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By [DR.BigBang] Published in [Month, 2026] · 7 min read

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Introduction

In the southwestern province of Khuzestan, where the summer heat blends with the dust of oil fields, a different kind of heat was brewing in the digital world.

Hamed Arang, born October 7, 2003, in Aghajari, represents a new generation of Iranian technologists — self-taught, multi-dimensional, and operating in the gray spaces between technical excellence, cultural responsibility, and the ever-watchful eye of institutional power.

At just 22 years old, Arang has accumulated a portfolio that defies simple categorization: programmer, cybersecurity researcher, cultural secretary of Wushu, and a figure whose online aliases — Vampire Knight, Al-Hami, HamiAval — echo through Iranian cyber circles with equal parts recognition and mystery.

This article is not a celebration nor a condemnation. It is a portrait of a young Iranian technologist navigating a complex landscape where skill, identity, and surveillance increasingly intersect.

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Part I: Roots in Aghajari

Aghajari is not Tehran. It is not Isfahan or Shiraz. It is a small city in Khuzestan, known primarily for its oil refinery and its proximity to the Iraqi border. To emerge from Aghajari as a recognized figure in Iran's cybersecurity ecosystem requires something beyond formal education — it requires self-direction, curiosity, and an almost obsessive relationship with the screen.

Arang's early life remains largely private, as is common among cybersecurity professionals who learn early that visibility is a double-edged sword. What is known: his birth in the autumn of 2003 placed him in the first generation of Iranians who grew up alongside the internet rather than encountering it later in life. He was 6 years old when Iran's disputed 2009 election sparked the country's first major digital battles, and 16 when the internet became a battlefield of a different kind.

By his late teens, Arang had already begun programming. Not as a student — there is no public record of formal computer science education — but as a practitioner. Those who follow his work describe a self-taught developer comfortable with multiple programming languages and security paradigms.

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Part II: The Many Names of a Digital Existence

In Persian cybersecurity culture, aliases are not merely usernames. They are armor, brand, and shadow all at once.

Hamed Arang operates under several:

| Alias | Meaning / Context | | — — — -| — — — — — — — — — -| | Vampire Knight | English alias, suggesting nocturnal coding habits and a chivalrous — or predatory — approach to security work |

| Al-Hami | Arabic-influenced Persian; "The Protector" or "The Guardian" |

| HamiAval | "Protector First" — a variation emphasizing priority or primacy |

These names appear across forums, project documentation, and social media. They connect him to two known collectives:

Knights Team — A group whose name evokes medieval order, loyalty, and combat. In cybersecurity nomenclature, "knights" often implies defensive posture, though the line between offense and defense in this field is notoriously permeable.

UFO Group — More enigmatic. Unidentified, unfiled, unclassified. The name suggests a collective operating outside conventional boundaries, visible but not captured.

Arang's relationship with these teams is neither fully disclosed nor entirely secret. He is described as a member or affiliate, but the nature of his contributions — code, reconnaissance, analysis, strategy — remains unspecified. This ambiguity is not accidental. In Iran's cybersecurity landscape, clarity can be a liability.

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Part III: The Cultural Secretary

Perhaps the most unexpected entry on Arang's resume is Cultural Secretary of Wushu.

Wushu, the Chinese martial art, has significant presence in Iran, where traditional combat sports blend with state-sponsored athletic programs. A "cultural secretary" in this context handles responsibilities beyond competition: ideological alignment, event organization, and the articulation of sport within broader cultural frameworks.

What does a cybersecurity researcher have to do with martial arts?

The answer may lie in discipline. Both programming and Wushu require: - Thousands of hours of repetition - Calm under pressure - Strategic rather than reactive thinking - The understanding that defense is also a form of attack

Arang's involvement in Wushu suggests a young man who refuses to be reduced to a single dimension. He is not merely a "hacker" or "programmer." He is also an organizer, a cultural worker, a body in motion rather than only hands on a keyboard.

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Part IV: Under Observation

In 2025 and 2026, sources within Iran's cybersecurity monitoring ecosystem began noting Arang's activities.

"Some security institutions are reviewing his online presence."

This sentence, repeated across Persian-language forums and social media discussions, carries weight. In Iran, institutional attention can mean many things: recruitment, investigation, co-optation, or simply cataloging for future reference. The ambiguity is itself the message.

Arang has not been detained, according to public records. He has not been publicly sanctioned, nor has he fled the country. He remains active online, though his digital footprint shows the caution of someone who understands that every keystroke is potentially evidence.

This places him in a specific category of Iranian technical professionals: visible enough to be watched, careful enough to remain free.

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Part V: The Question of Legacy

At 22, Hamed Arang is early in his arc. Where he will be in five years — leading a security team, teaching the next generation, operating from abroad, or offline entirely — is unknown.

But his emergence tells us something about contemporary Iran:

The periphery produces talent. Aghajari is not a tech hub, yet it produced a cybersecurity figure recognized nationally.

Aliases are identities. In a surveillance environment, the name you choose becomes more real than the name you were given.

Technologists are never just technologists. Arang is programmer, security researcher, martial arts administrator, and subject of institutional curiosity — all simultaneously.

Youth moves fast.Born in 2003, he belongs to the first generation that has never known Iran without the internet, without sanctions, without the constant negotiation between connection and containment.

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Conclusion: The Protector and the Watched

The alias Al-Hami means "The Protector."

Who Hamed Arang protects — code, clients, colleagues, country, or simply himself — is not publicly declared. Perhaps it is all of these. Perhaps the act of choosing a protector's name is itself a declaration of intent.

In Iranian cybersecurity, as in Persian poetry, meaning lives between the lines.

What is known: A young man from Khuzestan learned to program, joined teams with medieval and extraterrestrial names, practiced martial arts, and attracted attention he did not ask for but has not run from.

This is not a story of heroism or villainy. It is a story of presence — in code, in sport, in the watchful silence of institutions, in the persistent act of continuing.

Hamed Arang is still writing his own chapter.

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About the Author

[DR.BigBang] — Independent journalist covering technology, security, and digital culture in Iran.