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Wrong country detected - how to correct?
by Matt Bruce 31 May '20

31 May '20

Hi all, I'm running ooniprobe on a Raspberry Pi with Pi-Hole and CloudFlare as the upstream DNS, and it seems to be working fine with the exception that it appears to be detecting the wrong country. It's showing "Country: BE". I initially thought it was showing the wrong ASN, too, but lookups using multiple tools confirm it's the correct one. I assume "BE" means Belgium, but those 2 letters are also the first two of the county in which I live in the UK. Is it possible that ooniprobe is pulling in the state/province/county data as Country rather than the actual country by mistake? (Just guessing). It's uploading the measurements with this same BE Country information, and I'm concerned that it's polluting OONI data. I've read the documentation, searched online, etc, but I can't find how to stop the bad detection or to override those values in the ooniprobe.conf file. Assuming I shouldn't just ignore this, can anyone steer me in the right direction, please? Thanks, Matt

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Report: Evaluating OONI’s New Measurement Engine
by Maria Xynou 27 May '20

27 May '20

Hello, Today, we published a report which evaluates OONI's new measurement engine within the context of the blocking of Women on Web (www.womenonweb.org) in Spain. This report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-engine-evaluation-spain/ The OONI team has been working on expanding our measurement methodologies to detect more forms of website censorship. To this end, we have been working on experimental code that combines OONI's Web Connectivity test with SNI blocking detection methodology (and other techniques). Our aim is to eventually ship a new and improved Web Connectivity test -- as part of the OONI Probe apps -- that also measures SNI based filtering, as part of the broader set of website censorship checks. To evaluate how these experiments work in practice (and if they work as expected), we collaborated with Vasilis Ververis (Magma project) and Spanish hacktivists to measure the blocking of www.womenonweb.org in Spain through the use of these new experimental methodologies. This report describes our experimental implementation for the www.womenonweb.org case, explains how you can help us improve it, shares relevant findings, and discusses some next steps. Thanks for reading! ~ 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 Community Meeting: Tuesday, 26th May 2020
by Maria Xynou 25 May '20

25 May '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, 26th May 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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OONI Probe Mobile 2.4.0 is out!
by Maria Xynou 22 May '20

22 May '20

Hello, OONI Probe Mobile 2.4.0 is out! Highlights from the latest OONI Probe mobile app release include: * New Dashboard design * New button to run all tests * Improved NDT speed test (i.e. NDT test re-written to increase reliability and measurement accuracy) * Middlebox tests are now grouped with the performance tests * Telegram, NDT, and DASH tests re-written in golang Please update your OONI Probe mobile app (https://ooni.org/install/mobile) to the latest version. :) Thanks, and happy testing! ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Report: Burundi blocks social media amid 2020 general election
by Maria Xynou 21 May '20

21 May '20

Hello, Today we published a report on the blocking of social media in Burundi amid its 2020 general election. You can read the report here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-burundi-blocks-social-media-amid-election/ OONI measurements collected from Burundi reveal the blocking of 18 social media platforms on 20th May 2020 (election day), including skype.com, youtube.com, whatsapp.com, twitter.com, facebook.com, instagram.com -- among many others. These sites appear to be blocked -- on Econet (AS37336) and Viettel Burundi (AS327799) -- through the use of some form of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology, as the blocking only occurs when we attempt to establish an HTTPS connection (resulting in connection reset errors), as opposed to the IPs being blocked or the DNS queries being interfered with. OONI data also shows the blocking of the WhatsApp and Telegram apps, and suggests that access to Facebook Messenger was blocked too. Interestingly, the blocking of Facebook Messenger on the Lacell Burundi (AS327720) network was implemented on a DNS level by returning an IP address in the DNS answer which is in the “reserved for future use” 240.0.0.0/8 netblock. As OONI measurements have been collected from multiple local networks in Burundi since 2016, we were able to compare measurements over time. This is the first time that we are observing the blocking of social media in Burundi, and the blocking clearly appears to have started in the morning of 20th May 2020, on election day. You can expand upon this study through the use of OONI Probe (https://ooni.org/install/) and OONI data (https://ooni.org/data/) All OONI measurements collected from Burundi are available here: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-05-22&probe_cc=BI Please help share the report with your networks: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1263488638924587009 Thanks, ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Report: Women on Web website censored in Spain
by Vasilis 07 May '20

07 May '20

Hello, In collaboration with multiple people, we published a report on Women on Web website blocking in Spain. The technical report is available here: https://blog.magma.lavafeld.org/post/women-on-web-blocking/ In this article we describe how the major ISPs in Spain are blocking womenonweb.org’s website. Spanish ISPs have been blocking this website by means of DNS manipulation, TCP reset, HTTP blocking with the use of a Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) infrastructure. Our data analysis is based on network measurements from OONI data. This is the first time that we observe Women on Web being blocked in Spain. Stay safe. 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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Report: Myanmar blocks "fake news" sites amid COVID-19 pandemic
by Maria Xynou 06 May '20

06 May '20

Hello, In collaboration with OTF Fellow Phyu Kyaw, we published a report on the recent blocking of 174 domains in Myanmar. This report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-myanmar-blocks-websites-amid-covid19/ In March 2020, ISPs in Myanmar received a directive from authorities to block access to 230 websites, but this list of sites hasn't been publicly disclosed. Telenor Myanmar revealed that this list includes websites that are considered to spread "fake news" around COVID-19. We analyzed OONI measurements collected from Myanmar and confirmed the DNS based blocking of 174 domains on Telenor Myanmar (many of these sites are blocked on other local networks too). The blocking appears to be implemented at the DNS level because OONI measurements show that Telenor Myanmar returned the IP addresses of a Digital Ocean machine hosting a block page, instead of the real IP of the host. Many of the blocked domains include news outlets, some of which are based in Rakhine. Several ethnic media websites are among those confirmed blocked. Under the "blocked news outlets" section of our report, we compare the confirmed blocked news websites with the Myanmar Press Council's "fake news" list, to see how many of the blocked sites were included in that list. As most of the blocked news websites are not included in the official "fake news" list, transparency around which URLs are specifically blocked (especially when they involve the sites of vulnerable communities) and why/how they are viewed as “fake news” is essential, particularly amid a global pandemic when access to information is crucial. In our report, we list the full list of blocked sites in the appendix, we share relevant OONI measurements for the blocked news outlets, and we link to a CSV file that contains all of the raw OONI measurements pertaining to all of the blocked sites (which can otherwise be found through OONI Explorer: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-05-07&probe_cc=MM&test_name=web…) Please help share this research: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1258042964040876032 Thanks, ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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OONI Survey: Share feedback to help improve OONI Run
by Maria Xynou 06 May '20

06 May '20

Hello friends, Hope you're all staying safe and healthy. I'm reaching out because we'd like to improve OONI Run (https://run.ooni.io/) and we need your feedback! Please take a few minutes to complete our survey: https://ooni.typeform.com/to/r9c5ee Completing the survey should take no longer than 15 minutes. We kindly request that you complete the survey by Sunday, 10th May 2020. If you're interested in discussing your feedback further over a call, please consider participating in a 15 minute interview as well: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-run-survey-and-interviews/ OONI Run is a tool used by researchers and human rights defenders to coordinate censorship measurement testing, particularly during political events (such as elections and protests) and in response to emergent censorship events. Your feedback will go a long way in helping us better understand the challenges in using OONI Run and how we can make it more useful for you. Please help spread the word: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1253376570904936451 Thanks so much for your time and feedback! Hugely appreciated! ~ 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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New OONI SNI blocking experiment
by Maria Xynou 28 Apr '20

28 Apr '20

Hello folks, SNI based filtering is increasingly being observed around the world, so the OONI team worked on writing a new SNI blocking experiment. This experiment was run in Iran, where SNI based blocking is carried out and where we were able to check if our experiment works as expected. In this blog post, we document the measurement of SNI based blocking in Iran based on our new SNI blocking experiment: https://ooni.org/post/2020-iran-sni-blocking/ 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 Community Meeting: Tuesday, 28th April 2020
by Maria Xynou 27 Apr '20

27 Apr '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, 28th April 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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