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OONI Community Meeting: Tuesday, 27th October 2020
by Maria Xynou 26 Oct '20

26 Oct '20

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

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OONI Probe ASN Incident Report
by Maria Xynou 23 Oct '20

23 Oct '20

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

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Update re: OONI PostgreSQL MetaDB
by Maria Xynou 20 Oct '20

20 Oct '20

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.

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Testing Telegram in Thailand and Cuba
by Maria Xynou 19 Oct '20

19 Oct '20

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

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OONI report on Belarus blocking websites
by Maria Xynou 16 Sep '20

16 Sep '20

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

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[CFP] [TICS] Topics on Internet Censorship and Surveillance 2020
by Vasilis 11 Sep '20

11 Sep '20

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…

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Fwd: Call for Applications: Internet Shutdown Measurements for Activists
by Maria Xynou 02 Sep '20

02 Sep '20

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> |

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OONI Community Meeting: Tuesday, 25th August 2020
by Maria Xynou 24 Aug '20

24 Aug '20

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

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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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