July 2020 - ooni-talk - lists.torproject.org

Free TunnelBear VPN accounts
by Maria Xynou 31 Jul '20

31 Jul '20

Hello friends, The VPN company TunnelBear (https://www.tunnelbear.com/) has given out 20,000 free accounts to human rights defenders and they are happy to give more. See: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200714005302/en/TunnelBear-Kicks-A… If you are interested in a free TunnelBear account, you can request one by writing to partnerships(a)tunnelbear.com. Please share this with others who may be interested, particularly those who live in countries that experience pervasive levels of internet censorship. Thanks, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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RightsCon -- OONI session
by Maria Xynou 29 Jul '20

29 Jul '20

Hi friends, RightsCon Online is taking place next week! Along with CAIDA/IODA, we'll be facilitating the following session: * Title: Investigating internet shutdowns with open data * Date: Wednesday, 29th July 2020 * Time: 3:15pm UTC * Place: https://rightscon.course.tc/ (private ZOOM link that you will be able to find by logging into the RightsCon platform, if you've registered) Hope to see you there! Please feel encouraged to share any RightsCon sessions you may be facilitating. :) Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Slides & Video Recordings: Internet Measurement Village 2020
by Maria Xynou 29 Jul '20

29 Jul '20

Hello friends, Over the last month (between 10th June 2020 to 3rd July 2020), we organized and hosted the first virtual Internet Measurement Village (IMV), which featured 18 presentations on internet measurement projects, censorship measurement efforts, advocacy efforts fighting internet shutdowns, and censorship circumvention tool projects. As all the IMV sessions were live-streamed and will continue to live on the OONI YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/OONIorg) we hope that these recordings will serve as a valuable resource on internet measurement for the internet freedom community. We published a blog post where we share the video recording & slides of each IMV presentation: https://ooni.org/post/2020-imv-slides-recordings/ Please help share these resources: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1288430388445163520 Warm thanks to the IMV presenters for sharing their important work with the community! Special thanks to everyone who tuned in and shared questions, comments, and resources. All the best, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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OONI statement in support of OTF
by Maria Xynou 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

Hello, The OONI team just published a second statement in support of the OTF: https://ooni.org/post/2020-support-otf/ In our latest statement, we share our experience working with the OTF and discuss how they played a crucial role in supporting the fight against internet censorship worldwide. We also discuss the importance of expertise in supporting innovative projects, and the importance of trust in OTF leadership by the internet freedom community. Please help share our statement: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1285999878691336192 Thanks, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Updated OONI Data Policy
by Maria Xynou 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

Hello friends, We have updated the OONI Data Policy: https://ooni.org/about/data-policy/ The latest version (1.4.0) of the OONI Data Policy includes the following changes: * We now use our own ASN database (following the changes to MaxMind's license) * You can no longer opt out of submitting country code information (e.g. "IT" for Italy), as this significantly limits the value of measurements (i.e. we have no idea where a test was run) * We use a self-hosted analytics platform on our websites and OONI Probe apps in order to better understand how our apps are used, improve our understanding of user needs, improve OONI tools, and better serve the OONI community. You can opt out of our use of analytics by disabling the collection of app usage statistics in the OONI Probe app settings (and you can opt out of our use of analytics on ooni.org and explorer.ooni.org by unchecking the opt-out box at the end of our Data Policy). * In our Data Policy, we have added a section on the collection of app usage statistics * In our Data Policy, we have added a section where we disclose what information we will collect if you opt in to push notifications * OONI measurements are openly published by default, but we will not publish data related to app analytics and push notification support (which is securely stored separately from the public measurement metadb) Happy to address any questions you may have. Thanks, ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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[Report] Network performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Italy
by Maria Xynou 17 Jul '20

17 Jul '20

Hello friends, Today OONI and M-Lab co-published a report examining network performance in Northern Italy during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read the report on the following sites: * OONI: https://ooni.org/post/2020-network-performance-covid19-italy/ * M-Lab: https://www.measurementlab.net/blog/measurement-observations-on-network-per… We analyzed NDT measurements collected from the provinces in the Milan metropolitan area between 1st January 2020 to 15th June 2020 with the goal of examining whether network performance was affected amid the surge in internet use during the nationwide lockdown. In summary, we observe: * Significant increase in the number of NDT tests run per day around the beginning of Italy’s nationwide lockdown (which started on 10th March 2020); * Reduced NDT download and upload speed results during the nationwide lockdown in Italy (between March 2020 to May 2020); * Improved NDT download and upload speed results from early May 2020 onwards, when the Italian government gradually started to lift the strict lockdown measures. As the available measurements suggest that there may be a correlation between increased internet use and reduced network performance, they highlight the need to invest in internet infrastructure that is more robust and sustainable in the long-term. They also highlight the need for more longitudinal measurements collected from more stable vantage points to improve our understanding of network performance issues. You can run NDT and contribute measurements on network performance through the OONI Probe apps (https://ooni.org/install/) or by deploying the Murakami tool (https://github.com/m-lab/murakami) in a Docker container. Please help share our report: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1284162147249987584 Thanks, ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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[Report] Investigating TLS blocking in India
by Maria Xynou 08 Jul '20

08 Jul '20

Hello, Today OONI and India's Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) published a joint report investigating TLS blocking in India. You can read the report here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-tls-blocking-india/ This investigation sought to understand whether there were cases of TLS blocking that were not only caused by the value of the Server Name Indication (SNI) field in the ClientHello TLS message, but also by the destination IP address. This was part of our efforts to expand our SNI blocking methodology (discussed here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-iran-sni-blocking/) To this end, we wrote and ran a series of experiements (that will eventually be integrated into the OONI Probe measurement engine) to measure the blocking of four domains (facebook.com, google.com, collegehumor.com, and pornhub.com) on three popular Indian ISPs: ACT Fibernet (fixed line), Bharti Airtel, and Reliance Jio (mobile). We recorded SNI-based blocking on both Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. We also discovered that Reliance Jio blocks TLS traffic not just based on the SNI value, but also on the web server involved with the TLS handshake. We also noticed that ACT Fibernet’s DNS resolver directs users towards servers owned by ACT Fibernet itself. Such servers caused the TLS handshake to fail, but the root cause of censorship was the DNS. We also found that one of the tested endpoints (for collegehumor.com:443) does not allow establishing a TCP connection from several vantage points and control measurements. Yet, in Reliance Jio, we saw cases where the connections to such endpoints completed successfully and a timeout occured during the TLS handshake. This is likely caused by some kind of proxy that terminates the TCP connection and performs the TLS handshake. Please share our research with your networks: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1280931688391065600 Thanks, ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Event - Internet Measurement Village 2020
by Maria Xynou 03 Jul '20

03 Jul '20

Hello friends, We're excited to host the first online Internet Measurement Village. Learn all about it here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-internet-measurement-village This is an online event that starts next Wednesday, 10th June 2020 and ends on Friday, 3rd July 2020. The schedule is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-internet-measurement-village#schedule Almost every day, we will live-stream presentations on: * Internet measurement projects (those that measure internet censorship, internet performance, and internet outages) * Local censorship measurement projects (in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Southeast Asia) * Advocacy efforts against internet shutdowns (globally and in West Africa) * Censorship circumvention tool projects All presentations will be live-streamed on the OONI YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/OONIorg We will include a live chat in the stream so that you can ask presenters questions. Please help spread the word: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1268951324378488832 Thanks, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Register for RightsCon Online
by Maria Xynou 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

Hello friends, This year (in light of COVID-19) RightsCon is taking place entirely online! * When? Last week of July => 27th-31st July 2020. * Where? Online (details will be shared for each session) * Why attend? RightsCon is the world's largest digital rights conference, annually bringing together human rights defenders, technologists, policy makers, academics, people from the industry, etc to discuss how to make the Internet a better place for human rights. There will be many tracks and many interesting sessions! As part of RightsCon Online, OONI will participate in/facilitate the following sessions: * Investigating internet shutdowns with open data (co-facilitated with IODA) * Ethics around network measurement * OONI Explorer tech demo Register for FREE before 20th July 2020: https://www.rightscon.org/join-us-at-rightscon-online-registration-now-open/ Hope to see you there! Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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