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== Leadership ==
== Leadership ==


The Calyx Institute's board of directors originally consisted of Nicholas Merrill, Micah Anderson and Kobi Snitz and in 2016, attorney Carey Shenkman joined the board of directors.<ref>{{ cite web | url=http://www.leitnercenter.org/events/Leitner-Human-Rights-Speaker-Series-Carey-Shenkman-and-Kumar-Rao-Institute-for-Social-Policy-and-Understanding-Equal-Treatment-Measuring-the-Legal-and-Media-Responses-to-Ideologically-Motivated/ | title=Leitner Human Rights Speaker Series: Carey Shenkman, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding – Equal Treatment?: Measuring the Legal and Media Responses to Ideologically Motivated Violence in the United States | work=Leitner Center for International Law and Justice }}</ref>
The Calyx Institute's board of directors originally consisted of Nicholas Merrill, Micah Anderson, and Kobi Snitz, and in 2016, attorney Carey Shenkman joined the board of directors.<ref>{{ cite web | url=http://www.leitnercenter.org/events/Leitner-Human-Rights-Speaker-Series-Carey-Shenkman-and-Kumar-Rao-Institute-for-Social-Policy-and-Understanding-Equal-Treatment-Measuring-the-Legal-and-Media-Responses-to-Ideologically-Motivated/ | title=Leitner Human Rights Speaker Series: Carey Shenkman, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding – Equal Treatment?: Measuring the Legal and Media Responses to Ideologically Motivated Violence in the United States | work=Leitner Center for International Law and Justice }}</ref>


The Institute also has an advisory board, which currently consists of Enrique Piracés, Isabela Bagueros, Jonathan Askin, Matt Mitchell, Sandra Ordoñez, and Sascha Meinrath.<ref>{{ cite web | url=https://calyxinstitute.org/about/advisory-board | title= Calyx Institute advisors }}</ref>
The Institute also has an advisory board, which currently consists of Enrique Piracés, Isabela Bagueros, Jonathan Askin, Matt Mitchell, Sandra Ordoñez, and Sascha Meinrath.<ref>{{ cite web | url=https://calyxinstitute.org/about/advisory-board | title= Calyx Institute advisors }}</ref>


Past advisors included [[Brian Snow]], [[Susan N. Herman]] [[John Perry Barlow]] and [[Bob Barr]].<ref>{{ cite web | url=https://cryptome.org/2014/10/pre-snowden.pdf | date= 2014 | title=Archived 2014 copy of Calyx Institute advisory board | work= Cryptome }}</ref>
Past advisors included [[Brian Snow]], [[Susan N. Herman]], [[John Perry Barlow]], and [[Bob Barr]].<ref>{{ cite web | url=https://cryptome.org/2014/10/pre-snowden.pdf | date= 2014 | title=Archived 2014 copy of Calyx Institute advisory board | work= Cryptome }}</ref>


== Reception ==
== Reception ==
Line 144: Line 144:
In 2019, Allison Stranger highlighted "Calyx Institute's Nicholas Merrill" as one of three recipients of National Security Letters who successfully challenged them.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stanger|first=Allison|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3msDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Calyx+Institute%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA116|title=Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump|date=2019-09-24|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-18956-8|language=en}}</ref>
In 2019, Allison Stranger highlighted "Calyx Institute's Nicholas Merrill" as one of three recipients of National Security Letters who successfully challenged them.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stanger|first=Allison|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3msDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Calyx+Institute%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA116|title=Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump|date=2019-09-24|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-18956-8|language=en}}</ref>


In 2019, several Calyx Institute servers were included in a study of oldest, longest-running Tor exit nodes.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Akmut|first=Camille|date=June 11, 2019|title=Fearless, 1000 days and still running : the 'most resilient' exit nodes of the Tor network and their ISP's – a quantitative approach|url=https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:24762/datastreams/CONTENT/content|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210805155849/https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:24762/datastreams/CONTENT/content|archive-date=2021-08-05}}</ref>
In 2019, several Calyx Institute servers were included in a study of the oldest, longest-running Tor exit nodes.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Akmut|first=Camille|date=June 11, 2019|title=Fearless, 1000 days and still running : the 'most resilient' exit nodes of the Tor network and their ISP's – a quantitative approach|url=https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:24762/datastreams/CONTENT/content|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210805155849/https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:24762/datastreams/CONTENT/content|archive-date=2021-08-05}}</ref>


In a 2021 review of CalyxVPN, TechRadar called Calyx Institute "long established non-profit" and said it was unusual in being "powered by donations" without ads and using open source software.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Williams|first=Mike|date=2021-07-30|title=Calyx: is this free and unlimited VPN worth downloading?|url=https://www.techradar.com/news/calyx-is-this-free-and-unlimited-vpn-worth-downloading|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-05|website=TechRadar|language=en}}</ref>
In a 2021 review of CalyxVPN, TechRadar called Calyx Institute a "long established non-profit" and said it was unusual in being "powered by donations" without ads and using open source software.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Williams|first=Mike|date=2021-07-30|title=Calyx: is this free and unlimited VPN worth downloading?|url=https://www.techradar.com/news/calyx-is-this-free-and-unlimited-vpn-worth-downloading|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-05|website=TechRadar|language=en}}</ref>


== References ==
== References ==

Revision as of 03:35, 21 December 2021

The Calyx Institute
FormationMay 2010
FoundersNicholas Merrill
Micah Anderson
Kobi Snitz
Type501(c)(3)
27-2800937
HeadquartersBrooklyn, New York
ProductsCalyxOS, CalyxVPN, Calyx Mobile Hotspots
Executive Director
Nicholas Merrill
Revenue (2019)
$1,615,118[1]
Expenses (2019)$1,476,960[1]
Website

The Calyx Institute is a New York based nonprofit formed to make privacy and digital security more accessible. The organization is a 501(c)(3) research and education nonprofit organization founded in 2010 by Nicholas Merrill, Micah Anderson and Kobi Snitz.

History

The Calyx Institute was founded on May 19, 2010, through a filing with the New York Department of State. Its original office was located in Manhattan with a single desk located inside a law firm.

In 2011, Calyx was described in an article in the New York Times and also entered into the Congressional Record as a new non-profit which "aims to study how to protect consumers' privacy".[2][3] It was also described in the Washington Post as an organization which "promotes 'best practices' with regard to privacy and freedom of expression in the telecommunications industry" [4]

Not long afterwards, Declan McCullagh at CNET published an in-depth profile of the Institute and its plans to develop best practices and proof-of-concept software for running a privacy-focused internet service provider and phone company.[5]

The security publication CSO Online described the organization's plan this way "By showing there is a market demand for privacy, The Calyx Institute hopes to nudge telecoms in a positive direction and intends to 'release all software developed under an open source model as well as all underlying policies and network designs.'"[6]

On December 4, 2014, it received its 501(c)(3) determination letter from the IRS giving it the status of 'public charity' and making donations to it tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.[7]

In 2017, it moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, renting office space in the Industry City development.

In 2020, Calyx Institute was a signer of an open letter asking Google to be more transparent regarding user data being shared with law enforcement.[8]

Funding

The majority of The Calyx Institute's funding comes from its membership program. In its early years it received minor funding from Internews, Wau Holland Foundation, Ford Foundation and NLnet.

In 2017, DuckDuckGo donated $2,500 to support Calyx's mission.[9] Subsequently, in 2018 Calyx was chosen by DuckDuckGo to be one of the participating organizations in its Privacy Challenge crowdfunding campaign and raised over $18,000.[10]

Grantmaking

The Calyx Institute has given grants and other financial assistance to a number of organizations and projects including CryptoHarlem, MuckRock's Hacking History project and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.[11]

Tools

  • SeedVault is an open-source data backup application for Android. Calyx Institute is credited for LineageOS including SeedVault backup.[12][13]
  • Datura is an open-source application for controlling applications network usage on Android based phones
  • Calyx Institute runs CalyxVPN, a free VPN service that doesn't require an email address or any personally identifiable information from the user. It is based on an open-source system called LEAP which uses OpenVPN.[14]
  • In 2014, The Calyx Institute announced it had set up a new XMPP chat service, Calyx XMPP Service, that was unique at that time because it forced the use of end-to-end encryption using Off the record messaging protocol and leveraging DNSSEC and DANE as well as making itself accessible as a Tor hidden service.[15]
  • In 2015, a coalition of organizations consisting of the EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation, NYU Law, the Calyx Institute, and the Berkman Center created a website called Canary Watch in order to provide a compiled list of all companies providing warrant canaries.[16] Its mission was to provide prompt updates of any changes in a canary's state. It is often difficult for users to ascertain a canary's validity on their own and thus Canary Watch aimed to provide a simple display of all active canaries and any blocks of time that they were not active.[17][18]

Membership program

On September 22, 2016, an article by Cory Doctorow was published in Boing Boing entitled "I have found a secret tunnel that runs underneath the phone companies and emerges in paradise"[19] in which Doctorow reviewed The Calyx Institute's membership program and its mobile hotspot member benefit.

In 2016, Jake Swearingen, writing for New York Magazine, recommended The Calyx Institute's membership program as a way to get affordable unlimited mobile Internet.[20]

Conferences

The Calyx Institute has participated in the DEFCON hacker conference multiple times.[21][22][23] It has also participated in the HOPE conference multiple times.[24]

It has sponsored and presented at the Internet Freedom Festival.[25]

Additionally it has participated in the Hackers Next Door conference.[26]

Leadership

The Calyx Institute's board of directors originally consisted of Nicholas Merrill, Micah Anderson, and Kobi Snitz, and in 2016, attorney Carey Shenkman joined the board of directors.[27]

The Institute also has an advisory board, which currently consists of Enrique Piracés, Isabela Bagueros, Jonathan Askin, Matt Mitchell, Sandra Ordoñez, and Sascha Meinrath.[28]

Past advisors included Brian Snow, Susan N. Herman, John Perry Barlow, and Bob Barr.[29]

Reception

In 2013, Joshua Klein used Calyx Institute as an example several times when discussing whether users are interested in protecting their privacy.[30]

In 2013, Calyx Institute plans were discussed, and they were called "an exception not the norm."[31]

In 2015, Calyx Institute recommendations on using email to follow up on donations made in Bitcoin were quoted.[32]

In 2017, the Intelligencer wrote that Calyx Institute's hotspot plans were a way to get unlimited mobile data at reasonable cost as phone companies were eliminating plans or making them more expensive.[33]

In 2019, Allison Stranger highlighted "Calyx Institute's Nicholas Merrill" as one of three recipients of National Security Letters who successfully challenged them.[34]

In 2019, several Calyx Institute servers were included in a study of the oldest, longest-running Tor exit nodes.[35]

In a 2021 review of CalyxVPN, TechRadar called Calyx Institute a "long established non-profit" and said it was unusual in being "powered by donations" without ads and using open source software.[36]

References

  1. ^ a b "The Calyx Institute Form 990 2019". The Calyx Institute.
  2. ^ "Twitter Shines a Spotlight on Secret F.B.I. Subpoenas". The New York Times. 9 January 2011.
  3. ^ 2011 Congressional Record, Vol. 157, Page H1490
  4. ^ "How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights". Washington Post. 25 October 2011.
  5. ^ "This Internet provider pledges to put your privacy first. Always". CNET. 11 April 2012.
  6. ^ "Fight the Patriot Act and win. Next? Promise privacy, a surveillance-free ISP". CSO Online. 10 May 2012.
  7. ^ "IRS 501c3 Determination Letter" (PDF). 4 December 2014.
  8. ^ Morse, Jack (2020-12-08). "Activists demand Google open up about user data shared with police". Mashable. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  9. ^ "2017 DuckDuckGo Donations: $400,000 to Raise the Standard of Trust Online". Spread Privacy: The Official DuckDuckGo Blog. 14 February 2017.
  10. ^ "2018 DuckDuckGo Privacy Donations: $500,000 + $142,000 From You!". Spread Privacy: The Official DuckDuckGo Blog. 5 June 2018.
  11. ^ "CryptoHarlem: Donate Now". CryptoHarlem.
  12. ^ "LineageOS 18.1 leva o Android 11 para mais de 60 modelos de celulares". Canaltech (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2021-04-03. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  13. ^ Crochart, Pierre (2021-04-01). "LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11) est sorti et déjà compatible avec plus de 60 smartphones". Clubic.com (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  14. ^ "Calyx: is this free and unlimited VPN worth downloading?". 30 July 2021.
  15. ^ "New public XMPP / Jabber server with Forward Secrecy/DNSSEC/Tor Hidden Service/DANE support - jabber.calyxinstitute.org".
  16. ^ Rahman, Amn (2016). Improving the transparency of government requests for user data from ICT companies (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/104826.
  17. ^ "Canary Watch tracks government requests for your information online". Gizmag. 4 February 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  18. ^ "Meet Canary Watch, A Way To Disclose Gag Orders Without Disclosing Them". readwrite. 9 March 2015.
  19. ^ "I have found a secret tunnel that runs underneath the phone companies and emerges in paradise". Boing Boing. 22 September 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  20. ^ "True Unlimited Phone Data Plans Are Dead". New York Magazine. 12 January 2017.
  21. ^ "DEFCON 25 Vendors".
  22. ^ "DEFCON 26 Vendors".
  23. ^ "DEFCON 27 Vendors".
  24. ^ "11th HOPE Speakers".
  25. ^ "Internet Freedom Festival: VPN Village 2020".
  26. ^ "Hackers Next Door 2019 Schedule".
  27. ^ "Leitner Human Rights Speaker Series: Carey Shenkman, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding – Equal Treatment?: Measuring the Legal and Media Responses to Ideologically Motivated Violence in the United States". Leitner Center for International Law and Justice.
  28. ^ "Calyx Institute advisors".
  29. ^ "Archived 2014 copy of Calyx Institute advisory board" (PDF). Cryptome. 2014.
  30. ^ Klein, Joshua (2013-11-05). Reputation Economics: Why Who You Know Is Worth More Than What You Have. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-137-38701-1.
  31. ^ Open Technology Institute (November 2013). "Virtually Unused, Virtual Private Networks and Public Internet Users" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. ^ Chen, Liqun; Matsuo, Shin'ichiro (2015-12-08). Security Standardisation Research: Second International Conference, SSR 2015, Tokyo, Japan, December 15-16, 2015, Proceedings. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-27152-1.
  33. ^ Swearingen, Jake. "True Unlimited Phone Data Plans Are Dead". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  34. ^ Stanger, Allison (2019-09-24). Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18956-8.
  35. ^ Akmut, Camille (June 11, 2019). "Fearless, 1000 days and still running : the 'most resilient' exit nodes of the Tor network and their ISP's – a quantitative approach". Archived from the original on 2021-08-05. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  36. ^ Williams, Mike (2021-07-30). "Calyx: is this free and unlimited VPN worth downloading?". TechRadar. Retrieved 2021-08-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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