Statement on YAN Site from Design Guy

Random people on Twitter I've never met:

I'm posting this on behalf of myself because I was asked this past May to design a website for the owners of Twitter account @YourAnonNews following their Indiegogo campaign. This is not on behalf of Emmi or YAN.

To further clarify my role, I graphically designed the website. I'm not involved in any fundraising, nor do I have access to any donated funds. Some of the concepts were intentionally leaked over the last several months to promote the site. I've uploaded a few of them into a gallery here for your viewing pleasure: http://imgur.com/a/wccZm#0 Again, these are just the initial concept designs so don't be an asshole. :)

I've been asked non-stop about the website for YourAnonNews since I publicly disclosed I'd be designing it. Following delays, people like @JoePie91 (who released his own statement today) have made some erroneous accusations at me. These included, but were not limited to, charges that I was partying it up in Vegas while at Defcon after I embezzled money. He had no problem making these allegations and attempting to destroy my reputation, despite the fact that he'd clearly fabricated the entire story for the purpose of self-promotion. I entered and left DefCon essentially penniless -- thanks to @5hm00p for provided me with FBI donuts every morning and @Bipalicious for giving me couch to crash on. Anyway, I'd like people to keep @Joepie91's obvious lack of character in mind while hoisting his banner around tomorrow.

Until now, I have not disclosing any information about YAN's website because I view them as a client and doing so would have been unprofessional of me. If any of you had invited me to work on a project for you, you wouldn't want me heedlessly tweeting out the details either. However, following Emmi's statement on pastebin today there are a few things I would like to say.

The first is that there seems to be some sort of anti-money sentiment going around. Get over it. Things cost money. You're reading this on a computer and I'm assuming you didn't steal it. With the amount of traffic they expect to receive, which is based on how much out-bound traffic they currently generate from Twitter, they require a dedicated server. Following constant threats of DDoS attacks, they also require expert DDoS protection.

Last year, YourAnonNews called out host Black Lotus for protecting the website of the Westboro Baptist Church. After discussing the issue with them privately, Black Lotus agreed to donate $20,000 to the Trevor Project, an organization that provides suicide prevention counseling to gay, lesbian and transgender youth. And that's where the donated money set aside for hosting is going to go.

In order for YAN to maintain a website it's going to be expensive. And the notion that you can pay a programmer $300-$400 to design a website, or that the traffic on JoePie's $10 a month website compares to the traffic YAN will generate, is absurd.

I've heard several people suggest that Jackal and Emmi should donate all of the money to a good cause instead of creating the website. To be clear, legally, that would be the exact same thing as me spending it in Vegas. People donated the money to support a website project, therefore, that's exactly where it has to go.

Emmi's pastebin also mentioned possibly establishing an LLC to handle the money. This is just one recommendation made by a legal counsel. Establishing a non-profit, I believe, carries with it some restrictions in regards to activity and YAN is particularly aggressive towards politicians. I've been on the board of a non-profit, but I know very little about business so I have to defer that issue to someone else with expertise. When I first began working on YAN's website, the owners were very clear about one point: they wanted to use the website to generate revenue and then give it to a variety of organizations with legitimate causes, such as legal support for jail activists like Weev and NoKXL demonstrators that are being arrested on a daily basis.

These funds would be generated by ads, along with additional revenue from a YAN store that would likely continue to sell shirts, coffee mugs, and things of that nature. One idea was a Free Anons shirt and 100% of the profits would go directly to that organization. One of the delays in shipping the incentives from the Indiegogo campaign was that Jackal was adamant a local store, managed by socially responsible small business owners, receive the donations instead of a larger company such as CafePress.

One of the other issues disclosed today was an issue YAN had with a lost check. This check was addressed to me. To be clear, it was NOT for $54,000. The negotiated cost of developing the site is half what was quoted by a larger design firm. I was to receive it and pay a developer to take the designs I've created and finish the site. I confirmed myself that it was written and sent, but for some reason it wasn't received. To safeguard the donations, another check wouldn't be issued until the lost one was canceled and the funds returned. It wasn't necessary for Emmi to disclose this error to the public. I even cringed when I read it, but I understand that she said it because she was trying to be totally transparent with you.

I've been told there are plenty of people who would write code for free, and you can certainly contact me if you're willing to donate time. I offered to do the designs for free because I wanted this site specifically -- yes, for the cool-factor. Jackal however was adamant that having raised money from the public to build a site, whomever developed it needed to be paid for doing so.

That's my disclosure regarding my involvement with the YourAnonNews website. I've known the people behind this account for around 9 months. The reason they started this project was to provide a platform for independent journalists, bloggers and livestreamers who are covering vital issues; human rights violations, the destruction of the environment, and the degradation of civil liberties, to name a few. I've never heard anyone talk about getting rich or seen anyone excited by the idea of getting paid, only eager to putting in hard work to make a difference.

I believe this project should always be open for criticism because the public seeded it, certainly now because people expected to be launched. But, I encourage you to use some common sense and recognize a baseless allegation when it's cast. If someone with no more knowledge than yourself seems solely interested in defaming others by accusing them of being criminals, you should examine their motives. Especially when it comes from people that previously had access to that Twitter account but lost their privilege after abusing it.

You may now begin spamming my mentions with all your rage. If you would like your rage to be acknowledged, please submit the proper paperwork in advance: http://goo.gl/r0pgf0


Signed,

D.C.

I'm not Anonymous.
I drive a beat up Mazda.
I forget shit all the time.
I prefer to give people second changes.
Expect me... to sleep in past noon.

(Dictated but not read)