The Electronic Frontier Foundation would like to thank all of the attendees at this year's Black Hat USA, Security BSidesLV, and DEF CON conferences in Las Vegas. We are humbled by the infosec community's outpouring of generosity to sustain EFF's work defending coders rights and upholding our freedoms online.

With the help of our donors and creative community efforts, we were able to raise over $85,000 for protection of online rights! This amount is comprised almost entirely of modest contributions, so thanks to everyone who renewed their EFF membership or threw a few bucks in the bucket. Every dollar and reference to our work makes a big difference in the life of an organization like ours. We are especially grateful to:

  • Our DEF CON 19 Getaway Contest participants (who raised nearly $8,000 together!), and our contest sponsors and prize donors: DEF CON, iSEC Partners, Vegas 2.0, and Ninja Networks (we .
  • The Vegas 2.0 organizers and volunteers for helming their seventh annual blockbuster EFF fundraiser party theSummit, and raising a record $24,000 in a matter of hours! Thanks to the Google Data Liberation Front for sponsoring their bar.
  • Independent fundraisers at DEF CON, including: Stealth for bringing back the Hackers and Guns firearms training simulation; information desk staffers for taking up a collection; and DEF CON Kids for raising $900, while teaching hacklings about responsible disclosure.
  • Nate and Trey for dedicating their DEF CON weekend to the Diebold Accuvote TSx e-voting machine and its many vulnerabilities. Through unflagging determination, they along with e-voting expert Alex Halderman began decrypting past election results and educated onlookers about the machine.
  • The goons.
  • Jeff Moss and the Black Hat and DEF CON teams for their ongoing support in our fight to protect you.

In a town known for excess, we were impressed by the goodwill shown to EFF and beyond. Cheers to everyone who got chopped by Mohawk-Con to benefit charity (we hope you chose us!), thanks to the DEF CON Scavenger Hunt for including EFF, and much respect to those who joined the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry.

But your opportunity to give isn't over! The DEF CON skateboard deck auction is back! The deck is signed by DEF CON 19 speakers and tech luminaries including Mikko, Hypponen, Major Malfuntion, Jericho, Renderman, Mouse, Schuyler Towne, Myrcurial, and many more. Proceeds will be divided between EFF and the Online Privacy Foundation. Help us cross the $5,000 mark to bring the total this year to $90,000! Click the image below to check out the auction.


Donors like you fund our activism and our work in the courts so every bit helps. Learn more about the continuing fight for your rights in cases like U.S. v. Fricosu, in which we argue that law enforcement should not be able to compel the defendant to give up the password to her encrypted computer. Information about this case and more affecting the security community can be found on our Coders Rights page. And don't forget that you can contact EFF if you have questions about presenting your security research. Thank you for supporting this important work.

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