9p (EIN 33-1583071) is an Appalachian 501(c)(3) non-profit internet service provider and research corporation. We provide autonomous, anonymous, free, unfiltered, public-use communications infrastructure intended to enable free speech, free association, and free communication.
We are a fully 17 U.S.C. § 512 compliant internet service provider incorporated in the state of Tennessee.
We offer a public-access HPC cluster that anyone may apply to use for academic or non-profit research purposes.
Our mission is to foster communication, privacy, and free access to information. We are proud to facilitate free services for all people, and be good stewards of a culture that encourages neighborliness, and freedom.
Values and Services
- Independence
- 9p’s infrastructure is entirely owned and operated locally here in Tennessee. We do not rent our servers from third-party providers nor do we colocate our hardware at a data center. We believe the ideal of a distributed internet is largely lost once you begin centralizing internet hardware.
- In the future we will apply for an ASN and begin leasing our own IP-space to further distance ourselves from the possibility of censorship.
- Sustainability
- Economic and social sustainability are important to us. To that end, the vast majority of our hardware is purchased second-hand and refurbished. We undervolt a lot of our equipment, as it is often possible to get 90% of the performance for 75% of the energy cost. In a world of billion dollar datacenters, we are unfortunately unique in that we place a value premium on performance per watt, and performance per dollar.
- Privacy
- 9p provides high-speed, forward-secret internet connectivity over our own transports which circumvent systems of censorship and surveillance, enabling private and secure communication from anywhere in the world.
- We do not log any network information, not even on our own perimeter firewall and router. This is to our own detriment as we cannot determine when or if we are experiencing denial of service attacks, nor can we really prevent them. We do not monitor our network in any way. Regardless of obvious downsides, we believe this is worth it, as it is necessary to protect our users and allow them to remain anonymous. It is an important practice to ensure total privacy for our users.
- Education
- 9p operates a publicly available unix shell called glenda.network similar to SDF’s Public Access Unix System. Though, we restrict registration to academics and researchers. If you are a student or teacher of any age, in any country please reach out to [email protected] for access.
- We operate a public BitTorrent tracker, supporting digital libraries and promoting the value of sharing knowledge.
- In the future we plan to host a mirror of Anna’s Archive, the world’s largest free library, including academic papers.