If you are a journalist trying to cover or a citizen trying to keep up with ongoing civil unrest in Syria, the chances are you'll have come across the Local Coordination Committee, or LCC.
This loose-knit group of cyber activists have, since the first protests demanding greater freedom in Syria broke out earlier in the year, provided an alternative to Damascus's state media version of events to hacks the world over.
They not only help coordinate the continuing demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad's regime, through proxies on the ground in towns and villages throughout Syria, they also control the protesters' -- or, at a stretch -- the Syrian people's version of the revolution.
Meeting a senior group member exiled in Beirut felt a little how you'd imagine it would have been to meet a much younger and lesser-known Lenin during his Finnish exile. The group is highly motivated, ideologically focused. They have a manifesto, and ensure it is understood by those previously apolitical citizens now taking to the streets.
Rami Nakhle is one of the more prominent dissidents currently ensconced in Beirut. Using his Twitter moniker Malath Aumran, Nakle helps disseminate information about the uprising and has clearly stopped wanting to talk about his own, unconventional route to opposing Assad. (He was once, like most, a supporter of the regime in Damascus).
As with other Arab Spring uprisings, the primary war currently gripping Syria is that of information. While Syrian state TV, as well as speeches from Assad himself, have tried to paint demonstrators as either political or theological radicals, intent on sowing discord and fully prepared to use violence, Nakhle and his colleagues have been busy providing the world with a sense of perspective. Take the information we have on what happened earlier this month in Jisr al-Shoghur.
State TV reported that armed insurgents had killed 120 Syrian security operatives. This was quickly pounced upon as evidence that there had been a seed change in the uprising; violence replacing largely pacifistic opposition to the regime. It was an information skirmish that Nakhle regrets falling behind in.
"What happened in Jisr al-Shoghur, the international media reported it as the turning point in Syria between non-violent and violent resistance," he says. "Actually, we take the biggest responsibility for that. The activists and LCC were not clear and we did not have a clear vision on what was going on there.
"On state TV we were hearing that 20 soldiers had died. Then, in one second, without anything additional happening, the number jumped to 120. Then there are the mass graves. Protesters will not produce mass graves. Even if there are armed gangs, even the officer who defected, they would not [be able to] do this," he adds.
Later, the world media narrative of events that day in the town began to shift, as refugees flooding out of Syria were able to provide journalists camped out on the Turkish border eyewitness accounts. But the difference in what state media says happened and the LCC version of events are never likely to be reconciled. Herein lies the rub.
Nakhle is open in admitting that the LCC does not offer international media an impartial version of events, merely an alternative to the official line.
"Yes, we are activists. We are covering the story from one side. We are not objective journalists," he says. "There is no white and black. We cannot say that the protesters are 100 percent peaceful. Absolutely not. But these are individual cases. It doesn't really deserve to be mentioned and, for us, if something small happened, we would not want to draw the media's attention to it."
Granted, it is evident that the vast majority of those turning out to protests are peaceful, unarmed. But as one western diplomat points out, the possibility of an armed subset rising up against the regime is very real.
"How many people have the military experience, the connections and capability to form militias in Syria? Many. Think of all the ex-generals out there, who bear a grudge because Assad lost them their Maserati or cost them a job," the diplomat pointed out.
This is not to sensationalize the issue. The very numbers of dead protestors and military servicemen -- which of course vary greatly according to who you believe - suggest that peaceful demonstration predominates.
But Nakhle is more concerned about maintaining a stream of news. It is a vital job and might not be entirely impartial, but it is another voice in the information war. This, obviously, makes either version difficult to corroborate. One thing Nakhle is sure of, however, is that the LCC version of events is becoming more legitimate by the day, as the regime shoots itself in the foot with outlandish reportage.
"Assad is almost delegitimized," he says. "The regime will say whatever it needs to. Just today, because I published a story about Amina (the Gay girl in Damascus blog hoax that turned out to be a straight man in Glasgow), [Syrian state media] published a story saying that I am gay. They said that all what they term 'the leaders of the revolution' are gay and that my goal is to practice sodomy. After working for Mossad, Al-Qaeda and [former Lebanese Prime Minister] Saad Hariri, now, apparently, I'm gay."