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 (8×2GB), 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.
Moment of Truth
Here are some screenshots from a machine inside Iran that’s running Haystack:
In the upcoming days we will be building out capacity of the backend network, building some tools to help us keep everything running smoothly, and getting Haystack into the right hands. We’re not there quite yet, but the light is quite bright at the end of that tunnel.
Don’t forget, we still need your help!
Haystack: Good Luck Finding That Needle
Hey Internet, we need your help!
In the upcoming days, Daniel Colascione and I will release a new program to provide unfiltered internet access to the people of Iran. A software package for Windows, Mac and Unix systems, called Haystack, will specifically target the Iranian government’s web filtering mechanisms.
Similar to Freegate, the program directed against China’s “great firewall,” once installed Haystack will provide completely uncensored access to the internet in Iran while simultaneously protecting the user’s identity. No more Facebook blocks, no more government warning pages when you try to load Twitter, just unfiltered Internet.
The network will be supported by donated high-quality servers outside of Iran. We will be able to provide an individual user with unfettered internet access that costs the donor $0.015 to $0.0375 per month.
Proxyheap, the precursor to Haystack, was launched on June 22 just ten days after the election. That project, though, was only envisioned as a bandaid. It relied on proxies set up by individual users that were (through no fault of the thousands of generous contributors) unreliable and temporary. Moreover, individual users in Iran had to request access to a proxy. Haystack is a more efficient, effective and long-term solution.
We are in the process of stress testing the network of servers and verifying their functionality. The program will initially be made available at http://haystack.austinheap.com but will shortly thereafter be available through other distribution mechanisms to ensure maximal availability on the ground in Iran.
The Khamenei/Ahmadinejad government has been extremely effective at silencing prominent members of the opposition. But the uprising in Iran was not the result of top-down leadership, it was the result of individuals using whatever means they had at their disposal to organize and communicate. We want to continue to support, in whatever way we can, those who started this and will lead it forward: the people.
Connect 2.0
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