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 here1. 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.luks2 (555MB) and ins11.luks3 (64MB). Please download these torrents and seed them as long as you can. Please consider your privacy when seeding.

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1461·
    10 days ago

    This post would really benefit from a little more background information before diving into the breathless appeal for help.

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      39·
      10 days ago

      Yeah, I don’t know why they don’t have the normal “what is this” text from their main page at least at the bottom or something.

      cock.li offers free email service with no personal info needed for signup. They’ve done this for 11 years, with no major outages to my knowledge, relying only on donations without explicitly asking for them or bugging their users.

      I think at some point they also offered paid VPS services.

      Very useful for accounts that you don’t want connected to your other “identities”, but where you’ll still need them associated with a real email for things like password resets.

      It’s also tor friendly.

      • gwilikers@lemmy.mlEnglish
        231·
        10 days ago

        Thanks for the context. Soooo… What’s with he dick jokes? I mean I’m fan of dix as much as the next dick lover but setting up an emails service that’s ball-to-ball dicks is a bit much.

  • waffle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    701·
    10 days ago

    The encrypted files are very suspicious and, in the new canary, they removed the part that stated they didn’t receive a gag order: https://web.archive.org/web/20240405132835/https://cock.li/transparency/warrant-canary.txt

    It’s possible that it’s Vincent’s way of warning the users of a gag order. He may be an insufferable edgy little twat but he cares a lot about transparency and, had he received a gag order, he would definitely try to communicate it

    Maybe I’m just being paranoid, you tell me

    • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      10·
      9 days ago
      LIBERTY CANARY
Date updated: 2024-11-14

Cock.li is in 100% control of all of its hardware, and the service is still operating normally. The website (account registration+pw change) is currently offline.

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

Cock.li is not under duress of any government or organization.

Until further notice, THIS CANARY SHOULD BE UPDATED DAILY. Under no circumstances will we let this canary go 48 hours without changing the "Date updated" above unless a PGP-signed message changes the schedule.

The schedule or PGP key used to sign this message may be changed only according to signed message from key 5CB49CDCEAC797FBF8BDC074FD71AD2771A5CC1B. Any message certifying the change of PGP key should be displayed alongside all messages signed with the new key for at least 7 days.

      The schedule being changed to daily is a fairly notable departure from monthly.

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      45·
      10 days ago

      I love their shitposting domains.

      At least they aparently got rid of their, err,… “”“questionable”“” domains

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        716·
        10 days ago

        I get that. Sounds stupid. I mean hitler.rocks? Or nuke.africa?

        It is probably good that they are shutting down.

        • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
          151·
          10 days ago

          It’s probably good that a free and private email service might shut down because… they registered a few edgy domains that they no longer use? Wow

          • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
            57·
            9 days ago

            Here is a really deep and complex ethical discussion for you.

            You create a free and private email service and you don’t register nigge.rs and nuke.africa as your domains.

            Imagine that!

            Very difficult and super complex ethical choice!

            • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
              10·
              9 days ago

              Sorry, but in my book, actions speak louder than words. And the actions here are very clear: they made a useful service that benefited people. They paid for it out of their pocket and suffered major inconveniences in their personal lives to keep the service operational and to uphold their ideals of transparency. It’s a net positive contribution to the world, even if you account for the offensive/hurtful jokes they made along the way.

              You can spend hours talking about what people should or should not have done. Critiquing others from your high horse is easy, but it gets you nowhere. As another example, take Lemmy’s developers. You could go on for hours denouncing their tankie/authoritarian views, but it won’t change the fact that they created an anti-authoritarian and censorship-resistant platform that benefits many people.

              What I value personally is a consistent moral framework. What someone thinks on isolated issues or what kind of offensive humor they like is a lot less relevant to me. Do I disapprove of it? Yes. But do I condemn them for it? No. Because actions speak louder than words.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    399·
    10 days ago

    I think we need more context.

    Edit: after getting more info from other comments, that’s gonna a be a hard fucking no.

    GFY, Edgelords. Just because Trump won an election doesn’t mean you’re right.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    251·
    10 days ago

    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.

    Why? I guess those are HDD volumes you plan to release the keys to later.

    • Dragomus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      10 days ago

      … but why? Does it contain secret intelligence data? Nudes of the people attending the con in the movie? Why would I want these files?

      And what are the “criminal attacks”?

      This is all very vague and not in a way that gets my sympathy or further interest.

  • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    10 days ago

    Thanks for sharing this. Never really used cockli that much, but still appreciate their service. Nothing makes the glowies seethe harder than a privacy-friendly email service, I hope it stays afloat. Donated!

  • Fonzie!@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    6·
    9 days ago

    to allow registration as anonymously as a library card.

    Sounds like a good kind of library card, what country are they from?
    Here in the Nethers I need to pay with my bank (not fully anonymous) and register with my national ID card or passport (not at all anonymous) for a library card in my city.