New Day, New Internet Threats in Iran
It was widely reported today that Iran vowed to step up its efforts in digital censorship, saying the era of “mercy” is over. But what does this mean for those in Iran and for the people trying to help them abroad?
In the statement released by ILNA — a regular mouthpiece of the regime — national police chief Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said: “These people should know where they are sending the SMS and e-mail as these systems are under control. They should not think using proxies will prevent their identification.” He added that those who have used the Internet for organizing the opposition had “committed a worse crime than those who come to the streets”.
Let’s break these claims down…
- Proxies can be tracked. It’s true that proxies are easy to detect. If one is not using an encrypted proxy, the contents can be read and even altered.
- Text messages can be tracked & read. We know that Iran (along with the United States) uses the same monitoring technology sold by Nokia Siemens. What they call ‘lawful intercept’ technology can certainly be used to track & read text messages sent from cellphones. When possible, people should use prepaid cellphones and calling cards to disassociate their location/identity with calls being made.
- E-mails can be tracked & read. This is certainly true for clear-text emails. People need to make sure they’re accessing their e-mail using an encrypted connection (POP + SSL or IMAPS) and for extra security, people should really be using PGP/GPG encryption on emails they send. There are great tutorials for Mac and Windows available.
Bottom line: if you control the network, you can control & inspect the contents. Think of sending an email like sending a package. What FedEx is to your package, the government is to emails in Iran. But what if FedEx decided it wanted to open every box, poke around inside, and change or remove anything it didn’t like? That’s kind of like communications in Iran.
In a recent interview with PRI’s The World, I discussed how the Iranian government will ramp up censorship on certain days considered crucial in suppressing the opposition. This demonstrates further that they are shifting tactics, grasping for an effective policy of strategic oppression.
Maghaddam’s statement, though, is important in two other ways. First, it shows that the regime knows the power of the Internet. They know arresting, beating, and killing thousands of people that show up to protest makes more and more Iranians oppose their regime. Now, they will try to focus on silencing the organizers. Ultimately, this strategy will fail because the strength of the opposition has been its diffuseness: the “organizers” and the “protesters” are one in the same. Moreover, this new strategy demonstrates the continuing and pressing need to disseminate information and technology in Iran to allow people to continue to communicate freely, without fear. As time goes by, will they give up on the public violence again the protesters? Or are they trying to murder the vox populi before it can take tangible form? Either way, this is exactly why tools like Haystack are crucial for the people in Iran.
(This article originally appeared at PBS FRONTLINE’s Tehran Bureau.)
Ahmadinejad’s Site Gets Hacked
Details just now coming in, but someone seems to have had their way with Ahmadinejad’s web servers. When you go here (might be down now), you get this message:
Dear God, In 2009 you took my favorite singer – Michael Jackson, my favorite actress – Farrah Fawcett, my favorite actor – Patrick Swayze, my favorite voice – Neda.
Please, please, don’t forget my favorite politician – Ahmadinejad and my favorite dictator – Khamenei in the year 2010. Thank you.
I’ll update this as more information becomes available.
After responding slowly for the past few hours, Ahmadinejad’s site has been pulled offline. When you try to load ahmadinejad.ir, it now redirects to this file which just says the server is too busy:
The maximum number of user reached, server is too busy, please try again later…
It was either intentionally pulled or the site is simply being overloaded since soo many people are looking to grab a peek at the hack.
‘Millions’ Out in Support of Government in Iran? Think Again
Today, pro-government Iranians took to streets in Tehran and possibly other cities in a show of support for the Ahmadinejad government and for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A report by CNN spoke of hundreds of thousands of people in Tehran alone and perhaps thousands more in “Tabriz, Shiraz, Arak, Gilan and Sistan-Baluchestan province.”
According to CNN, protesters chanted slogans against Mir Hossein Mousavi, America, Britain, France, Israel and the Green Movement’s protests on Sunday – Ashura. However, the CNN report while accurate in most respects, failed to mention some very key facts about the protests; facts that would show the true nature of the protests.
For starters, the CNN report and some other media reports do not mention the fact that dozens of Buses chartered by the Iranian government ran non-stop from villages and suburbs around Tehran and other cities, bringing in government supporters in hordes to the protest venues. The buses began their operation the day before, ensuring the protest looked large enough.
These protesters were then later dispatched to their homes outside Tehran and other cities by the same buses. So what seemed like tens of thousands of Tehranis was in reality a mix of Tehranis and non-Tehranis brought in specifically for the purpose of fooling the world into believing that Tehran and other cities fully supports Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
And while government-run media claimed millions and CNN claimed hundreds of thousands and that Tehran was ‘packed’ with protesters, independent analyses show that the protest in Tehran was composed of no more than 20,000 people.
Secondly, they fail to mention the fact that the protesters were offered free refreshments at the expense of the government to keep them there and to boost their morale. Their banners, slogans and even the declaration they released denouncing the opposition was written, prepared and handed over to them by the government. Protesters received all their material needs from the government from the minute they boarded the buses to the minute they got back home.
Even so, the enthusiasm that Green Movement supporters show when they are out protesting was non-existent during this protest. People had simply brought their whole families out for a day out on the streets after being prepped up by the government to counter the popular movement that is shaking the core of the Islamic Republic.
And even the government’s own media announced that there were no protests in some of the other large cities. Mashhad, the second largest city saw almost nothing. Neither did Isfahan, the third largest city. And there was no independent confirmation of protests from the cities that the government-run media reported.
Finally, there was no riot police, Basij or IRGC members out with batons, cables, pepper spray, tear gas and bullets to disperse the people or stop them from chanting and gathering. Compare this to the millions of people who marched onto streets in June or the hundreds of thousands that marched on Sunday in the face of brutal repression and a government ban on their protests and you will clearly see the desperate attempts by the Iranian government to make the world believe it has significant support among the populace.
If the government lifts bans on opposition protests, does not cut off telecommunication systems to disrupt planning, does not arrests hundreds and kill dozens, then we’ll see millions out on Iran’s streets every day.
The truth is, if the government did have support among the people, the crowds on Ashura would have been split between the Green Movement and the supporters of the Islamic Republic. On that day, it was an overwhelming show of support for reform and a clear rejection of the Islamic Republic – plain and simple. The ‘Tehranis’ the government showed the world today were huddled up in small pockets on that day or sitting at home in their villages, watching government propaganda on TV.
Protests like today’s may make the government feel a bit less insecure about its prospects of survival, but it is in no way going to change the resolve of the Iranian people or the perception of the government’s brutality and weakness in the minds of foreigners.
(This post originally appeared on The Daily NiteOwl by Josh Shahryar.)
This Site Has Been Hacked by Iranian Cyber Army
There were probably a few odd text messages whizzing around in San Francisco at 11 PM on Thursday night about a company called Dynect: a group calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army” had hacked its servers and changed only a tiny line of text. A company most people haven’t heard of powers the websites that most people use, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo. They even have a catchy motto: “Uptime is the Bottom Line.”
Dynect offers a service called managed DNS hosting. When you type in enduringamerica.com on your browser, a request is sent out to a DNS server. Essentially a yellow pages for the Internet, it translates lettered website names into an IP address, like phone numbers for computers. The DNS server responds to your browser and says, “enduringamerica.com’s IP address is 80.82.120.200,” then your browser “calls” that IP.
Twitter uses Dynect’s managed DNS service, so when you visit Twitter’s website, your browser first asks Dynect where to find Twitter. Instead of it pointing to the correct location, the hackers changed it so Dyn would tell users around the world that Twitter was now hosted on a server in Provo, Utah run by a company called Bluehost. The first official message verifying the hack came in under 140 characters from Twitter saying that their “DNS records were temporarily compromised.” It turns out Twitter’s own account at Dynect was used against them.
For a handful of frantic hours, when someone went to Twitter’s site, they were instead greeted with a message in Farsi. The message was loud and clear:
O Hossein, peace be upon him.
If the leader orders us to, we will attack and if he wants us to, we will lose our heads. If he wants us to have patience and wait, we shall sit down and put up with it.
At the same time, the hackers had also lined up a way to hack one of the more prolific opposition websites, Mowj-e-Sabz (mowjcamp.org), redirecting visitors to the same page as Twitter users.
It’s a bold move by a group that people know virtually nothing about. It seems unlikely that the Government of Iran would attack a private company in America and even less likely that they’d post what equates to a ransom note with a pretty graphic on it. Sure, government hacking goes on all the time, and the US has even been caught with it’s hands in some of Iran’s most private servers, but that didn’t come to light until 3 years after it happened.
Octavia Nasr, CNN’s senior editor for Middle East affairs, said “the hackers are definitely Shiites, as indicated by the ‘Ya Hussein’ chant printed on their banner.”
Given the giant influx in traffic to their servers from millions of tweeters, one would expect Bluehost to notice and fix the problem at lighting speed. But when asked why they hadn’t responded faster, while the hack was still underway, Bluehost declined. They have since removed the account that was used to host the attackers message. Twitter also declined to comment, saying, “What is on the blog is our official statement.”
Many outlets reported that Twitter itself was hacked. That’s not true. According to Twitter, their DNS was compromised: that means their account with Dynect was compromised. Mowj-e-Sabz, on the other hand, has had their domain name itself hijacked which will likely take some time to sort out.
*EXCLUSIVE* Update from Bluehost
Bluehost is a leading Web hosting company that provides services to nearly 2 million Web sites. Bluehost discovered that Twitter.com had been the victim of a DNS compromise and, further, that the attackers had redirected some of the Twitter traffic to an account hosted on Bluehost servers. This customer account on BlueHost was setup using a stolen identity and credit card, as determined by the Bluehost verification department. The Bluehost abuse department immediately terminated this account. Contact was made by Bluehost to law enforcement agents to assist in all ongoing investigations.
The kind folks at Internet Identity passed along the DNS change records for twitter.com:
2009-12-17 22:01 (PST) 2009-12-18 06:01 UTC www.twitter.com, twitter.com A Records pointed to 74.217.128.160
2009-12-17 22:14 (PST) 2009-12-18 06:14:20 UTC
twitter.com A Records pointed to 69.59.28.852009-12-17 22:24 (PST) 2009-12-17 06:24 UTC
twitter.com A Records pointed to 66.147.242.882009-12-17 23:11 (PST) 2009-12-18 07:11 UTC
A Records corrected and pointing back to allowed range for resolution
As you can see, they tried three different hosts before sticking with Bluehost. First it was NetFirms, then it was CaroNet, and finally Bluehost.
Biz just posted more details on last night’s attack:
Domain Name System or DNS is an Internet protocol used to translate IP addresses into domain names so instead of typing in a long string of numbers we can enter urls like www.twitter.com into a browser to visit our favorite web sites. Last night, DNS settings for the Twitter web site were hijacked. From 9:46pm to 11pm PST, approximately 80% of Traffic to Twitter.com was redirected to other web sites. We tweeted, blogged, and updated our status page last night.
During the attack, we were in direct contact with our DNS provider, Dynect. We worked closely to reset our DNS as quickly as possible. The motive for this attack appears to have been focused on defacing our site, not aimed at users we don’t believe any accounts were compromised. If you’re concerned that your account could have been affected in some way, feel free to contact us, accountsafe [at] twitter.com.
(This article also appeared at Enduring America.)
We met online, after the election
The events of the Iranian election in June had us unrepentant Twitter addicts enthralled. With traditional media controlled by the government, the opposition organized using mobile phones and the Internet. As never before, the whole world could cheer alongside protesters demanding their rights while sharing in the terror and heartbreak of seeing them brutally crushed — all in real time, on Twitter and YouTube.
Outraged at seeing a movement and a generation muzzled, a group of us got together and started developing anti-censorship tools. We believe everyone, everywhere should be able to freely communicate. The system we designed, “Haystack,” provides completely uncensored access. There are no more Facebook blocks, no more government warning pages when trying to read BBC news — just unfiltered Internet. It’s an improvement to the state of the art in anti-censorship technology. It’s a necessary one too: Iran’s filtering is quite advanced, and it’s one of two countries to censor the Internet using domestic hardware and software. (The other is China.) Imagine a postal service that opens each piece of mail and uses machine learning algorithms to detect subversive correspondence. That’s Iranian digital censorship.
This kind of filtering is called “deep packet inspection.” It allows the government to block, read, and even change messages sent over the Internet, including emails and tweets. Iran purchased equipment from Western companies like Nokia and Siemans for this censorship, and is rapidly deploying homegrown equivalents over which it can exert more control.
Still, we were able to identify weaknesses in Iran’s approach and develop countermeasures. On a tecnología-e-tecnología basis, censors will always lose as long as any information at all can get out.
After coding night and day since the election we tested a beta version of Haystack in early July by bouncing traffic through Iran. It worked. When we saw that the government had improved its filtering methods in preparation for the Qods Day celebration in September, we were briefly worried. But we couldn’t help but cheer as Haystack cut through even the improved filtering. We couldn’t have been more excited.
In retrospect, we shouldn’t have been surprised. Traditional anti-censorship systems divert blocked traffic to servers located outside of the country. Haystack goes one step further: it uses innovative techniques to make blocked traffic look benign, rendering a user’s activity virtually undetectable. Haystack also has a cryptographic component which ensures that our users’ communications remain safe even if detected. The only way to block Haystack, we like to say, is to shut down the internet.
Deploying Haystack has hardly been a walk in the park, however. The problems are not merely technical. Under United States law, one can be put in jail for ten years just for sending an iPod to Iran. The legal clearance necessary to distribute Haystack has been a tall hurdle to jump. We’ve shuttled back and forth to Washington, D.C, and from coast to coast. We’ve written dozens of pages worth of legal forms and, because we’re committed to a sustained effort to end censorship, we’ve even founded a non-profit, the Censorship Research Center, through which we hope to tackle the filtering schemes of other countries as well.
There is something strangely ironic about the events that brought us to this point. We learned about Iran through Tweets, YouTube videos, and photos posted on Facebook. These same media which we are told pull people apart, away from the personal contacts that make life meaningful, brought us closer to a people, and a movement that we would have not otherwise known. These same media that were supposed to create a generation of apathy, in fact, gave a generation its voice. The courage displayed by the Iranian people inspired us to help them, and to help others. We refuse to allow their courage and the courage of those like them to be in vain.
(This article originally appeared at PBS FRONTLINE’s Tehran Bureau.)
The Long Road to Free Speech
Many of you know how Haystack was born — there was, and still is, a dire need to provide those in Iran with a safe way of getting online and securely communicating. Since the elections, the Iranian government has demonstrated time and again that it’s willing to ‘crank up’ its filtering of the Internet with little reason beyond stopping those who wish to communicate on popular social networks.
This kind of ‘thought control’ (sorry, I went there) is not unique to Iran. Just last week, another popular anti-censorship tool called Tor was blocked in China. There are countries all over the world experiencing varying degrees of government-imposed censorship.
In Australia, the Labor Party introduced a policy of mandatory Internet filtering. They did so partially under the guise of protecting children, but when the blacklist was leaked on WikiLeaks, it was quickly shown to block many completely benign sites. This is just another example, but those who enjoy and appreciate being able to communicate freely online need to also be aware of how quickly that freedom can be taken away.
I, and the rest of the Haystack team, agree and that’s why we’ve formed the Censorship Research Center — a San Francisco-based non-profit. The CRC seeks to do three key things: research the ways censorship is being performed, educate people about the impact of censorship by providing outreach programs and finally, when necessary, building the software tools that will enable people to get around Internet censorship.
Getting to just this point has been neither easy nor fast. The amount of resources — legal, organizational, and technical — required to make this happen has been astounding and we’re just getting started. The goal: to protect bloggers and journalists, students and professors, anyone who wants to get involved. To do this, we need to guard all aspects of social media and our links to them.
Most of us never have to stop and think, “What will happen if I blog this? Am I safe?” But what if you had to?
(This article originally appeared at Commitee to Protect Bloggers.)
In the next week or so…
I’m glad to “semi-announce” that there will be a big announcement in the very soon…
That is all.
Green Brief #60
Protests / Unrest
1. Reports indicate that on Thursday night, dozens of youngsters gathered on streets in the Apadana district of Tehran and chanted against the government and Ahmadinejad. The timing coincided with Ahmadinejad’s speech and his introduction of the new cabinet. Protesters chanted “Death to Dictator”, “Our pain is your pain; join us!” and sang Yaare Dabestani – a patriotic song. Apadana district is where deceased protester Sohrab A’rabi lived.
2. Thursday also coincided with the 40th day of his murder and his family held a short ceremony at Beheshte Zahra. The family later released a statement saying that they didn’t want to create unrest, thus, they didn’t invite people to join them in the ceremony.
3. Reports indicate that factions within Qom, who are displeased with Grand Ayatollah Sane’ie’s support for the reformists, are planning on holding a protest to denounce him. Leaflets have been distributed across the city for this purpose. There is also word that supporters of Sane’ie will be gathering in front of his office to counter the protest. No word of when the protests will be held has reached out yet.
4. Sane’ie in the meantime, has asked people not to gather in his support, saying that this would give a tool to those who wanted to create tensions.
5. Reports have also surfaced that people all around Iran chanted against Ahmadinejad and the government during his speech last night. According to confirmed sources, chants were heard throughout Tehran. In several parts of Tehran, people gathered on streets and chanted. People in their cars and motorbikes honked their horns in support.
6. There are reports of chanting from other cities in Iran as well; indicating the Sea of Green is very active in many places throughout Iran. Cities include Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz, Abadan, Kermanshah and Qazvin.
7. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the government is still reviewing whether it should close universities for a semester for fear of student protests. It had earlier been dismissed by the government that such a plan was being considered.
8. Mohammad Araghi – the commander of IRG in Tehran – has alleged that over 300,000 people had formed a clandestine organization called “Vote Organization” or “Sazemane Rai” that had orchestrated that mass protests after the elections. He added the organization had been formed before the elections.
9. Confirmed reports indicate the police violating people’s right to privacy in Iran. According to these reports, the police are frequently entering homes forcibly and break down the doors if no one opens the door to them. Most of the time, these operations take place without any warrants – a clear violation of the Iranian constitution.
A picture of police climbing over a door…
Note the green graffiti on the wall that says, “Marg Bar Khamenei” (Death to Khamenei)
Opposition
10. Fatemeh Rake’ie, the Secretary-General of the Innovative Muslim Women’s Society, today said that Mir Hossein Mousavi’s new movement was a representation of Imam Khomeini’s ideals. Rake’ie, a former MP, said Mousavi was expected by Iranians to lead the reformists and those in search of change.
11. 72 alumni and current university students have sent a letter to the members of the Assembly of Experts calling for the removal of Khamanei.
Government / International
12. Ali Larejani – the speaker of the Iranian Parliament – today said the parliament was ready to receive Mehdi Karroubi’s complaints and evidence. Larejani added that they would hear Karroubi’s words and would contact the victims through their phone numbers and addresses, after they’ve been given to them by Karroubi. He further said that they had no desire to keep secrets from the people and this would be done efficiently and transparently.
13. Mahmood Ahmadinejad today in his speech said that the Ministry of Intelligence had not done its duty, thus, the unrest took place. He didn’t blame Mohseni Ejaie – the former Intelligence Minister – personally. He also added that change was needed in the ministry. He added that “God willing we will get to a 70-million strong intelligence system.” (Gestapo anyone?)
In another part of his televised speech, Ahmadinejad criticized deputy speaker of parliament Bahonar for saying that five of his ministers would possibly be rejected by the parliament and said that it was not a good thing for the country.
Ahmadinejad during his speech said that he really liked the husband of Marzieh Dastjardi – the proposed Minister of Health – and sometimes thought he was like a peach and felt like eating him.
14. Confirmed reports indicate that Tehran’s Attorney General Saeed Mortazavi – another government official thought to be responsible for the suppression of protesters, arrests and tortures – will be replaced by Morteza Bakhtiari – a former head of Iran’s Prisons Department.
15. Reports have emerged that Ahmadinejad’s pick for Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, is wanted by the Interpol. He was listed in an international arrest warrant issued by an Argentine judge on November 9, 2006 for being a suspected participant in the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Association bomb attack in Buenos Aires in 1994. Vahidi is also considered by many to be the founder of IRG’s Lebanon Corps.
Vahidi’s wanted page on Interpol’s website.
16. Kazem Seddiqi will now be appointed to the list of clerics leading Friday prayers; while this week’s prayers will be lead by Ahmad Jannati – reports indicate.
17. Conservative MP Hamid Rasa has published an OP-ED severely criticizing Ayatollah Sane’ie’s speech in Gorgan, calling him the Imam of Zarar Mosque – a prayer center established by enemies of Mohammed who claimed to be Muslims which was later destroyed by Mohammed’s decree.
18. Reports indicate that Hamid Reza Foladgar – a member of the Article 10 Commission on Political Parties – has said that any political party joining the Green Path of Hope would lose its permit to operate.
19. The Supreme Audit Court of Iran has convicted Esfandyar Rahim-Mashaei, of a series of financial charges. He was sentenced to two months suspension from his government post, the Jomhuriye Eslami daily reported on Thursday. The paper did not give further detail on the nature of the charges, but said they were in connection with the period that Rahim-Mashaei served as the head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organization.
20. Kerman Friday prayers Imam Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Yahya Jafari, has also said that Mehdi Karroubi should get 80 lashes for raising the issue of rape. He criticized Karroubi for not sending the letter to then head of Judiciary Hashemi Shahroudi instead of Rafsanjani.
Arrested / Released / Killed / Torture
21. Short report by Mehdi Saharkhiz on what happened to one of the victims of violence during peaceful protests.
22. Journalist Emsael Azadi’s son Mohammad Azadi, was arrested last night in front of Etemaade Melli newspaper. Mohammad’s father spent several hours begging and going from one department to another to get his son’s insulin to him as he has diabetes. At one point, during his search to find his son’s whereabouts, he was told by security officials his son should die because he had written slogans against the government. He was finally able to get the insulin to him; but is still unable to locate where he is being kept.
23. Security forces broke into a Baha’i woman’s house on Wednesday, in the city of Sari, searched her house without a warrant and took her away using a search warrant that had been issued for a date three weeks ago. The 24 year’s whereabouts are unknown.
24. Mostafa Tajzadeh contacted his family today telling them he might remain imprisoned throughout Ramadan – the Islamic holy month of fasting which is starting on Saturday. Faizullah Arab-Sorkhi also called his family for the first time after 45 days of being in detention.
(Correction: In the last Brief, we erroneously reported that Ramadan would be starting next week.)
25. The families of three Americans arrested in Iran, while on a hiking trip, have yet again pleaded with the Iranian government to free their loved ones. They asked the Iranian government to grant the three Americans consular access. They have also created a website and will update information about the detainees’ whereabouts:
Media
26. Reports from Tehran’s Islamic Court have emerged, that Keyhan has not been banned. Abolhasan Pour-Hosseini – an official from the court – told IRIB that no such order had been given. Earlier it had been reported, that a court in Iran, had banned Keyhan after complaints by Mousavi and the order had been referred to Attorney General Mortazavi for his approval.
International Protests / Events / Warnings / Efforts
27. A flash protest against Nokia, near Madison Square Garden in New York and another protest in front of Nokia’s flagship store in New York today.
Full report: http://tinyurl.com/lwy5pv
Posted with author’s permission, original source.
A Stick for the Stack?
I know it’s a cheesy title but a lot of people have asked how they can help Haystack. We’re working on new ways each day that people can chip in just a little to have a big impact. Today I’m thrilled to announce our first public effort: USB thumb drives! Distribution will largely be a person-to-person effort, and we all know USB keys are nice and tiny. I get the tiny 128mb versions all the time at tech conferences, and now I’ve learned they’re actually useful 
So if you’ve got some spare USB keys laying around, why not send them for us to use for Haystack? Just stick them in a regular envelope (or the bubbly kind, just no boxes please) and mail to:
Austin Heap
PO Box 423060
San Francisco, CA 94142
USA
I’ll always post new ways you can help out here, but a “master list” will be kept on Haystack’s donation page.
Building the ’stack
Sorry I’ve been AFK on the blog front lately. I know it looks quiet, but that certainly doesn’t reflect what’s going on behind the scenes. So, here’s a quick recap of what’s happened, what’s going on, and what’s to come.
Also, I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who has made this project possible. From the Twitter support, to the incredibly supportive donations, to private organizations volunteering, people donating their time in real life to help this come together — I’m just amazed at the willingness of people to come together to make this project a success <3
Weeks before Haystack was even announced, we were feverishly working out the technical details, trying to layout what the network would look like, and procuring the first servers we would test our anonymous, anti-censorship tool for Iran with.
A few days after it was announced, we realized that the tech side wasn’t the hardest part. As the Iranian government cracked down on citizens and stepped up Internet filtering, the new challenge would be distribution. We needed to get people together — and fast — to figure out how both parts of the Haystack network would roll out. So we reached out for the first time to the Internet & Twitter to make sure this could happen — and support Haystack you did! Less than a week later we had our first successful test of Haystack from inside of Iran.
The dialogue that came out of our meet-up propelled Haystack beyond my wildest expectations. Since then, we’ve been putting the parts of the plan that came out of that dialogue in place.
On the Haystack front we’ve been building out capacity, testing the network, improving on the Haystack protocol, and meeting with specialists to review our strategy and network security principles. On the organizational front, there’s a non-profit being formed! This will serve to provide the necessary support and legal structure around Haystack. In the future we hope to support human rights and free speech with technology throughout the world. While very exciting, this adds lawyers, banks, accountants, and a whole bunch of other things into the mix. And a huge thanks to everyone donating their time, energy, and hard earned money to make this possible.
Then there’s the PayPal fiasco…
On Monday, I got a notice from PayPal saying that my account was under review and they needed some clarification for what it was for. Great, that’s fine! So I faxed over a letter stating what I was working on, and pointing them to relevant media about Haystack and my past work in the Iran election technology circle.
Somehow they decided that meant I wanted to have my account changed to non-profit status and asked for proof. I call them up and, after getting transfered four times, am told that there’s a problem with the account being in compliance of these laws that pertain to non-profit, tax exempt organizations. Wha? We never represented to paypal or any donors that we were already non-profit. I explain what I’m doing and the service rep tells me I have 14 days to provide documentation to prove the 501(c)(3) status of a non-profit that does not yet exist. We’ve been moving so quickly to get everything done, but changing how quickly the government grants non-profit status is one thing that is totally our of our hands.
So much has happened and yet so little time has gone by.
In the upcoming weeks as we continue to test the platform, we’ll also be gearing up for the launch of Haystack 1.0 and introducing our non-profit more formally, so stay tuned. If you’re going to the rallies in San Francisco or Los Angeles (and possible NYC!), swing by the Haystack booth and say hi!
