Anti-Censorship Software Licensed by US Government for Export to Iran
Unfiltered and open internet access is a right that all people around the world are intended to have as embodied in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. – Austin Heap
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (April 14th, 2010): Today, the Censorship Research Center (“CRC”) announced that it has received critical United States Government authorizations required to export anti-filtering technology to Iran.
In response to widespread crackdown by the Iranian government following the June 2009 elections, the CRC developed a program that provides unfiltered, anonymous Internet access. The program, called Haystack, uses a sophisticated mathematical formula to hide the users’ real Internet identity while allowing them to access websites blocked by Iran’s government, such as YouTube, Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter, which have served as important mediums of communication for Iranians. As noted by CRC Executive Director, Austin Heap, “Now we can launch our efforts to help those in Iran access the Internet as if there were no Iranian government filters.”
Exports of U.S. goods and services to Iran are prohibited unless authorized by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC’s decision to approve the CRC’s license application comes in light of recent statements by the Obama administration recognizing the importance of Internet access to democratic movements around the world. U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, highlighted this matter in recent remarks about Internet freedom on January 21, 2010, “[D]espite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country,” she said. “In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights, the Iranian people have inspired the world. And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.”
“Unfiltered and open internet access is a right that all people around the world are intended to have as embodied in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Obama administration has recognized that the right to information should not be denied and is finally taking decisive action to back their stated objectives to see that these rights are realized.” concluded Mr. Heap.
About the Censorship Research Center
The Censorship Research Center (“CRC”), is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization, was founded by Austin Heap and Daniel Colascione in 2009 to provide anti-censorship education, outreach, and technologies. The CRC’s first major project is Haystack, which provides access to information and communications to the Iranian people in the wake of recent restrictions imposed by the government of Iran.
Haystack is the first anti-censorship tool developed specifically for Iran and built to target the methods that Iran uses to filter the Internet. The CRC is the only organization licensed to export such software to Iran.
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Guardian Innovator of the Year
This isn’t just about the future of the Internet, this is the future of humanity, the story we’re all taking a part in creating. This is about making sure that the first open, global communication network in human history continues to be used by people, not against the people, not against the rights every person on this planet deserves.
Austin Heap is executive director of the Censorship Research Centre in San Francisco, a non-profit organisation which provides anti-censorship education, outreach, and technology free of charge to those who need it most. He is an entrepreneur, technologist and activist who works to develop Internet-based technologies that facilitate the rapid transfer of knowledge between people, groups, and organisations.
Heap is the creator of Haystack, a piece of software which was a key technology used by Iranians to disseminate information outside the country in the protests that followed the disputed election result in June 2009. Heap developed Haystack to open up social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, giving voices on the streets a platform, and people in the west a window into a closed-down state.
(Here’s the original announcement.)
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.)
Haystack Gets A Dell, Dude
Well actually two Dells, one for backup. The other night we just ordered our first two Dell PowerEdge blades to handle some of the network load from Haystack users. We hope to take delivery on them in the next week or so (everything takes so long!) and we’ll get them up in their data center home as quickly as we can. Without further ado, I give you the first two in-house Haystack work horses:
PowerEdge R610 – Chassis for Up to Six 2.5-Inch Hard Drives, No Operating System
Unit Price: $4,796.00
Quantity: 2
Total Price: $9,592.00– PowerEdge R610 –
– Chassis for Up to Six 2.5-Inch Hard Drives
– [224-4848]
———————–
– Shipping –
– PowerEdge R610 Shipping
– [330-4122]
———————–
– Memory –
– 16GB Memory (8x2GB), 1066MHz Dual Ranked UDIMMs for 2 Processors, Adv ECC
– [317-0233]
———————–
– Feature Upgrades for Embedded NIC Ports –
– Dual Two-Port Embedded Broadcom® NetXtreme II 5709 Gigabit Ethernet NIC
– [430-1764]
———————–
– Primary Processor –
– Intel® Xeon® X5550, 2.66Ghz, 8M Cache,Turbo, HT, 1333MHz Max Mem
– [317-0202]
———————–
– Additional Processor –
– Intel® Xeon® X5550, 2.66Ghz, 8M Cache,Turbo, HT, 1333MHz Max Mem
– [317-0211]
– [317-1215]
———————–
– 1st Hard Drive –
– HD Multi-Select
– [341-4158]
———————–
– Primary Controller –
– SAS 6/iR Integrated
– [341-9145]
———————–
– BIOS Setting –
– Power Saving BIOS Setting
– [330-3491]
———————–
– Operating System –
– No Operating System
– [420-6320]
———————–
– Embedded Management –
– iDRAC6 Express
– [467-8649]
———————–
– Internal Optical Drive –
– DVD ROM, SATA, Internal
– [313-7541]
———————–
– Bezel –
– No Bezel
– [313-0869]
———————–
– System Documentation –
– Electronic System Documentation, OpenManage DVD Kit with DMC
– [330-3523]
– [330-5280]
———————–
– Hard Drive Configuration –
– No RAID for SAS 6/iR Controllers
– [341-8753]
———————–
– Rails –
– No Rack Rails or Cable Management Arm
– [330-3522]
———————–
– Hardware Support Services –
– 3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5×10 HW-Only, 5×10 NBD Onsite
– [992-9872]
– [993-3570]
– [993-9359]
– [993-9457]
– [993-9458]
– [994-4019]
———————–
– Installation Services –
– No Installation
– [900-9997]
———————–
– Power Supply –
– Energy Smart Power Supply, Non-Redundant, 502W
– [330-3517]
———————–
– Power Cords –
– No Additional Power Cord
– [310-9057]
———————–
– Power Cords –
– NEMA 5-15P to C14 Wall Plug, 125 Volt, 15 AMP, 10 Feet (3m), Power Cord
– [310-8509]
———————–
– Hard Drives –
– 250GB 7.2K RPM SATA 2.5″ Hot Plug Hard Drive
– [341-8725]
———————–– Save $549 on each PowerEdge R610 servers through Dell Small Business
- $1,098.00 total savings
With these two machines we should easily be able to serve 7,500 Haystack users while we ramp up to full capacity. The whole team is very excited to get these into place as we press on with the launch of Haystack. We’ve been very busy organizing the logistics of everything and I can’t thank everyone enough for helping make this possible — Twitter, the Internet, and the wonderful group of people I work with endless hours doing the hard labor.
Everyday we continue to test Haystack inside of Iran and are refining the program to make it better, faster, and stronger before our wide-scale release. If you can, consider donating to Haystack to help us bring proper uncensored Internet to Iran.
We’ll post pictures of the babies when they get here 
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.
Connect 2.0
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