How You Can Help: Iran 2.0 & Haystack

A lot of people have written asking how they can help without being a tech wizard. Well, here’s the answer: Donate.

In the past four weeks (three of which I took off of work) a lot has happened. First a tiny proxy list on Twitter, then a more organized effort called Proxyheap, and now Haystack, a completely custom protocol for beating the Iran governments filters.

While trying to finish up Haystack, I tried desperately to find an airline that would sponsor 4 flights (on very short notice, this Wednesday in fact) to no avail. I tried reaching out to contacts that worked there or at other companies who might be able to sponsor something on short notice, but it’s not coming together fast enough.

One Haystack launches, we’ll likely run out of bandwidth/servers from the people who have volunteered machines and resources quickly as the network grows, so this fund is also a pool for that. Here’s how the donations will break down:

1) Flights — I need to get four key players to San Francisco on Wednesday, this is expensive on such short notice but 24 hours feels like five weeks right now.
2) Servers and bandwidth for Haystack — as the network grows (and/or servers get blocked by the IRI) we’ll have to react fast and build in new capacity.
3) Organization costs — a non-profit is being setup right now to handle the censorship of Persians in Iran. The legal time has been donated by a great organization (more details soon) but there are various fees involved in making this happen.
4) Left over money — anything that is left over we will split evenly between Amnesty International and Tehran Bureau, two amazing organizations that have been instrumental in the fight for freedom.

We need your help Internet, thanks for reading.

Background: NY Times, SF Chronicle, BBC, The Rumpus