, then pretty much every war ever was a genocide.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So why is the Israel-Hamas war considered a genocide? Is it a numbers thing? Most other wars throughout history had many more civilian casualties than there's been in the Israel-Hamas war.

What makes the Israel-Hamas war a genocide and for example, the Vietnam war not be considered a genocide?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What makes the Israel-Hamas war a genocide and for example, the Vietnam war not be considered a genocide?

Because Vietnam was a war of ideologies, not a land grab intended to wipe out the current occupants so they could be entirely replaced by a "superior, chosen" people not of the ethnicity of the current residents.

This is such a mindblowingly stupid attempt at a gotcha question. Ffs, you literally had over a million Vietnamese fighting on the same side as the US in the ARVN during the course of the war. The belligerent parties in a conflict both being composed of largely the same peoples fighting each other tends to preclude it being described as a genocide.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nah… take the Iranian government, then take the Israel government… and throw them both into the Thunderdome!

Pay-per-view that shit! (And use the proceeds to help innocent rebuild their lives)

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

More nightmare fuel from the Torment Nexus

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Hello fellow lvl1 tech watcher

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'll be very interested to some day figure out what the explanation for this is. It's extremely bizarre and very creepy. Also, it's crazy that Internet access can just be whisked away so easily by the government. I guess satellite is just about the only way around that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

I know a remote worker in Iran, went dark for a few days this week. Apparently they can't call the UK, no internet, ended up relaying messages via a friend in Brazil via sat phone.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

During the invasion of Berlin in 1945, the overwhelmed German command trying to map out the Russian advance had to resort to just calling businesses or homes of people living in areas they were uncertain about.

If most people in a district did not pick up the phone, or someone did pick up and swore in Russian, they marked it on the map as invaded.

Different worlds of course, but the point is that civilian phones have intelligence value.

It could make sense as a super creepy tactical choice by Iran to deny intelligence gathering from abroad.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The more obvious choice would be to make everyone go dark, instead of setting up nationwide voice mail to pretend everyone is alive. But maybe this way they can keep everyone's communications open while also fooling most of these intelligence gathering methods (someone answered, in the right language, mark it as active).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Or they're trying to figure out who's trying to stay connected with who

[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 week ago

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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