JAKARTA - In the midst of conflict and information limitations, Iranian citizens take extreme measures. They build their own crowdsourced air attack warning system.
The platform called Mahsa Alert emerged as an emergency solution when there was no official government system to provide public warnings related to military attacks or movements.
Developed by digital rights activists and volunteers, the app relies on data from the public, social media, and manual verification to map the locations of attacks and military activity.
From Minimal Information to "People's Intel"Unlike the official military warning system, Mahsa Alert is not completely real-time. However, this application still sends notifications when there is verified information related to attacks or threats.
The platform is available in both a website and an iOS and Android app, with a lightweight design so it can be used on simple devices and limited internet conditions - a common problem in Iran.
Each data update is even made very small, an average of only about 100KB, in order to ensure users can still access information even if the connection is unstable or limited.
Mehsah El-Rtet - Verified Campaigns https://t.co/VKEjlZjKoA
— MahsaAlert (@mahsaalert) March 25, 2026
To maintain accuracy, the team behind Mahsa Alert conducts rigorous verification before displaying data. Attack locations marked as "confirmed" must go through video or image-based checks circulating on social media.
In addition, this application also contains additional information such as medical facility points, CCTV cameras, to checkpoints suspected to belong to the government.
However, the challenge is not small. Until now, the development team is reported to still have to verify more than 3,000 incoming reports.
On the other hand, Mahsa Alert is also a target of cyber attacks, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) which aims to paralyze the service. In fact, there are fake domains that try to imitate the application.
Interestingly, although it was designed for Iranian citizens, about 70 percent of users actually come from abroad. The factor of restricting the internet in the country is one of the causes, in addition to the high interest of the media, military analysts, and diaspora families who want to monitor the condition of their relatives.
This phenomenon is not the first. In various modern conflicts, digital applications and platforms often become "alternative channels" when official information is limited - from the use of Telegram by the Ukrainian government to report troop movements, to monitoring applications in other conflict areas.
Follow VOI Whatsapp Channel
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
