Forfreedom project - launch announcement (help needed)

Community
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hello again level1 community
this is a long one grab coffee or tee and settle down. :slight_smile:
i wished to launch this project on 5th of November (if you know you know) had to delay.

if you are a person that believe in freedom of speech and liberty please continue reading.
do know that here is not a political stage, but do not have another choice or place.

need your help to jump start this project. to be a project by people for people.

people of Iran in need of your help. people is not the same as government nor religion.
by now world knows what’s happening in Iran, its been 60+ days of brutality against freewill of people and counting.
people of Iran in need of Safe VPNs to keep the flow of information going, and fight against the internet blockade and censorship.

government of Iran have same version of Great Firewall of China, its adaptive and packet sniffing (deep packet inspection) to determine source and destination of traffic.
they use dns poisoning to block DoH, https deEscalation attack, dns resolver block/replace and many more attacks on flowing packets.

until now i have been paying out of pocket to support my fellow restricted internet users to have free and open access, long before recent events.
i am truly sorry to ask this, i am running out of personal savings to keep continuing like this, its not sustainable. costs have have multiplied by factor of 100. every domain only lasts maximum of 24 hours. 24h bandwidth used on each server is 5-7 terabytes outbound.

have been working on this project as much as i can with very little free time i have left.(choosing to work on this project instead of eating food or even rest). i am exhausted and sustained injuries while out with people.
this is not about me, it’s about the people of A country that wants Freedom, until Freedom comes i can endure the blood, sweat, pain and sleepless days and nights.

this project is public now because US President and EU parliament announced that sanctions are lifted for service providers to help people of Iran in these hard times.
and now a giant red target is on my back. #forfreedom

Lets Begin.
here is how you can help.

Alpha Phase (finding team members for the project and deploying VPNs for people of Iran)

  1. Donations if possible (unfortunately do not have access to international banking, so Crypto it is)

    • priority is deploying servers as fast as possible for now until rest of the project catchup. will be doing this myself with the donations

  2. Discord mods to delegate between me and volunteers (please only users that have high reputation here. OpSec reasons) t

  3. linux experts (Debian preferred) that can help with items below, (extended description in discord) I can’t do everything by myself, asking for help with scripting.

    • DNS server. if you have knowledge of running DNS server and server requirements Contact me
    • network engineer that understands mesh networks plus encryption.
    • help me hardening servers for medigate/blocking attacks. UFW and F2B work flawlessly with docker deployments
    • disabling logs anywhere not needed to be noLog server.(necessary ones for 24h and non necessary ones to 60s cycle or off)
    • knowledge of automated deployment - bash scripting or Ansible. (install / config / deploy)scripts
    • Cloudflare cli automation - batch adding and configuring domains for server its
    • docker + docker-compose (if you have background with docker deployments please join discord and contact me)
    • nodejs simple web scrapping (from n*4 below - combing the analytics, wallet balances and etc)(project clarity purposes)
    • custom telegram bot In python or nodejs for serving accounts to users
    • android developer that modify open source app on GitHub for hardening privacy( disabling some features and some modifications )

  4. server traffic/usage analytics as an simple json api (uptime, resources, live bandwidth, traffic used, (number of users that on the server) no IPs just active users on each server)

  5. server pen testing for any leakage.(private configured server will be provided to be stress tested)

  6. translation of home page and docs in your native language.

    • R.js will be used from GitHub
    • in some situations rapid translation of a few words for social post is need.
      *my grammar is included (join - be active on discord)

  7. Sharing of social posts if you can (echoing post in your language if possible)

  8. graphic designers. to help with social posts. (multi lingual if possible) (join and be active on discord)

  9. An Android and iOS Dev to modify project (removing some features and adding/replacing some functions)

  10. Contacts in Social media / Payment Gatway’s / Cloud Service’s
    *if they can’t help it is ok i understand. i don’t want any headache for any person or companies. please be respectful to them.
    a. any help to setup safe online donation (with help of Stripe, Shopify, squarespace) to be converted and delivered in crypto
    *Only Trusted Verified Parties (by ID and Passport and named public on homepage of project)
    *Contact me for extra info and talk about possible avenues. ( or visit GitHub for project spending transparency)
    b. brand sponsors please, if possible. ( pulseway. cloudflare, cloud services ) *Contact me for extra info and talk about possible avenues.
    c. in need of public ambassador’s for the project, verified persons on twitter and instagram. can contact reps for getting project accounts officially verified.

rule 1
config and deployments of any server, panel, API’s will be done solely by me.(OpSec+privacy)
rule 2
discord - sensitive topics will be locked behind user roles/groups (OpSec+privacy)
discord - put your time zone availability in bio. (and your country if you want)
discord - put preferred language in bio (if you are multi lingo please put all of them)

every volunteers, contributors and donors handle (if they want) will be credited publicly on home page
if you know somebody that can help please forward this topic to them.

Homepage Home
GitHub forfreedomproject (forfreedom project) · GitHub
Twitter https://twitter.com/forfreedom_proj
Instagram https://instagram.com/forfreedomproject
Discord — contact me if you want to be a mod, will send you a link
(discord server needs help with everything)

Email forfreedom-contact(at)proton.me
PGP KEY https://forfreedomproject.github.io/home/ff-pubkey.asc

if you contacted me please be patient, i will respond.

wise mens once said, Live Long and Prosper (because) This Is The Way. :slight_smile:
yours truly,
#womenlifefreedom
#forfreedom
#forfreedomproject
:ukraine: :rainbow_flag: :iran:

appologies if grammer is not corre

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questions you might have
who? where? why?

  • someone who believes in freedom of speech and expression.
  • i do know what real censorship means.
  • have been using internet from the old days that modems made funny noises :). it was different back then.
  • I’m from Iran and currently in Iran.
    why a VPN project?
  • freedom comes with free access to information. no middle men, no pay wall, just open access.
    why non profit?
  • I’m not doing this project for money. just to help people that they need it. no matter the country.
    is it free?
  • Yes, for every one. Donations are welcome.
    what is the timeline of this project?
  • phase one(alpha) is helping people of Iran with VPNs and gather a capable team members.
  • phase two will be shared as soon as project have enough funding to keep all servers online for at least one year.
  • phase three project peaces are ready and in place to hire team members.
  • phase four open beta for the world

i have planed a future for this project not ready to share publicly at this time.
it is bigger than me. so much more…

(note)
due to recent attempts of Iran government to cut internet in Iran, attacks on (Border Gateway Protocol) BGP that started on nov 9 2022 (discovery of Anonymous), witch causing long pings of 5-10 seconds and most of the time packets die due to TTL.
they have been deploying Bots to bleed working VPNs dry.
another recent discovery they have been deploying Decoy VPNs to DeAnonymize users (network analysis shows all traffic going to DataCenter in Tehran then to decoy servers outside.(i know witch data center’s, but i can’t put the name publicly here, it has to be verified by trusted sources)
for the reason mentioned above i can’t stay connected 24/7. do my best stay online.

thank you. and happy thanks giving.

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Hmm, so at the moment you have absolutely nothing but an idea. So the contribution and subsidy for the moment…

Usually, in order to give even the smallest movement in projects, you need to have at least a small preliminary foundation from the technical side.
Right now it looks like just give me the money, go ahead and do it all technically and logistically according to my plan.

I have serious doubts about the future of the project. But good luck to you. :+1:

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I have to agree with Tim that for a proposal of this size, I can’t see it becoming anything more than an idea without a lot more detail and planning than what’s in this one forum post or on the social media linked.

You need to lay out some sort of plan in a document, a large one, of what exactly needs done, what resources will be required to do each thing, and how much those resources will cost. This is called the “Statement of Work” in industry, and it’s a lot more information than “when we have money we’ll start doing things”. And also, I would describe what guarantee we have that the authorities don’t just shut this down immediately.

There needs to be at least a technical framework proposed that shows you guys understand the scope of this project, before I would expect anyone from a very technical community of people like this to donate to it. Especially if you’re proposing to hire and manage people to work for it.

I’m gonna bullet some things I see that are concerning:

This means there’s no traceability whatsoever for where these donations are going.

Why should we donate money to pay for a graphics designer before there is any technical framework even in place for this? This seems like some severe mismanagement before it’s even started.

If you claim to already be physically exhausted by maintaining a VPN, how do you propose you will be the sole system administrator for a VPN that serves the entire country?

Can we get some logs or other telemetry showing this traffic that needs additional hardware and several people to manage? How do you plan on solving the domain issue?

How much funding? How many servers do you need? How much will they cost?

You need to understand that asking for money - especially crypto - but refusing to provide information on where that money is going, is not going to go well with most people.

I think you need to show us a plan for the present of this project before you worry about the future of it.

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I wanted to ask about more info, but they have a site and it says there’s more info coming.

I’m imagining something like Tor Snowflake meets PirateBay meets Bridgefy … but since details are amiss, I’m waiting on more info, and so I have this bookmarked for now, before I forward this to some people I know who can start vetting them.

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apologies for late answer, had to go to another city for burial of family member.

thank you for the responses
both of you have valid response and criticism i get that.

i do understand that it is large scale project. it is why I’m asking for help here to show me points that i have missed.

as i mentioned, the donations small chunk will be allocated to temporary VPNs for people of IRAN. 5 to 10 percent maximum.
rest will be used for the project it self.
i never said VPN will be only for one country. it will be free anyone

the management part is only for VPNs provided to IRAN, the rest of the project of course will be managed by a team.

well as i stated, all purchases on behalf of the project will be public. even if it is 1$ and reason behind it with receipt

“payment for graphic designer?” just ask for a volunteer.

never said exusted by maintaining VPN. (perhaps my grammar was wrong)
current circumstances of situation in iran. it is exusting physically and mentally. health wise.

the domains are blocked in iran firewall, i can’t do anything about that.

config and deployment? scripts to stream line server deployments. for the project

the telemetry and logs.
it can be tricky
i can screen grab used traffic from 3rd party panel. i don’t trust the seller so after setup i disable root login and ssh key logins and any ports that not used by vpn.
i have cronjob running to delete logs every 10s and if server receives no traffic in or out more then 59 minus self destructed by deleting everything and shutdown. in case server is out of bandwidth not to get extra charges and of course safety.
to make sure nobody have access to server i have script that changes root password to random string automatically then kick me off server with no access.

32g ram 16thread 20T bandwidth usually lasts 3.5 to 4 days.
and costs 55 euro, usually setup 8 at a time, every 4 days equals to 440 euros.
4 domains per server. 32 domains every 4 days. 8 euro per domain equals to 256 euros.
for the past 2 months i have spent 10.5k euros for something that simply believe want to help without a single outside donation.
im not doing this for money nor fame.
(10.5k is nothing for western employment income standards)
(not counting the past week or so.)

i never asked for donation help unless it was necessary.
the crypto part is only way for me to receive donations, i can’t even register for any FIAT based donation services. because im in iran. i would if could.
just a explainer( exchanging crypto for Iran rial is so much hassle that simply don’t wort it )

i never said refusing to say where donations is going. i repeat again, all the spending accountting will be public, even the VPN servers for IRAN, i will share what went where and how much.

guys im type of person that says don’t trust the guy asking for money on internet.

clearly you guys have experience in fields that i do not have. i need help really have rock solid footing for the project, why else ask it here in a most linux driven user community, even if i wasn’t asking for donation i would still ask for you guys help.

nobody can juggle more than they can handle.

currently in iran Wiregoard tcp-udp/openvpn tcp-udp don’t work they are blocked. must paid VPNs like Mullvad / Nordvpn if servers are listed somewhere they are blocked. if unknown server connect will be blocked less than 30 minutes.
protonvpn is disconnecting every 30s
only expressvpn is stays connected if server has little traffic. gets blocked if detected.

only shadowsocks/v2ray/X-ray/trojan/ssh protocols are working, barely. with limited speeds.

literally my life is at risk by doing this project. what benefit is there to do this.

“guarantee we have that the authorities don’t just shut this down immediately”
well is tor project alive
mullvad is alive
other vpn projects are alive even decenterized ones. and their devs are free
if you mean iran gov, i have backup person to deliver access to project accounts to trusted team member by a friend.
if you mean Feds project is not doing anything illegal.

“Statement of Work”
can you share a real sample for me to study.
so i can learn and correct mine.

“How much funding? How many servers do you need? How much will they cost?”
just the servers for the first year. until project work with out any kinks.
23-25k euros at the must.
30 bridge/relay nodes
50 entry nodes
50 exit nodes
it can be done with minimum amount of spending for vps servers for the beging stages. even less at test stages. 5-10$ per vps. (i know, just until validate proof of concept)
at the full scale run of-course VDS or bare metal servers are needed.
witch they cost much more.
and of course domains(200-300) as many as possible for full scale run.

technical framework/paper
i know what im getting my self into.
have the rough plans what’s needed,
what’s need to be done.
not sure about developer employment costs. they are location dependent.

im not sure if i explained myself or the goals of project good enough.
please be my guides, this is what im asking.
the reason why im not sharing everything at this stage is someone with a lot of money backing them can simply pick it up claim it as their own.

guys i do understand scepticism, as i said help in any way possible. even if you don’t want to donate a single dollar, i appreciate it from bottom of my heart.
if you guys feel comfortable i will exclude VPN for iran from donation help. or another bucket even to not confuse anyone.

there are projects that target IRAN users, have money back them but with what agenda?
psiphon US gov
beeVPN (shadowsocks) unknown
ArgoVPN.com unknown
and lots more on AppStore’s

just a little side note.
(
if you want to know what’s really happening here take look at https://twitter.com/journalistsay
the US media watering down sayin just protests happening written by #NIAC puppet of IRgov and payed for. they are not supporting people.
in the past if you seen videos on your news channels that people wearing full black berkas chanting “death to america” they are just getting payed and some just brain washed.
)

personally im running out of money(personal savings are on the last drips) i know its not good financial decision but its only way i can help.
simply have to stop serving VPNs to people. and keep working on the project.
i am technical enough to learn and pickup new things on the way.
as i said above im not motivated by money, i have morals.

its a marathon not a 300ft/100m dash.
thank you for your time.

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I think your project sounds interesting. I’m just not sure if what you’re trying to do is possible:
You basically want to become a large-scale general-purpose VPN provider, in a country that doesn’t allow that sort of thing(I’m also very much against this type of censorship), while also living in that country, on a limited budget.

One thing you might try is to reduce the scope of what you’re doing:
Instead of trying to be a large, general-purpose VPN, try to be a purely censorship-avoidance VPN. I’m assuming that if you’re using up 20TB traffic in 3-4 days you either already have a large userbase, or your users are using video streaming services(Netflix, YouTube). I know it might seem paradoxical to suggest limiting access to Netflix/YouTube when what you’re trying to do is avoiding censorship.

But consider this: I think it’s very plausible that the reason you’re having to change servers every few days, and have such large costs, is because you’re causing a significant amount of same-looking traffic, which is hard to ignore from an ISP perspective(They will see that a lot of their user traffic goes to a single location which is not white-listed). So, maybe slowing down video streaming sites, and using a lot of small servers, instead of a few large ones could help. Or just separating out video traffic from regular traffic(ingress server and egress server if possible, because I assume that the detection rate of your server correlates with the amount of traffic it makes). You of course want to use HTTPS ports for your VPN, and probably even host some non-suspicious looking website on there as well. Also you might consider putting (fast) YouTube/Netflix access on a timer, and telling your users when to watch best, so you can provision a “throw-away” server for them.

But I suspect all of that will help you very little. Maybe try to figure out how to cloak tor/i2p successfully? Then host a few nodes in countries where that is legal? Teach people how to use it? I’m fairly certain that you can configure Tor to circumvent even the greatest of firewalls, if you know what you’re doing. But you need technically sufficient users for that to work. Centralized solutions(like a VPN provider) are fatally flawed when it comes to censorship resistance.

Also I think some of your SecOps is not great, randomly changing your root password is not security. You know you can just disable root logins, right? Also, you probably want disk encryption, even though it’s probably in vein because other people have access to the infrastructure where your server is located. Also, keep in mind that every one of your clients can see at least parts of the routes your VPN is taking. So, keep your routes obscured, and your client list short and trusted. Maybe even separate out clients by how long they have been using your service, and put them on different servers.

And on a more general note, instead of coming here with a giant project, and a “launch announcement” which doesn’t mean anything to most people, why don’t you split your mega-thread into multiple, independent, more technical and less philosophical threads. For example, I’m sure people here could have already helped you with some of your individual questions like how to do cloudflare CLI automation, or disabling logs, or whatever. People don’t have the time to read a mega-thread, or the energy support a cause and donate, but they’re usually more than willing to donate a little bit of time and a little bit of knowledge, if it’s convenient.

I hope this could help you a little.
Keep safe. I wish you and your people the best, Live Long and Prosper.

1 Like