[hackerspaces] Please help us promote online privacy

[Elliot Lee]

Just thought of a new idea...

On May 28, 2011, at 4:51 AM, Micah Lee <micah at eff.org> wrote:

> Hi friends,
> 
> We're about to roll out a campaign at EFF to encourage organizations and individuals to run Tor relays. For those of you that don't know, Tor is software and a network of volunteers worldwide that help people be anonymous online by masking IP addresses. Individuals (like many bloggers in authoritarian regimes) need the Tor network to communicate safely. Unfortunately, the people who need Tor the most are often not in a position to run Tor relays and contribute to the Tor network.

Idea: Non-profit organization
Purpose: expand the Tor network
How: Bitcoins
Why: the people who need Tor live under authoritarian regimes. They aren't in a position to run a Tor node and grow the network. Instead, they can contribute Bitcoins to help pay for the network. Tor users pay Bitcoins. Tor node/relay operators receive those Bitcoins. 
Feasible?

> Those of us who care deeply about online privacy can make a tangible impact by participating in the Tor network. You can read more about Tor at https://torproject.org/.
> 
> EFF is reaching out to hacker spaces and privacy and free speech organizations and asking them to join us in helping to grow the Tor network. We're hoping that by working together as a movement, we can make a significant impact in the size of the Tor network - and help people worldwide safeguard their online privacy.
> 
> To participate, organizations and individuals need to set up a Tor relay. Please consider talking about your hacker space running a relay, and promoting the Tor Challenge to your members.
> 
> All relays count, including exit nodes, bridges and middle nodes. EFF has created an instructional video on setting up a Tor relay and we're updating our legal FAQ to provide a more detailed analysis about how U.S. law applies to Tor. Check out the video here (and the Tor website has plenty of documentation for other platforms as well): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jmj4bILqiY
> 
> Organizations and individuals that participate in our challenge will be thanked on our social media accounts and promoted on our website. I'm emailing you now because I'd like to give the privacy community a head-start. It's my hope that when we roll out this campaign next week, the initial participants will be the many organizations in the privacy community who are working hard to defend consumer privacy -- giving EFF an opportunity to publicly promote your great work.
> 
> Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. And, please do not promote this campaign publicly until we launch next week. But of course feel free to forward this email to your internal hacker space lists.
> 
> -- 
> Micah Lee
> Web Developer - Electronic Frontier Foundation
> micah at eff.org - https://www.eff.org/
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