From Using to Infrastructuring: Grassroots VPN-Building in Iran’s Women–Life–Freedom Movement

States increasingly weaponize digital infrastructures through censorship and surveillance. Iran represents an acute case of this broader global pattern. We study how citizens sustain connectivity and agency during Iran’s Women–Life–Freedom (WLF) protests. Based on 21 interviews with citizens and digital activists in Kermanshah province, inside Iran and in the diaspora, we document a shift from dependence on commercial circumvention to grassroots infrastructuring: people created and shared VPNs, proxies, and ad hoc communication pipelines. Peer learning on platforms such as Telegram, X, and GitHub—via Persian tutorials, scripts, and troubleshooting—enabled rapid adaptation under repression. We identify four dynamics: (1) distrust and survival as primary motivations; (2) infrastructural solidarity as everyday care; (3) technical improvisation and peer teaching; and (4) persistent constraints from censorship and risk. We argue that grassroots infrastructuring reframes end-user development as survival work. The paper contributes empirical evidence and design implications for HCI/CSCW on civic technologies, digital activism, and infrastructures of participation under authoritarian control.