A project with Josh Begley and Mehan Jayasuriya.

Kickstriker is a parody web site that takes the crowdfunding model of Kickstarter and applies it to military and security projects.

We got a lot of press for it:

• Wired: Kickstarter of Doom: Hoax Site ‘Funds’ Torture Bus, Death Drones
• Wired: ‘Kony 2012’ Threatens Lawsuit Against Online Parody
• The Guardian: Kony 2012 Group Threatens Lawsuit Over ‘Wartime’ Kickstarter-Like Parody Site
• The Atlantic: Invisible Children Not Amused by NYU Kids’ Parody
• BetaBeat: NYU ITP Students Build a Nightmarish Kickstarter For Wartime
• BetaBeat: Kony 2012 Sends Cease & Desist Letter to NYU ITP Students Behind Kickstriker
• Arianna Huffington: “Parody website of the day!”
• Ethan Zuckerman (MIT): “[A] ferocious parody of Kickstarter, Invisible Children and others.”
• The Verge: “[A] satirical but unnervingly prescient platform for crowd-funding wars”
• Techdirt: ‘Kony 2012’ Filmmakers Can’t Take Parody
• Evan Fleischer: “Kickstriker would make The Yes Men jealous.”
• Buzzfeed: “Kickstriker Project Looking for $3,000,000 to Catch Kony”
• Bruce Sterling: “Mak[es] a wide variety of dystopian points in an elegant fashion.”
• Animal New York: Kickstriker: Crowdsourced Violence
• Toronto Sun: Kony 2012 Campaigners Threaten to Sue Grad Students
• Russia Today: Fake Anti-Kony Campaign Threatened by Invisible Children

UPDATE 7/1/2014: Today I learned that it’s really happened:

• The Guardian: Ukranians crowdfund to raise cash for ‘people’s drone’ to help outgunned army

UPDATE 8/3/2014: And again:

• Gawker: Isreali Army Member Crowdfunded Battle Great for Urban Warfare

Sadly, it looks like this is a genuine trend.