Help partner organizations to setup standalone snowflake proxies
Snowflake works by creating a “flurry” of available proxies all around the world. Individuals who want to help people bypass censorship can install a Snowflake proxy into their web browser and become a temporary proxy as long as their browser is open and online. This means that it’s extremely easy for many people to run proxies–we’ve seen an increase from about 30,000 to about 110,000 in the last month!
It’s also possible to set up standalone Snowflake proxies that run on their own machines or servers. While they are not as easy as a browser plugin to run, standalone Snowflake proxies have some benefits:
(1) standalone Snowflakes are connected 24/7 (instead of just when a user’s browser is on);
(2) they have a dedicated, fast, and stable connection in a data center; and
(3) they have unrestricted NAT–this is important because when using residential connections, modems and routers limit a lot of what can connect to an individual’s proxy.
In order to accommodate the amount of new traffic on the network, we need to increase the number of standalone Snowflake proxies.
In this activity, we will work with partner organizations and individuals to set up, host, and run standalone Snowflake proxies and offer them technical support. We also will help the operators monitor their proxies for blocking and respond when there are censorship events or changes so that these proxies remain available.