14 DAY TRIAL // The public testing of Haystack, an application designed to provide Iranians with uncensored access to the Internet, was suspended after experts expressed security concerns.
"Recently, there has been a vigorous debate in the security community regarding Haystack’s transparency and security. We believe that many of the points made in this debate were valid," said Austin Heap, the project's lead developer.
"As a result, and in order to ensure Haystack’s security, we have halted ongoing testing of Haystack in Iran pending a security review," he added.
The Haystack project was created over a year ago after the Iranian government began filtering Internet content pertaining to protests that followed the country's presidential election result.
At the time Heap was described in the media as an Internet freedom fighter, who quit his job as a software developer to work full time on a free anti-censorship program.
However, it now seems that Haystack, which the US Department of Commerce has already extempt from trade restrictions with Iran, might suffer from serious security holes that could actually tracking of Iranian users accessing banned content, rather than protect their identity.
The issues in Haystack practices were first raised by Foreign Policy blogger Evgeny Morozov, who has since asked several software engineers and cryptography experts to take a look at the program.
One of them is Jacob Appelbaum, a reputed hacker who works as a developer for the TOR Project, a non-profit organization producing widely-used Internet anonymity software.
"Haystack is the worst piece of software I have ever had the displeasure of ripping apart. Charlatans exposed. Media inquiries welcome," Mr. Appelbaum, who is also a spokesperson for Wikileaks, wrote on Twitter.
In the meantime the Censorship Research Center (CRC), the organization behind Haystack, has began contacting beta testers to advise them to stop using the program until the security audit is finalized and all issues are addressed.