How You Can Help: Iran 2.0 & Haystack - By Austin Heap

[WillyT]

Posted on 07/06/2009 07:37 pm by Austin

<snip>

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

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.

Once 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.

<snip>

Link: http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/07/06/how-you-can-help-iran-20-haystack/

About Austin Heap: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/16/twitter_iran/index.html

:kick:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. that would help, Iran has about 700,000 bloggers who are oppressed

they can get arrested if caught blogging against the govt.

See Iran, a nation of bloggers:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x332799

[comrade snarky]

2. K&R

Something to look into

[SpookyCat]

3. Off to greatest. This needs to be seen.

[WillyT]

4. Thank You !!!

:yourock:

:hi:

[Kaleko]

5. For people researching the legitimacy of Austin Heap,

here's an article in S.F. Gate:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/17/MN75188C6K.DTL

S.F. techie helps stir Iranian protests

by Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Little about Austin Heap's first online venture, a site hosting free episodes of the cartoon "South Park," suggested he would one day use his computer skills to challenge a government.

But for the past few days, Heap, an IT director in San Francisco, has been on the virtual front lines of the crisis in Iran, helping people there protest the presidential election, which opponents of the incumbent regime maintain was fraudulent.

--snip--

While it's not clear how much impact Heap's efforts are having, history may look back on his tweets about proxy servers as a profound moment in political evolution, said Stanford's Milani.

"The regime probably doesn't recognize it, but I can tell you, the marriage of civil disobedience with the social networking savvy is the death of despotism in these places," he said. "If you combine these two, you have a very potent force."

Nico Pitney at HuffPo cites the same article in his Iranblog from Sunday, July 5.

[Kaleko]

6. Kicking