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, 27th October 2020 at 17:30 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'd love to meet you and hear from you, and we hope you can join us!
All the best,
~ 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
Hello,
Last week we discovered an ASN-related bug in OONI Probe.
Today we published an Incident Report which shares details about the
bug, what we did to fix it, and we document our next steps (as well as
measures for limiting the possibility of similar bugs recurring in the
future).
You can read our Incident Report here:
https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-probe-asn-incident-report/
## What you can do
Please update to OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.0 (which fixes the bug):
https://ooni.org/install/mobile
If you're an OONI Probe desktop app user and you prefer *not* to share
your network ASN, please refrain from running tests until we have
released the fix -- hopefully next week (this requires third party action).
If you're a legacy ooniprobe user, please use the OONI Probe Command
Line Interface (CLI) instead. Version 3.0.8 contains the bug fix:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.0.8
Over the next year, we aim to release OONI Probe Linux packages which
would serve as a replacement for legacy ooniprobe.
## The bug in summary
When you run OONI Probe, by default your network ASN (e.g. AS30722 for
“Vodafone Italia”) is collected and published, as this information is
very important for examining internet censorship (i.e. it's important to
know on which network internet censorship is implemented).
Through the OONI Probe apps, you can opt out of ASN collection (and
publication) by disabling the "Include Network Info" setting.
The bug is that if you disabled this setting, your network ASN was not
published in the OONI Explorer measurement page or in the raw JSON data
(where it was displayed as AS0), but it was included in the report ID of
those measurements.
During our investigation, we also found that in some cases, the network
name (such as "Vodafone Italia") was included in AS0 measurements, and
that it may have been possible to retrieve the ASN through the resolver
IP (which we previously didn't sanitize because it's useful for
measuring DNS consistency).
All of these issues have been fixed in our probe engine, and we have
released a fix for OONI Probe Mobile (as mentioned above).
## Affected measurements
Most OONI Probe users were *not* affected by this bug, since roughly 86%
of OONI measurements collected from around the world did not disable the
collection and publication of network information, which is enabled in
the default settings.
According to our analysis, only around 2% of global OONI measurements
leaked the user network ASN in the report ID (this mainly involves new
probes), and about 12% of global OONI measurements might have disclosed
the ASN through the client resolver in OONI’s Web Connectivity test
(this mainly involves legacy probes).
We made changes to OONI Explorer to hide AS0 measurements, and further
details are available through our Incident Report.
The OONI team apologizes to the OONI community for this incident. We
would never intentionally harm our users, we value and respect user
choice, and we take seriously the trust our users have placed in us. We
do our best to give you as much control over how you use OONI Probe, but
sometimes we make mistakes. We will always be transparent when such bugs
occur.
To learn more about our data practices and about the principles that
govern OONI data collection, please refer to our Data Policy:
https://ooni.org/about/data-policy
If you have any questions or concerns related to this incident, please
don't hesitate to reach out.
Thank you,
Maria (on behalf of the 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
Hi friends,
In light of the (unplanned) shutdown of some servers, we have had to work
towards migrating our infrastructure (hosting the OONI data processing
pipeline) and updating the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB to adapt it to the
requirements of our new data processing pipeline.
As a result, we will have to stop updating the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB (
https://github.com/ooni/sysadmin/blob/master/docs/metadb-sharing.md) WAL
snapshots currently available on S3.
If you are an OONI PostgreSQL metaDB user, we apologize for the short
notice, and we encourage you to read the email below for further
information.
# Migration impacting the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB
We are now replacing the batch OONI data processing pipeline with our new
fast-path pipeline, which analyzes and publishes OONI measurements from
around the world in near real-time (the measurements are published as soon
as the report is closed).
To this end, we have built a new PostgreSQL metaDB, which is powered by the
latest version of PostgreSQL (11) available in debian stable, and which
uses a different set of tables (based on our improved, fast-path pipeline).
While we are excited to migrate over to a new and improved pipeline
(particularly since this is expected to enhance the performance of OONI
Explorer!), this unfortunately also means that the current OONI PostgreSQL
MetaDB, which is powered by an older version ofPostgreSQL and which depends
on the batch OONI data processing pipeline, will be affected.
Specifically: If you are an OONI PostgreSQL MetaDB user, you will still
have access to all previous OONI data, but you will unfortunately not
receive any updates once the migration has completed (by 31st October 2020
latest).
Going forward, we recommend removing the line in your PostgreSQL
configuration that does sync (as we will not be updating the WAL snapshots).
We might eventually restart exporting database tables, but by using the
more modern logical replication feature of PostgreSQL 11.
If you are an OONI PostgreSQL MetaDB user and unsure how to proceed,
we encourage
you to reach out and share details about your use case (so that we can also
factor it into our future decisions).
We will be happy to help you. You can reach us via email (
team(a)openobservatory.org) or via the OONI Slack channel (
https://slack.ooni.org/).
In the meanwhile, please consider accessing OONI data via the ooni-data
Amazon S3 bucket: https://ooni-data.s3.amazonaws.com/
Please refer to this blog post to see how to fetch the raw data on S3:
https://ooni.org/post/mining-ooni-data/
We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thanks for using the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB, and thanks for your patience
throughout this process.
Please contact us with any questions you may have.
Thanks,
~ OONI team.
Hi friends,
Hope you're all doing well.
Telegram appears to be blocked in Cuba, and Thailand may start blocking
Telegram soon as well.
If you're based in either of these countries (or know others that are)
and are interested in testing Telegram in order to contribute open
measurement data on its potential blocking, please read below.
# Cuba
Starting from 15th October 2020, OONI measurements suggest blocking of
Telegram in Cuba.
However, we are now seeing that OONI Probe Mobile tests no longer work
in Cuba, and we're investigating this issue.
Meanwhile, it seems that OONI Probe Desktop works in Cuba, through which
locals can potentially run the Telegram test:
https://ooni.org/install/desktop
OONI measurements collected from Cuba are automatically published here:
https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-10-20&probe_cc=CU
# Thailand
We're being told that 4 Telegram IPs have recently been added to the
Thai blocklist, which is why we're expecting that Telegram will likely
get blocked soon in Thailand.
However, only 1 of those 4 IPs is being tested via the OONI Probe
Telegram test.
We therefore encourage you to test those 4 Telegram IPs through the
following steps:
1. Install the OONI Probe mobile app: https://ooni.org/install/mobile
2. Open the following link with your OONI Probe mobile app (not with a
web browser):
https://run.ooni.io/nettest?tn=web_connectivity&ta=%7B%22urls%22%3A%5B%22ht…
3. Tap "Run" to test those Telegram IPs
In addition, please also run the OONI Probe Telegram test (available
through the "Instant Messaging" card in the OONI Probe app), because it
tests additional Telegram IPs (which might also get blocked), in
addition to Telegram Web (web.telegram.org).
OONI measurements collected from Thailand are automatically published
here: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-10-20&probe_cc=TH
In all cases, please have your VPN turned off whenever you run OONI
Probe (for accurate testing).
Happy to address any questions you may have.
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
Hello,
We published a report documenting recent censorship events in Belarus
amid ongoing protests.
Our report is available here:
https://ooni.org/post/2020-belarus-internet-outages-website-censorship/
We prepared this report in collaboration with folks from Human Constanta
and the Digital Observers Community Belarus.
At least 86 websites appear to have been blocked in Belarus over the
last month, according to OONI network measurement data. These include
news media, political opposition, pro-democracy, and election related
websites, as well as communication and circumvention tool sites.
We observe a variance in blocking both in terms of which websites are
blocked across ISPs (i.e. different sites blocked on different
networks), as well as in terms of censorship techniques.
In some cases, when sites are hosted on HTTP, we see that ISPs serve a
blockpage. But when sites are hosted on encrypted HTTPS, we observe
interference during the TLS handshake (after the TCP connection and
before the HTTP request), resulting in a connection reset error.
As blocking appears to be implemented during the TLS handshake, this
suggests that Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology is likely being
used. It seems likely that the SNI is being used to decide whether to
block or let connections go through.
These findings are limited to our analysis of OONI measurements
collected from multiple ISP networks in Belarus between 1st August 2020
to 3rd September 2020, and exclude websites which received limited
testing coverage during this period.
Further details are available in our report, where we also share our
analysis and relevant OONI measurements.
This study can be expanded upon through the use of OONI Probe
(https://ooni.org/install/) and OONI data (https://ooni.org/data/).
We thank all OONI Probe users in Belarus who made this study possible.
Please help share our research:
https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1306210370516910082
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
Hello,
TICS has a new call for papers that may be of interest to some of you.
Please feel free to share widely. Thank you!
Online version: https://tics.site/cfp/
# TICS 2020
**Co-located with the [2020 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web
Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT
2020)](http://wi2020.vcrab.com.au/), to be held online.**
## Introduction
Over the past years there has been a greater demand from large-scale players
such as governments and dominant media companies for online censorship and
surveillance, as an understandable reaction against hate speech, copyright
violations, and other cases related to citizen compliance with civil laws and
regulations by national authorities. Unfortunately, this is often accompanied by
a tendency of extensively censoring online content and massively spying on
citizens actions.
Numerous whistle-blower revelations, leaks from classified documents, and a vast
amount of information released by activists, researchers and journalists, reveal
evidence of government-sponsored infrastructure that either goes beyond the
requirements and scope of the law, or operates without any effective regulations
in place. In addition, this infrastructure often supports the interests of big
private corporations, such as the companies that enforce online copyright
control.
Mobile networks are particularly vulnerable to the above points. Due to the
nature of their deployment, few actors can achieve far-reaching results, and
end-users are left unprotected; we are interested in tracking developments that,
without sacrificing functionality and convenience, allow end-users to get
control on the amount and breadth of information generated, stored and processed
on them.
TICS is a special track the area of Internet censorship, surveillance and other
adversarial burdens to technology that bring in danger; to a greater extend the
safety (physical security and privacy) of its users. Proposals for TICS 2020
should be situated within the field of Internet censorship, network
measurements, information controls, surveillance and content moderation.
## Workshop topics
The goal of TICS is to raise awareness around the implications of network
interference, by inviting researchers from complementary disciplines to consider
the effect of their own domain on online censorship and surveillance. Along
those lines, we invite submissions that address the following topics:
* Research on technologies and policies that build upon advancements on the
field of web intelligence to imply blocking, limitation or distortion of the
availability of network services and online content
* The application of web intelligence concepts such as behavioral modeling, data
mining, and social network analytics to target groups and individuals by law
enforcement agencies and private corporations
* The implications of algorithmic and AI-assisted user content classification
(such as for identification of hate-speech, copyright, or disinformation)
* Novel techniques that leverage web intelligence to defend netizens against
censorship and surveillance, or privacy enhancements to the existing AI
infrastructure to mitigate these threats
* Measurement methodologies that detect network interference or content
moderation based on crowd knowledge or web analytics
* The socio-economic consequences and implementation limitations and fallacies
of upload filters and recommendation systems
* Business models and amendments to legal frameworks which promote the use of
web intelligence in ways that build a pluralistic, private, and human-centric
experience without violating user freedoms
* Privacy on mobile networks
* Network measurements
* Radio frequency communications
* Data leaks
* Surveillance
* Backdoors into carrier equipment (base stations, antennas, switches, software)
* Law enforcement
* Telcos security and advance persistent threats
* Network espionage and nation state threats (e.g. "operation Soft Cell")
* Middleboxes / DPI
* Content regulation
* Wiretapping
* Net neutrality
* Data retention
* GDPR
* Device/radio blocking (Network IMEI)
* Ownership of infrastructure, and community-operated networks
* Spectrum sharing
* License-exempt spectrum
## Important dates
* Paper Submission due: September 15th, 2020
* Notification to authors: October 15th, 2020
* Final, camera ready papers, due: November 15th, 2020
* Workshop date: December 14th, 2020
## Paper Submission
**[Paper Submission
Page](https://wi-lab.com/cyberchair/2020/wi20/scripts/submit.php?subarea=S0…
Submitted papers should be limited to a maximum of 8 pages in the standard ACM
2-column format.\
The ACM Proceedings Manuscript Formatting Guidelines can be
found at: <https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template>
## Committees
### Program Chairs
* Vasilis Ververis, Humboldt University Berlin, vasilis(a)tics.site
* Marios Isaakidis, University College London, marios(a)tics.site
* Gunnar Wolf, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, gwolf(a)tics.site
You can contact all of the chairs by addressing your mail to:
<chairs(a)tics.site>
### Program Committee
* Chrystalenni Loizidou, University of Nicosia
* Keith McManamen, Psiphon
* Will Scott, University of Michigan
## Past Workshops
- [2019 (Valencia, Spain)](https://tics.site/2019)
Best regards,
~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…
Hi folks!
OONI will be co-facilitating a 6-week training on internet shutdown
measurement for human rights advocates in sub-Saharan Africa.
The deadline to apply is 21st September 2020.
Details are included in the forwarded email below.
Please apply, and share with your networks!
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: [KeepItOn] Call for Applications: Internet Shutdown
Measurements for Activists
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2020 16:07:29 +0000
From: Laura Schwartz-Henderson (lhenderson(a)INTERNEWS.ORG)
<lhenderson(a)INTERNEWS.ORG>
Reply-To: Laura Schwartz-Henderson (lhenderson(a)INTERNEWS.ORG)
<lhenderson(a)INTERNEWS.ORG>
To: keepiton(a)lists.riseup.net <keepiton(a)lists.riseup.net>
Hello Keepiton list! We’re excited to announce an open call for
participants for our Internet Shutdown Measurements for Advocates
program, a 6-week hands-on training program on Open Source network
measurement tools. Please forward the call to your networks and
encourage people from within your own organizations to apply!
* *
*Call for Applications: Internet Shutdown Measurements for Advocates*: A
6-Week Training on Open Source Network Measurement Tools and How to Use
Them, for Advocates in Sub-Saharan Africa**
October 12 - November 13
Internews is excited to announce an open call for participants for our
*Internet Shutdown Measurements for Advocates* training. Through this
6-week hands-on training, participants from Sub-Saharan Africa, will
learn how to collect and analyze internet measurements using a variety
of open source tools and apply these skills to strengthen advocacy
efforts against internet shutdowns.
*About the Training*
This course is intended to provide an introduction on how to use open
source internet measurement tools and datasets for human rights
advocates in Sub-Saharan Africa who are working on initiatives to end or
prevent internet shutdowns in their countries. Through the training,
participants will practice using several open source measurement tools
and datasets, learn how to collect and analyze their own data, reflect
on examples of how advocates have used measurement data to document
shutdowns, and get one-on-one time with trainers to build research plans
and incorporate measurement and documentation into their advocacy.
Applicants will be asked to propose a research question about internet
shutdowns/disruptions that they believe can be answered using network
measurement tools and methods. Throughout the course, as they are
introduced to different open source measurement tools and techniques,
they will work with the trainers to build their projects.
Training sessions will include:
* Introduction to Network Measurement
* Documenting Blackouts
* Detecting Blocking of Websites and Applications
* Measuring Internet Performance using open data
* Contextualizing Your Data: Using Local Insight and Qualitative Research
* Using Measurements in Advocacy
This training is made possible through partnerships between Internews
and the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), Measurement
Lab, the Internet Outage and Detection Analysis Project (CAIDA), Access
Now and others.
*Who Should Apply? *
Internews is seeking applications from individuals or groups from
Sub-Saharan Africa who are currently working on advocacy or research
initiatives focused on internet shutdowns, throttling, or blocking, and
who want to learn more about open source tools that they can use to
measure internet disruptions.
Groups of two individuals may apply together, proposing a collaborative
research or advocacy project. Participants do not need to have a
technical background nor a research background to apply, but some
experience with network measurement, data analysis, or other research
skills is a plus. Those working on projects examining how internet
disruptions impact women or marginalized populations are especially
encouraged to apply.
If offered a position within the training, individuals are expected to
be able to devote at least 5 hours a week throughout the program to
reading/watching materials, participating in a weekly hour-long webinar,
collaborating with mentors and other participants, and building out
their research project. Participants must have reasonably reliable
access to the internet (barring network disruptions) and will be
eligible to receive a small stipend to help cover associated internet
costs.
*Application Instructions*
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until *Monday,
September 21*. We encourage applicants to apply early, as space is limited.
To apply, please fill out the application at
https://forms.gle/HYgxUFqtrGZk654Y6. Applicants who wish to work with
another person as part of a partnership on one research project should
apply separately.
If you are interested in this training, but you are not based in
Sub-Saharan Africa, please note that the materials for this training
will be made publicly available and the program may be replicated at a
later date for other regions. If you would like to be put on the
outreach list, fill out this brief form
<https://forms.gle/8zf869iaGtHDpH6B8>
(https://forms.gle/8zf869iaGtHDpH6B8). Please contact
bwhitehead(a)internews.orgif you any other questions on the application or
program.
*Laura Schwartz-Henderson *
Senior Program Officer
Global Technology Programs, Internews
_lhenderson(a)internews.org <mailto:lhenderson@internews.org>_ | *Cell
+*1-267-258-8165
*Address* 1133 15^th St NW, Suite 350 Washington, DC 20005 USA
https://globaltech.internews.org/ | @internews
<http://www.twitter.com/internews> |
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, 25th August 2020 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'd love to meet you and hear from you, and we hope you can join us!
All the best,
~ 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
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