Hello,
Today the OONI team is thrilled to announce the public launch of our *new
Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)*!
Access the MAT here: https://explorer.ooni.org/chart/mat
Learn all about the MAT through our blog post:
https://ooni.org/post/2022-ooni-mat/
*# What is the MAT?*
Imagine being able to track internet censorship based on real-time data
collected from networks around the world.
And imagine being able to create your own charts (based on this data) with
the click of a button.
That's the MAT! :)
The MAT is a tool that enables you to *create your own custom charts based
on aggregate views of real-time OONI data* collected from around the world.
Use the MAT to* track internet censorship worldwide* based on OONI data!
*# Who is the MAT for? *
The MAT was built for researchers, journalists, and human rights defenders
interested in examining internet censorship around the world.
*# Why use the MAT?*
When examining cases of internet censorship, it's important to *look at
many measurements at once* ("in aggregate") in order to identify trends and
patterns, and answer key questions like the following:
* Does the testing of a service (e.g. Facebook) present signs of blocking
every time that it is tested in a country? This can be helpful for ruling
out false positives.
* What types of websites (e.g. human rights websites) are blocked in each
country?
* In which countries is a specific website (e.g. bbc.com) blocked?
* How does the blocking of different apps (e.g. WhatsApp or Telegram) vary
across countries?
* How does the blocking of a service vary across ASNs?
* How does the blocking of a service change over time?
When trying to answer questions like the above, we normally perform
relevant data analysis (instead of inspecting measurements one by one).
The MAT incorporates our data analysis techniques, enabling you to answer
such questions without any data analysis skills, and with the click of a
button!
Further details on using the MAT and interpreting MAT charts are available
through our blog post: https://ooni.org/post/2022-ooni-mat/
We hope the internet freedom community finds the MAT useful for
investigating and responding to internet censorship events around the world.
Please help spread the word:
https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1513818001153437700
If you have any questions, feedback, or feature requests, we’d love to hear
from you! You can open a ticket (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/)
or write us an email (contact(a)openobservatory.org).
We thank all OONI Probe users worldwide who have contributed (and continue
to contribute) measurements, supporting the MAT. We also thank community
members for their invaluable feedback. <3
Thanks,
OONI team.
Dear all,
Internews will be hosting Pop Up PTIM Sessions! This will consist of stand alone
sessions, allowing the community to discuss PT related topics and stay up to
date on the progress of this community.
The first session will be presented by the LEAP Encryption Access Project. They
will share the work they have been doing for the past few years on the usage of
PTs in the context of a VPN application.
This session will take place on April 12th at 14:00 UTC/9:00 ET/16:00 CET.
Please use the link below to register for the event.
Session Title: Sharing LEAP’s Experience on the usage of PTs in the context of a
VPN application.
Registration:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/d5B9a9ZJxBTBXYtbqjbmIeiIyYZ-fC4zDTut…
Code of Conduct: https://www.pluggabletransports.info/code-of-conduct/
Announcement post:
https://www.pluggabletransports.info/blog/popup-ptim-leap-announcement/
Please feel free to share this event announcement.
Hope to see you there!
--Vasilis
--
PGP Fingerprint: 8FD5 CF5F 39FC 03EB B382 7470 5FBF 70B1 D126 0162
PGP Public Key:
https://keys.openpgp.org/vks/v1/by-fingerprint/8FD5CF5F39FC03EBB38274705FBF…
Hello,
The OONI team warmly welcomes you to join us next Tuesday for our monthly
community meeting.
*=> Where? *OONI Slack channel: https://slack.ooni.org/ (bridged with IRC:
ircs://irc.oftc.net:6697/#ooni)
*=> When?* Tuesday, *29th March 2022 at 14:00 UTC* (for 1 hour)
Please add topics that you'd like to discuss during the meeting in this
pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep
The monthly OONI community meetings aim to:
* Collect community feedback on OONI tools & methodologies
* Address questions in relation to the use of OONI tools and OONI data
* Foster discussions on internet censorship issues
* Receive updates from the community
We hope you can join us!
All the best,
~ OONI team
Hello friends,
I'm reaching out to share that we have released *OONI Probe Desktop 3.7.0. *
Please update to the latest version: https://ooni.org/install/desktop
OONI Probe Desktop includes our *new Tor Snowflake test* (
https://ooni.org/nettest/tor-snowflake/), along with many other bug fixes
and improvements.
Please note that we have *temporarily disabled the RiseupVPN test.* We aim
to re-enable it once it's improved. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Thanks,
Maria (on behalf of the OONI team)
Hello,
I hope you are all safe and well. My deepest solidarity to all those
affected by the war in Ukraine.
Today OONI published a *research report on new censorship events in Russia*
amid the war in Ukraine, based on OONI data analysis.
You can read the report here:
https://ooni.org/post/2022-russia-blocks-amid-ru-ua-conflict/
*# Key Findings*
*## Russia*
** Media censorship.* Russia recently started blocking access to
independent Russian news media websites (such as Dozhd and New Times) and
foreign news media websites (such as BBC, Deutsche Welle, Russian version
of Voice of America, and RFE/RL service websites).
** Blocking of a website about captured and killed Russian soldiers.*
Russia blocked access to 200rf.com, which was created by representatives of
the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine to share information about
captured and killed Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
** Centralized throttling of Twitter.* OONI data suggests that access to
twitter.com was throttled in Russia between 26th February 2022 to 4th March
2022. As the throttling of twitter.com seems to have stopped across all
ISPs in Russia at the same time (~08:00 on 4th March 2022 UTC), it appears
to have been centralized. Moreover, interference to twitter.com appears to
have changed from throttling to blocking (through the injection of a RST
packet) on 4th March 2022.
** Blocking of Facebook and Twitter.* OONI data shows that access to
facebook.com and twitter.com was blocked in Russia by 4th March 2022
(primarily through the injection of RST packets).
** Decentralized censorship.* Every Internet Service Provider (ISP) in
Russia is responsible for implementing government-mandated blocks
independently. As a result, we observe variance in how internet censorship
is implemented across Russia, as blocks are not implemented on all networks
in the country, and different ISPs adopt different censorship techniques.
Some ISPs implement blocks through the use of multiple techniques at the
same time, making circumvention harder.
** Different censorship techniques.* To block websites, OONI data shows
that Russian ISPs adopt the following censorship techniques (beyond
throttling):
* DNS manipulation, redirecting in some cases to blockpages
* HTTP man-in-the-middle, serving blockpages
* TLS man-in-the-middle
* Injection of a RST packet after the ClientHello during the TLS handshake
(most prevalent)
* Timing out the session after the ClientHello during the TLS handshake
* Closing the connection after the ClientHello during the TLS handshake
*## EU*
Following the recent decision of the Council of the European Union to
suspend the broadcasting activities of Sputnik and Russia Today (RT) in the
EU, some EU countries have started to implement blocks.
OONI data shows that EU countries like Greece, France, Romania, Spain,
Poland, and Germany have started blocking rt.com.
Moreover, we observe the blocking of sputniknews.com in several European
countries, such as France, Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic.
Following requests by the European Commission, Google has removed results
pertaining to rt.com and sputniknews.com from Google Search for users in
the EU. Similarly, Facebook and Twitter are geo-blocking EU users from
accessing RTNews.
Learn more though our report:
https://ooni.org/post/2022-russia-blocks-amid-ru-ua-conflict/
~ OONI team.
Hello friends,
I hope all of you are well and safe. My deepest solidarity goes out to all
our community members in Ukraine.
I'm reaching out to share that we have released *OONI Probe Android 3.6.0*.
Please update to the latest version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openobservatory.ooniprobe
OONI Probe Android 3.6.0 includes:
* New *Tor Snowflake test*: https://ooni.org/nettest/tor-snowflake/
* New *DNS Check test*:
https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/master/nettests/ts-028-dnscheck.md
* Links to OONI blog posts and research reports
* Other app improvements and bug fixes
Please note that we have *temporarily disabled the RiseupVPN test.* We aim
to re-enable it once it's improved! Apologies for the inconvenience.
Apart from measuring Tor Snowflake (which you can do with OONI Probe
Android 3.6.0), please consider running a Tor Snowflake proxy to enable
activists in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere to use Tor (for online privacy
and anonymity): https://snowflake.torproject.org/
Thanks,
Maria (on behalf of the OONI team).
Hello,
The OONI team warmly welcomes you to join us next Tuesday for our monthly
community meeting.
*=> Where? *OONI Slack channel: https://slack.ooni.org/ (bridged with IRC:
ircs://irc.oftc.net:6697/#ooni)
*=> When?* Tuesday, *22nd February 2022 at 14:00 UTC* (for 1 hour)
Please add topics that you'd like to discuss during the meeting in this
pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep
The monthly OONI community meetings aim to:
* Collect community feedback on OONI tools & methodologies
* Address questions in relation to the use of OONI tools and OONI data
* Foster discussions on internet censorship issues
* Receive updates from the community
We hope you can join us!
All the best,
~ OONI team