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Research Fellowship opportunity
by Maria Xynou 01 Feb '22

01 Feb '22

Hello friends, Are you an experienced researcher interested in examining information controls (such as internet censorship)? The *Open Technology Fund (OTF) Information Controls Fellowship Program* is now open for applications: https://www.opentech.fund/funds/icfp/ This is a fully-funded fellowship opportunity for experienced researchers. You can apply for a 3-month, 6-month, 9-month, or 12-month fellowship. The *deadline* to apply is *13th March 2022*. Please help spread the word! Thanks, Maria.

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OONI Community Meeting: Monday, 31st January 2022
by Maria Xynou 27 Jan '22

27 Jan '22

Hello, The OONI team warmly welcomes you to join us next Monday for our monthly community meeting. *=> Where? *OONI Slack channel: https://slack.ooni.org/ (bridged with IRC: ircs://irc.oftc.net:6697/#ooni) *=> When?* Monday, *31st January 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

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Measuring HTTP/3 censorship with OONI Probe
by Maria Xynou 19 Jan '22

19 Jan '22

Hello, Last year, the OONI team collaborated with Kathrin Elmenhorst on adding HTTP/3 support to OONI Probe (through our urlgetter research tool) to investigate *HTTP/3 censorship in China, Iran, Kazakhstan, and India*. The results of this research were documented in a research paper that was published by the AMC Internet Measurement Conference: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3487552.3487836 Today, Kathrin (who's now an OTF Information Controls Fellow with OONI) published a blog post which provides a *summary of these research findings* : https://ooni.org/post/2022-http3-measurements-paper/ We discovered that the deployment of HTTP/3 censorship varies significantly between the observed countries and networks. While some censors do not filter HTTP/3 traffic at all and some collaterally block HTTP/3 hosts, we uncovered HTTP/3-targeting censorship in Iran. Read Kathrin's summary of findings to learn more: https://ooni.org/post/2022-http3-measurements-paper/ Best, OONI team.

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PT community meetup December [20/01/2022]
by Vasilis 18 Jan '22

18 Jan '22

Dear all, This Thursday on 20/01/2022 December's PT community meetup will take place. Time: 9:00 AM EST / 2:00 PM UTC Where: IFF Square on IFF Mattermost More info and details on how to join: https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/January_20_2022_GM Hope to see many of you there. Best, ~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…

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OONI Monthly Report: December 2021
by Maria Xynou 14 Jan '22

14 Jan '22

Hello, OONI's December 2021 status report is shared below. *# OONI Monthly Report: December 2021* Throughout December 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 53 (1st-5th December 2021) * Sprint 54 (6th-19th December 2021) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Published report on Tor blocking in Russia* We published a report documenting the blocking of Tor in Russia based on OONI data. Read the report here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-russia-blocks-tor/ Our report shares OONI data and analysis on the blocking of the Tor network and Tor Project website on some AS networks in Russia. Wired also published a story on Tor blocking in Russia, sharing OONI data and findings: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/russia-block-tor-censorship *## Year in Review: OONI in 2021* In December 2021, we published our annual end-of-year post, "Year in Review: OONI in 2021", which shares: * OONI highlights from 2021 * Exciting OONI activities by community members in 2021 * Upcoming OONI projects in 2022 You can read this post here: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-in-2021/ Warm thanks to our amazing community for making our work possible! We thank every OONI Probe user out there, and we're excited for 2022! *## Published blog post about OONI Probe integration into iThena* iThena (https://root.ithena.net/) is a distributed computation and measurement project based on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform. In December 2021, we published a blog post where we discussed how iThena helped boost OONI censorship measurement coverage worldwide by integrating OONI Probe into their platform. This blog post is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-ithena-boosts-ooni-measurement-coverage/ *## Published guest post by The Bachchao Project* In October 2021, we participated in the Bachchao Project’s 2-day event (“India, Let’s Build the List”) where we helped facilitate sessions for communities in India to update the Citizen Lab’s test list for India. In December 2021, we published the Bachchao Project’s guest blog post about the event on the OONI website: https://ooni.org/post/2021-event-india-test-list/ *## OONI Probe Mobile* We released OONI Probe Mobile 3.5.0 for Android ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.5.0) and iOS ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v3.5.0) This release includes the following improvements: * Automated testing for instant messaging app tests (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, Telegram) * Automated testing for circumvention tool tests (Tor, Psiphon, RiseupVPN) * Automated testing requires at least 20% of battery level * OONI Probe CLI updated to 3.13.0 * Bug fixes Following this release, OONI Probe mobile app users can run all OONI Probe tests (excluding the bandwidth-intensive performance tests) automatically on a regular basis. We expect that this will not only help boost OONI measurement coverage further, but it will also be helpful in ensuring that social media apps and circumvention tools (both of which are frequently blocked around the world) are more regularly tested. We started making improvements to how we do testing of the OONI Probe apps by doing integration testing of all components inside of a mono-repo ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1926) We also worked towards addressing OONI Probe technical debt ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1808) *## OONI Probe Web* We now have a working prototype of OONI Probe Web ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-web) that implements the full functionality. Features of OONI Probe Web currently include: * Informed consent onboarding process ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-web/pull/1) * Communication with the check-in API for receiving test-list targets; * Submission of measurements to the testing collector ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1494) Unlike the OONI Probe apps, OONI Probe Web is limited to website testing. The prototype includes a feature that enables users to determine if they would like to limit their testing to a specific number of URLs. *## Integrating tor into OONI Probe* We completed the integration of tor into OONI Probe Mobile and OONI Probe Desktop (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1867) It is now possible to use go-libtor when it's available. We switch between using go-libtor or searching for the tor binary in the path by using build constraints. The branch that integrates this work is the following: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/614 We also integrated tor into OONI Probe Desktop ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/pull/261) and into OONI Probe CLI ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1872, https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1866) *## Expanding censorship measurement methodologies* We released OONI Probe CLI 3.13 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.13.0) through which users can now run our new DNScheck experiment ( https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/master/nettests/ts-028-dnscheck.md) This release (along with our 3.13-beta and 3.14-alpha releases made in December 2021) includes a series of other improvements to our experiments and measurement methodologies (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases) as well as updated dependencies. *## OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)* We continued to make improvements to the OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT). In particular, we improved the usability of the one-dimensional charts, we fixed a tooltip rendering issue, we resized the panels for the charts and table, we fixed issues with non-measurement-start-day based charts, we fixed the sorting order of the table, and we worked on other UI improvements (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/624) We also added support for displaying the various blocking types (DNS, TCP/IP, HTTP-failure, HTTP-diff) as an axis value in the MAT charts. Improvements to the MAT can be viewed through commits made in the following pull request: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/622 *## OONI backend* In December 2021, we continued to make progress on migrating our backend infrastructure to Clickhouse (https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/371) To this end, we worked on: * Switching more tables over to Clickhouse and improving test coverage; * Implementing Clickhouse in our fastpath data processing pipeline; * Implementing the Clickhouse feeder; * Updating JSONL table in Clickhouse from feeder; * Updating CI to test Clickhouse; * Splitting the platform in tiers; * Adding a deletion flag on the uploader; * Re-importing the JSONL table and rebuilding the fastpath table with the domain column. We also worked on the following backend activities: * Implemented an integrated API/fastpath multi-host dashboard; * Added backend support for Tor Snowflake experiment feature extraction ( https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/372) * Added backend support for extracting Tor Snowflake runtime metrics and exposing them via a new API endpoint (https://github.com/ooni/api/pull/274) * Handled upcoming VM reboots; * Continued to monitor OONI measurement coverage from unattended runs on OONI Probe Mobile and Desktop. *## Established new partnership with Zaina Foundation* In December 2021, we established a new partnership with Tanzania's Zaina Foundation (https://zainafoundationtz.org/) Over the past year, we had already been collaborating with Zaina Foundation, who facilitated OONI training for women human rights defenders in Tanzania, conducted usability studies for OONI Probe and OONI Explorer, and translated OONI Probe to Swahili. We are therefore thrilled to have now formalized our partnership with Zaina Foundation, and we’re excited for our ongoing collaboration over the next few years. To highlight Zaina Foundation’s important work, we published a new page on the OONI Partners page: https://ooni.org/partners/zaina-foundation/ *## OONI website### New Donate page* In December 2021, we published a new Donate page on the OONI website: https://ooni.org/donate/ Through this page, we aim to encourage donations in support of OONI’s work. *### Edited various OONI webpages* We edited and updated the copy of several web pages on the OONI site. In particular, we edited the About page ( https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1041) we updated the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section (https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1042) and we restructured and edited the Nettests section ( https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1043) We also *## Hosting an OTF Information Controls Fellow* As of December 2021, we started to serve as the host organization for Open Technology Fund (OTF) Information Controls research fellow, Gurshabad Grover (https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1471454369866719237) During his 1-year research fellowship with us, Gurshabad aims to uncover how ISPs, through their technical decisions, can exacerbate or minimize the effects of state-ordered censorship. *## Community activities### PiProbe* Our Venezuelan partners, Venezuela Inteligente, created a new OONI Probe distribution for Raspberry Pis, called “PiProbe” ( https://github.com/VEinteligente/PiProbe) On 15th December 2021, they presented PiProbe to collect feedback from the OONI team and broader community. *## Userbase* In December 2021, 39,609,318 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,785 AS networks in 165 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ OONI team.

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OONI Monthly Report: November 2021
by Maria Xynou 14 Jan '22

14 Jan '22

Hello, OONI's November 2021 status report is shared below. *# OONI Monthly Report: November 2021* Throughout November 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 51 (1st - 7th November 2021) * Sprint 52 (8th - 21st November 2021) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Published research report investigating internet shutdowns through Mozilla telemetry* In collaboration with IODA, we published a new research report which analyzes Mozilla telemetry to investigate internet shutdowns in Myanmar, Uganda, Belarus, and Iran over the last year. Our research report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-investigating-internet-shutdowns-mozilla-telemet… Mozilla also published a blog post about our report: https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/11/08/detecting-internet-outages-with-mo… The goal of our research was to evaluate whether Mozilla telemetry could be a valuable resource for the Internet freedom community to investigate Internet shutdowns. To this end, we analyzed an aggregated dataset of network activity based on Firefox web browser usage worldwide (access to which was provided to us by Mozilla). To evaluate how useful Mozilla telemetry is for researching Internet shutdowns, we: * Selected case studies (known shutdown events from January 2020 onwards) * Analyzed Mozilla telemetry * Compared Mozilla telemetry with other public datasets We checked whether Mozilla telemetry provides signals for: * Myanmar: Internet outages following February 2021 military coup * Uganda: Nationwide internet outage amid 2021 elections * Belarus: Internet outages amid 2020 elections * Iran: Internet outages following 2020 elections Our detailed findings are documented in our report. Overall, our analysis demonstrates that Mozilla telemetry is a valuable resource for investigating Internet shutdowns worldwide, providing novel insights through geographical data granularity. We encourage Mozilla to publish aggregated Mozilla telemetry as open data to support research and advocacy efforts investigating Internet shutdowns worldwide. We also share further recommendations in our report: https://ooni.org/post/2021-investigating-internet-shutdowns-mozilla-telemet… *## Published blog post on Myanmar research paper findings* A few months ago, the OONI team collaborated with researchers at IODA, Kentik, UC San Diego, and University of Michigan / Censored Planet on a research paper examining censorship events in Myanmar (through diverse measurement datasets) following the military coup. The paper, titled "A multi-perspective view of Internet censorship in Myanmar", was published by FOCI 2021: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3473604.3474562 In November 2021, we published a blog post which summarizes the research paper findings: https://ooni.org/post/2021-multiperspective-view-internet-censorship-myanma… *## Blog post for Internet Society (ISOC)* In November 2021, our partner, Internet Society (ISOC), published our guest blog post where we discuss why collaboration and transparency is key to internet measurement: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/internet-measurements-collaboration-… This blog post was also cross-posted on the OONI blog: https://ooni.org/post/2021-internet-measurements-collaboration-transparency/ *## OONI Probe Mobile* We released OONI Probe Mobile 3.4.0 for Android ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.4.0) and iOS ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v3.4.0) This release includes the following new features and improvements: * New label indicating when a VPN is being used * Improved UI for requesting autorun permission ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1820) * Logs are retained for 1 week * Bug fix in RiseupVPN and Signal analysis logic We also released OONI Probe Mobile 3.4.1 with further bug fixes and improvements (https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.4.1) Following the release of OONI Probe Mobile 3.4.0, we started to observe an increase in the volume of measurements contributed by automated runs. The new label which indicates the use of a VPN will hopefully also help improve OONI data quality. We also worked on improvements to our build system for OONI Probe so that it can be further automated through continuous integration. In particular, we added support to build the Android and iOS dependencies as part of continuous integration. *### Interviewed mobile developer candidates* In September 2021, we published a job opening to hire a new mobile developer for OONI Probe ( https://ooni.org/post/2021-job-opening-ooni-mobile-developer/) We reviewed applications and throughout November 2021, we interviewed candidates. ## OONI Run Based on community feedback, we made improvements to the OONI Run ( https://run.ooni.io/) platform. Specifically, we rewrote the URL editor ( https://github.com/ooni/run/pull/74) we limited the OONI Run platform to website testing (https://github.com/ooni/run/pull/79) and we deployed the changes to production. *## Integrating tor into OONI Probe* We made progress on integrating tor into OONI Probe Mobile and OONI Probe Desktop. In particular, we worked on adding support for building go-libtor on Android, iOS, and Linux: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1867 *## Expanding censorship measurement methodologies* Two essential steps required for shipping our new Websteps experiment (for measuring the blocking of websites) include: * Comparing our new Websteps experiment with our current Web Connectivity experiment; * Deploying the new Websteps test helper in production. In November 2021, we made considerable progress on both. To compare Websteps with Web Connectivity, we developed test cases to measure accuracy and to compare the two experiments in terms of bandwidth used, overall test runtime, and accuracy at detecting blocking events ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1805) We also worked on polishing the Websteps design documents and we shared them with community members who have relevant expertise, in order to receive their feedback for the improvement of our new experiment (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1811) We worked towards deploying and using the new Websteps test helper ( https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/544) We started off with an incremental rollout where only a few ASNs use the new test helper, and we eventually plan to replace the old test helper. We continued to investigate TLS parroting and interference ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1812) and we made several OONI Probe CLI releases which include a series of improvements to our experiments (improving the data quality of measurements), as documented through the following releases: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.11.0-beta.2 https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.12.0-alpha.3 https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.12.0-alpha.2 https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.11.0-beta.1 https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.12.0-alpha.1 *## OONI Explorer* We added support to the OONI Explorer Search page for filtering based on failed measurements (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/623) We also worked towards making OONI Explorer easier to debug (to improve the quality of OONI Explorer, and to make the MAT easier to debug) by improving how we log and report errors in OONI Explorer. *## OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)* We continued to make improvements to the OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT). We measured the performance of the MAT UI components to identify bottlenecks. We worked on improving the interactivity and filtering of the table chart, we fixed the presentation of the horizontal axis of the chart, we worked on improvements to one-dimensional charts, and we worked towards making measurable performance improvements to the two-dimensional (2-axis) chart pages with large datasets ( https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/622) *## Building a web platform for test list updates* We continued to make progress on the web platform ( https://test-lists.ooni.org/) that we’re building to enable community contributions to the Citizen Lab test lists ( https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists) In particular, we made improvements to display the contributor and the date of when a URL was last updated in the list view ( https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/15) we added a notifications feature (https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/16) and a favicon ( https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/17) and we fixed a backend bug affecting the platform’s submit button ( https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/545) *## OONI backend* In November 2021, we started migrating our infrastructure over to Clickhouse (an alternative database solution). To this end, we reviewed the architecture by: * Implementing Clickhouse in our fastpath data processing pipeline; * Switching the fasthpath and API CI to bullseye; * Implemented the experimental Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) using Clickhouse, and added relevant tests; * Implemented the experimental PG to the Clickhouse feeder; * Updating the CI to test Clickhouse; * Determining what to keep in PG (failure modes and recovery); * Preparing an architecture diagram; * Splitting the platform in tiers; * Using raw SQL or SQLalchemy; * Implementing an experimental PG to the Clickhouse feeder; * Performing tests by using Clickhouse for the measurements API; * Handling JSONL. We also worked on the following backend activities: * Reviewed the new monitoring host, and removed the old host; * Handled unplanned and upcoming VM reboots; * Investigated an issue affecting the timing of measurements (probe clock issues); * Fixed a bug resulting in probe failures ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1328) * Started reviewing and cleaning up DNS records used by OONI; * Tested switching some ASNs to the new test helper; * Experimented with centralized logging management; * Continued to monitor OONI measurement coverage from unattended runs on OONI Probe Mobile and Desktop (particularly in light of the recent iThena integration of OONI Probe). *## Collaboration with Netalitica* Netalitica researchers continued to do excellent work in reviewing and updating the Citizen Lab test lists. In November 2021, we reviewed their updates to the test lists for Nicaragua and Ecuador and shared feedback for improvements. *## Test list updates* In November 2021, we contributed minor updates to the following Citizen Lab test lists: * Egypt: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/863 * Global: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/862 We also opened a pull request with updates to the test list for India ( https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/864) contributed by participants of the Bachchao Project’s 2-day test list event ( https://ooni.org/post/2021-event-india-test-list/) *## Notable community use of OONI Probe and OONI data### OONI Probe integrated into Murakami* In November 2021, Measurement Lab (M-Lab) integrated OONI Probe into their Murakami measurement tool (https://www.measurementlab.net/blog/murakami/) This is documented through the following pull request: https://github.com/m-lab/murakami/pull/103 We thank M-Lab for integrating OONI Probe into Murakami, as this will help boost OONI measurement coverage! *### VEsinFiltro report on censorship during 2021 regional elections in Venezuela* In November 2021, VEsinFiltro published a report documenting the blocking of independent news media websites, political criticism sites, human rights sites, multimedia dissemination sites, and circumvention tool sites during the 2021 regional elections in Venezuela. Their report makes use of OONI data, among other data sources. VEsinFiltro’s report is available in: * English: https://vesinfiltro.com/noticias/2021-election-blocks/ * Spanish: https://vesinfiltro.com/noticias/2021-bloqueos-elecciones/ *## Community activities### OONI presentation at ISOC Community Week 2021* On 16th November 2021, OONI’s Maria presented OONI as part of the Internet Society’s (ISOC) Community Week event. Information about the ISOC Community Week 2021 is available here: https://www.internetsociety.org/events/community-week/ *### OONI presentation at Tor’s State of the Onion 2021* On 17th November 2021, OONI’s Arturo presented OONI as part of the Tor Project’s annual State of the Onion 2021 event ( https://blog.torproject.org/state-of-the-onion-2021) during which he shared OONI highlights from 2021, as well as upcoming OONI projects for 2022. The event was live-streamed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNhIjtXuVzk *## OONI training for civil society in the Gambia* On 29th November 2021, OONI’s Maria facilitated an (online) OONI training for human rights defenders in the Gambia in preparation for the country’s 2021 elections. *### OONI Community Meeting* On 30th November 2021, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) during which we discussed the following topics: 1. OONI research reports published in November 2021. 2. Iranian government is using a new type of regional Internet censorship during protests which blocks International internet access (except few services) but allows local websites and services. It would be nice if an OONI test could be developed to detect & log this scenario and submit the result to OONI once the international connectivity is fully restored. This is tracked through the following epic: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1600 *## Userbase* In November 2021, 31,393,906 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,276 AS networks in 157 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ OONI team.

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OONI Monthly Report: October 2021
by Maria Xynou 14 Jan '22

14 Jan '22

Hello, Happy new year! Hope you're all doing well. These days we're primarily supported by the DRL, which is why we do quarterly reporting. That said, we'd like to share monthly updates from the OONI team with the community, hence our October 2021 report shared below. I'll also follow-up to share our November and December 2021 reports. *# OONI Monthly Report: October 2021* Throughout October 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 49 - Humpback whale (1st - 10th October 2021) * Sprint 50 - Amphipoda (11th - 24th October 2021) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Published research report on the blocking of the Signal Private Messenger App* We published a research report which shares OONI data and analysis on the blocking of the Signal Private Messenger App in Iran, China, Cuba, and Uzbekistan. This report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-how-signal-private-messenger-blocked-around-the-… In April 2021, we released a new OONI Probe test for measuring the blocking of the Signal Private Messenger App (https://ooni.org/nettest/signal) Since then, OONI community members tested Signal worldwide every day, contributing measurements as open data: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-10-23&since=2021-09-23&test_nam… As part of this study, we analyzed all Signal measurements collected from around the world between April 2021 to September 2021. During this period, we found that the testing of Signal primarily presented signs of blocking in Iran, China, Cuba, and Uzbekistan. Further information and findings are available in our research report. *## OONI Probe Mobile* We released OONI Probe Mobile 3.3.1 for Android ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.3.1) which includes bug fixes and optimizations. In particular, we: * Fixed an Android bug related to our RiseupVPN test: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1787 * Fixed an Android bug related to automated runs: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1789 * Fixed an Android bug related to our use of Sentry for crash reports: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1788 We also worked on: * Adding support for detecting if an OONI Probe user is behind a VPN: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/954 * Adding support for a VPN label and modal: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/453 * Deleting logs weekly (instead of immediately): https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1800 *## OONI Probe Desktop* We released OONI Probe Desktop 3.6.0: https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.6.0 This release includes our new Experimental card, which currently features our STUN reachability test. We plan to release new experimental tests as part of this new card. OONI Probe Desktop 3.6.0 also includes support for 2 new languages: Swahili and Dutch. We thank the Localization Lab community for ongoing OONI Probe translations, and we are particularly grateful to Tanzania’s Zaina Foundation for leading efforts related to translating OONI Probe to Swahili (and increasing the reach of our app in East Africa). We also released OONI Probe Desktop 3.6.1 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.6.1) with bug fixes and further improvements. Moreover, we worked on improvements towards a new OONI Probe CLI release ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1843) *## Expanding censorship measurement methodologies* Shipping our new Websteps experiment ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1733) requires deploying the new Websteps test helper in production. To this end, we worked on comparing the old with the new OONI Probe test helper ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1707) This required extensive testing and investigation to ensure that no issues emerge when we deploy the new test helper. We now have some TLS parroting capabilities in our miniooni research tool ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli#miniooni) and we started investigating TLS parroting and interference (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1812) *## OONI Explorer* We deployed recently merged OONI Explorer pull requests to production, and we ensured that anomaly search is included for all supported tests (including the Signal and RiseupVPN tests). We also worked towards addressing issues that result in failed measurements not being displayed correctly (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/611) Moreover, we refactored OONI Explorer pages to remove the need for a custom server (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/619) and we upgraded core dependencies (react, next) to the latest versions ( https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/620, https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/621) *## OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)* We made several improvements to the OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT). Specifically, we improved the MAT table view by adjusting the tooltip UI, sorting labels alphabetically, and deploying progress to production. To add interactivity features to the MAT table view, we made filtered table rows the source for charts, and we fixed the link from the tooltip link to the search page (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/618) among several other improvements. To improve the performance of the MAT, we switched to the Clickhouse-based backend for the MAT pages ( https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/622) *## Building a web platform for test list updates* We continued to make progress on the web platform that we’re building to enable community contributions to the Citizen Lab test lists ( https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists) In particular, we made a series of UI improvements based on initial community feedback (from the testing of the private beta version of the platform). We added an onboarding section to guide users through the process of using the test list web platform ( https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/issues/5, https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/11) We reduced the ambiguity between the “notes” and “comment” sections of the web platform ( https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/issues/7, https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/9) We also improved upon error messages (https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/8) and added support for displaying website category descriptions ( https://github.com/ooni/test-lists-ui/pull/10) *## OONI backend* In October 2021, we worked on the following OONI backend activities: * Deployed the new monitoring host; * Created a set of benchmark queries, and tested BigQuery (as a potential alternative database) by running benchmark queries against the whole dataset; * Continued to investigate alternative database solutions to boost the performance of our services by comparing Clickhouse, DuckDB, PostgreSQL 13, and BigQuery; * Implemented an experimental PG to Clickhouse feeder; * Added backend support to the Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) using the Clickhouse-based backend; * Continued to monitor OONI measurement coverage from unattended runs on OONI Probe Mobile and Desktop; * Updated DNS handling in ansible and added graphs; * Continued to investigate missing jsonl files from the s3 bucket ( https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/538) *## Partnership with Internet Society (ISOC)* In July 2021, we established a new partnership with Internet Society (ISOC) to collaborate on the ISOC Pulse project: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/shutdowns In particular, OONI is now a data partner ( https://pulse.internetsociety.org/partners) for ISOC’s Pulse project on internet shutdowns. Our goal is to provide relevant OONI data and analysis that can help support the project’s timeline on blocking events around the world. In October 2021, ISOC published a blog post which announced OONI as a new data partner for their Pulse project, and which explained why OONI data will support their project. Their blog post is available here: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/welcome-cloudflare-ooni-and-w3techs We also updated the OONI Partners page on our website to feature ISOC as one of our new partners and to highlight their work: https://ooni.org/partners/internet-society *## Collaboration with Netalitica* Netalitica researchers continued to do excellent work in reviewing and updating the Citizen Lab test lists. Based on our feedback, they made further improvements to the test lists for India and Burundi, and we opened a pull request for both test list updates: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/829 *## Community use of OONI data### Report on social media blocks in Sudan* Community members from Sudan published a report which documents the blocking of social networking sites in Sudan based on OONI data ( https://twitter.com/ga800l/status/1449385940175265792) Their report is available here: https://www.beamreports.com/2021/10/16/%D9%85%D8%A7-%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%8A%D9%8… *## Community activities### DIG Festival 2021* On 3rd October 2021, OONI’s Arturo participated in a panel discussion at the DIG Festival for investigative journalism in Modena, Italy ( https://dig-awards.org/en/dig-festival-2021-english-only/) As part of this panel, Arturo discussed OONI’s censorship measurement approach and algorithmic censorship. *### Bachchao Project test list event* On 9th and 10th October 2021, OONI’s Maria participated in the Bachchao Project’s 2-day event (organized for communities in India), titled “India, Let’s Build the List”. As part of her participation, Maria gave a 1-hour presentation (“Introduction to Internet censorship”) on Day 1 to introduce participants to basic concepts around internet censorship. On Day 2 of the event, Maria demoed OONI’s new web platform for updating test lists, and helped facilitate the hands-on sessions for updating the Citizen Lab’s test list for India. Information about the 2-day event is available via the Bachchao Project’s relevant blog post: https://thebachchaoproject.org/event-report-india-lets-build-the-list/ *### OPTIMA 2.0 Network Measurement Training* On 21st and 28th October 2021, OONI’s Maria attended Internews’ live sessions for the “Introduction to Network Measurement” and “OONI” training modules of the OPTIMA 2.0 training program, where she addressed participant questions pertaining to the training modules. Information about Internews’ OPTIMA Network Measurement Training program is available here: https://internews.org/resource/optima-network-measurement-training/ *### Swahilipot Hub event for HacktoberFest Mombasa* On 22nd October 2021, OONI’s Maria facilitated an OONI workshop (titled “How to measure Internet censorship”) for Kenyan civil society as part of the Swahilipot Hub event for HacktoberFest Mombasa ( https://swahilipothub.co.ke/) *### Ford Foundation Retreat Webinar* On 28th October 2021, OONI’s Maria participated as a speaker on the Ford Foundation’s Retreat webinar titled “Designing the Internet We Want”. As part of her participation, Maria highlighted the importance of censorship measurement for a free and open internet. *### OONI Community Meeting* On 26th October 2021, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) during which we discussed the following topics: 1. OONI’s research report on the blocking of the Signal app in China, Cuba, Iran, and Uzbekistan. 2. Improving the OONI Probe sharing button. 3. Featuring latest censorship events and issues (such as those tracked on GitHub) through the OONI Probe app. *## Userbase* In October 2021, 24,910,212 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,410 AS networks in 165 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ OONI team.

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Year in Review: OONI in 2021
by Maria Xynou 27 Dec '21

27 Dec '21

Hello, We published a post, "*Year in Review: OONI in 2021*", which shares: * OONI highlights from 2021 * Exciting OONI activities by community members in 2021 * Upcoming OONI projects in 2022 You can read this post here: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-in-2021/ Warm thanks to our amazing community for making our work possible! We thank every OONI Probe user out there, and we're excited for 2022! Happy holidays! Hope you stay safe and healthy. Warmly, OONI team.

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[Blog post] iThena integration of OONI Probe boosts censorship measurement coverage
by Maria Xynou 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Hello, We just published a blog post titled "*iThena integration of OONI Probe boosts censorship measurement coverage worldwide*": https://ooni.org/post/2021-ithena-boosts-ooni-measurement-coverage/ In this blog post, we’re excited to introduce you to the iThena project and discuss how they helped support censorship measurement worldwide. Thanks to iThena's integration of OONI Probe, OONI measurement coverage has increased significantly! Over the last months, iThena has contributed OONI measurements from 38 countries, covering 172 AS networks. Thank you, iThena! <3 Cheers, Maria.

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[Report] Russia started blocking Tor
by Maria Xynou 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Hello, We published a report documenting the *blocking of Tor in Russia*. Read the report here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-russia-blocks-tor/ Our report shares OONI data and analysis on the blocking of the Tor network and Tor Project website on some AS networks in Russia. *# Blocking of Tor* On 1st December 2021, some ISPs in Russia started blocking access to the Tor network by means of IP blocking. Out of (more than) 65 tested AS networks, OONI data only shows signs of Tor blocking on 15 AS networks in Russia. Russia also blocks obfs4 addresses, which means that Tor users in Russia may need to use private Tor bridges to circumvent the block: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-cens… Tor blocking differs from ISP to ISP in Russia. However, not all users on the same AS network experience Tor blocking. *# Blocking of torproject.org <http://torproject.org>* OONI data suggests that some ISPs in Russia have been blocking access to torproject.org since September 2021. Censorship techniques across ISPs differ. On some networks, a block page is served for torproject.org, enabling us to automatically confirm the block. On other networks, OONI data suggests that access to torproject.org is being interfered with by means of a TLS man-in-the-middle attack. In other cases, we observe that the connection is reset once the TLS handshake has been initiated, suggesting the use of DPI. Despite these blocks, OONI data suggests that both the Tor network & torproject.org are still accessible on most networks in Russia. *# What you can do * To help more Russians stay connected to the Tor network, please run a Tor bridge: https://forum.torproject.net/t/help-censored-users-run-a-tor-bridge/704 To circumvent Tor blocking in Russia, you can use a private Tor bridge: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-cens… We also recommend keeping an eye out for (and updating to) the next Tor Browser version, and configuring Tor Browser to use Snowflake. If access to torproject.org is blocked on your network, you can: * Circumvent this block by visiting the Tor Project’s website mirror: https://tor.eff.org * Get Tor Browser by sending an email to gettor(a)torproject.org We thank OONI Probe users in Russia who contributed measurements, supporting this study. <3 We also thank the Tor Project for their tireless efforts in building an online world that defends human rights. <3 Best, OONI team.

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