cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/31443410

Cock.li will shut down before becoming complicit in crimes against its own userbase by duress of any government or organization.

For nearly 11 years, cock.li has remained one of the only public e-mail providers to allow registration as anonymously as a library card. The fact that it's still possible to get an e-mail address as easy as 20 years ago is a fact widely *hated* by international governments; at least the parts of those governments which have dedicated countless resources to target our service, our team, our family, and our friends with illegal surveillance, bad-jacketing, organized disinformation, and much worse.

A combination of these illegal tactics have become so serious that the site is now in grave danger.

The only way it's been possible for cock.li to weather this and stay online is thanks to the dedication of our entire lives to this bit. Our small team of 3-5 people have had our lives permanently altered and our stability sacrificed so Internet users worldwide can more-or-less enjoy the comfort of being able to access e-mail without requiring a phone number or other surveillance document.

Despite the constant attacks on the service and our personal lives, no one directly involved has ever been paid in 11 years for their work on cock.li. The personal costs of this volunteer work add up over a lifetime, and as we get older we've slowly taken steps back to compensate, when we should have been stepping up.

Stepping up is exactly what's needed right now, and we're here to do it. These recent issues have forced us to take leave from our jobs to make time just to keep the wheels spinning. I hope you can understand that is why, for the first time ever, I'm asking you to donate directly to the people who make cock.li possible.

Your donation will make a real difference by telling us to use the money where it will help the most right now. We have a sizable war chest for legal expenses that has never once been used to pay us for our work. Problem is, if we can't make time to put that war chest to work, what good is it? We believe cannibalizing this fund to offset our lost time would put cock.li in a worse position, so by creating a new fund we can make it clear what we're doing while keeping our legal funds secure.

It shouldn't surprise you that the people who are so passionate about this service are not profiteers or business people. We are private, unpaid individuals who don't want to see one of the last great liberties of this Internet fall victim to the criminal and violent attempts to shut it down. If these critical threats force us to change the world to ensure e-mail remains recognized as a human right, we won't hesitate to do it.

We never once asked for personal donations specifically in the hopes that if this moment ever came, our userbase would appreciate that we were able to make it this long on passion alone, and trust that your donation will make the best possible impact.

There is much work to be done. I will keep you updated as much as I can. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Monero:  41fqXKYNEWuBDuqYczhoSiE1aUN9tCGdWYrfjynebuTM3tdE5UUHEfeZjZ3iZpgqY8LdYLk9h4As66UBC5mARL4z98PfUwB
Bitcoin: bc1qg9ehmfzusgfd6dvudll0qxkcl8c5q3sh8qnetr

~!~

In the 2022 film `COCKCON 2020 (2019)`[0], a 250MB encrypted file was hidden in a second video track of the 1080p release. You can download this film here[1]. I don't know if the encryption key will ever be released, but if it does, you'll want quick access to that file.

Furthermore, two more files are released today, 2024-11-12: ins10.luks[2] (555MB) and ins11.luks[3] (64MB). Please download these torrents and seed them as long as you can. Please consider your privacy when seeding.

[0]: https://vc.gg/film/cockcon-2020/
[1]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:TBU2RE2ENTL6USAZVX7HH7V3TYMK2KVI&dn=COCKCON%202020%20(2019)%20(2022)%20%5B1080p%5D%20%5BOvO%5D&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce
[2]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RZ5PIPVCPPJC7JWIVU74V5JANJ4O3RXL&dn=ins10.luks&xl=581959680&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce
[3]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:DX6I2QFYIBYZPCP5FPRBORTQVCM4NVRG&dn=ins11.luks&xl=67108864&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce
  • solrize@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    I’ve never been able to get a library card anonymously, but anonymous email is pretty easy I thought. I use mailinator sometimes, which has no registration even.

  • eldavi@lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 month ago

    i think that cock.li’s experience is common for volunteer organizations in the american government’s cross hairs and i forsee an expansion of something like this onto open source projects & platforms like lemmy in the future given some of the public manifestations we’ve seen in the news like the american’s governments geopolitical posturing forcing the linux kernel project maintainers to expel russian contributors.

    the american’s governments restriction on open source projects like the linux kernel is a portent of what’s to come and the entire FOSS world is going to be split into 2 because of it and with the better financed half being undeniably under the government’s control, but its contributors will continue to call it “free and open sourced software” anyways due to having the most leverage (for now).