Hello friends,
Hope you're all staying safe and healthy.
I'm reaching out to share a funding opportunity for doing research and
other work related to COVID-19:
https://www.opentech.fund/news/increasing-rapid-response-support-covid-19/
More specifically, the Open Technology Fund (OTF) is seeking to provide
"rapid response" support for the following types of projects:
* Circumvention solutions to access blocked health and safety
information and to respond to increased COVID-19-related censorship
* Secure hosting for health and safety websites
* Guidance / assistance on digital security best practices while working
from home, including updating existing resources
* Research and documentation on censorship of COVID-19 health and safety
information and/or the increasing use of surveillance technology
Please share this opportunity with anyone else who you think may be
interested in applying for this.
Warm regards,
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,
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, 31st March 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,
Ensuring a free and open internet during emergencies is important, but
access to COVID-19 information has already been censored in China &
Venezuela.
We therefore invite you to participate in a global measurement campaign,
to measure the accessibility of COVID-19 websites in your country &
share relevant measurement data with the world!
To test COVID-19 websites, please follow the 4 steps in this blog post:
https://ooni.org/post/covid-19-ooni-measurement/
You can also find the "COVID-19" button for OONI Probe testing here:
https://ooni.org/get-involved/run/
Results from around the world will be published on OONI Explorer:
https://explorer.ooni.org/
Please help spread the word:
https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1242116342930722816
Thank you for contributing measurements during these difficult times.
Please stay safe and healthy!
Warm regards,
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 friends,
Hope you are all doing well and staying healthy.
We just published this blog post, "Year in Review: OONI in 2019":
https://ooni.org/post/ooni-in-2019/
Through this post, we share some highlights from the OONI-verse over the
last year, as well as some of the amazing ways that many of you have
used OONI Probe and OONI data as part of your work.
We also share some thoughts for 2020 -- particularly on how to connect
online amid the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Warm thanks to all of you for your important work and for contributing
to the OONI-verse!
My team and I look forward to supporting you in 2020.
Warm regards,
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 Oonitarians,
OONI Probe mobile 2.3.0 is out!
You can update to the latest OONI Probe version directly from the app
store of your platform:
* Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openobservatory.ooniprobe
* iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1199566366
* F-Droid (coming soon):
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/
The latest OONI Probe release for Android & iOS includes the following
exciting new features:
1. Ability to re-test URLs.
This means that as soon as you have tested a batch of URLs, you can very
easily re-test them all with the tap of a button. This is particularly
useful if you're testing a set of URLs from an OONI Run link, and you'd
like to keep testing the same batch of URLs on an ongoing basis. The
more data we can collect on the same URLs, the better!
2. Ability to test ALL of the URLs in the Citizen Lab test lists in one go!
Previously, you could only test a random selection of URLs via the
mobile app due to bandwidth constraints. Now with this new feature, if
you're connected to WiFi, you can disable the test duration in the
settings and test all of the URLs included in the Citizen Lab global +
country-specific test lists. Essentially, what this means is that you
can test a larger volume of websites in one go! Learn more about test
lists here: https://ooni.org/get-involved/contribute-test-lists
The new release also includes a series of bug fixes and improvements, as
documented here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/v2.3.0
A noteworthy bug fix is that this release fixes the WhatsApp test bug
that was leading to false positives (following recent changes to
WhatsApp's infrastructure).
Hope you enjoy the latest release! Please spread the word:
https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1235884637567795200
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
Hello,
We published a report on the temporary blocking of the Farsi language
edition of Wikipedia in Iran:
https://ooni.org/post/2020-iran-blocks-farsi-wikipedia/
OONI measurements collected over the last days show that the Farsi
edition of Wikipedia (fa.wikipedia.org) was blocked on at least 6
networks in Iran between 2nd to 3rd March 2020.
This may be the first time that we're seeing the whole Farsi language
edition of Wikipedia blocked in Iran.
Previously, the block was limited to the HTTP version of specific
Wikipedia articles, but that probably wasn't very noticeable over the
last years, since Iranian internet users could easily access censored
Wikipedia pages over HTTPS.
We also found the Farsi edition of Wikinews (fa.wikinews.org) blocked in
Iran, though we're being told that it's been blocked for several years now.
Both Farsi Wikipedia and Wikinews were blocked by means of DNS tampering
and SNI filtering. In our report, we share relevant data.
Farsi Wikipedia has been unblocked (confirmed by OONI measurements
collected from 13:29 UTC on 3rd March 2020 onwards), while Farsi
Wikinews remains blocked in Iran.
It's worth highlighting that the mobile version of the Farsi edition of
Wikipedia (fa.m.wikipedia.org) remained accessible in Iran, as did the
English version of Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org).
You can continue to track the situation through openly published OONI
measurements:
https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-03-05&probe_cc=IR&test_name=web…
Best,
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
Hi friends,
As a result of the escalating impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus), this
year's Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) has been canceled.
Here is the IFF's statement on the cancellation & next steps:
https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/Cancellation_of_the_2020…
If you got a free IFF ticket, you don't need to do anything. If you
purchased an IFF ticket, you can ask for a full refund, or you can
consider donating it to the IFF Diversity & Inclusion Fund for 2021.
If your IFF session was selected, you will be offered the option to
present in 2021.
In the meanwhile, if there are measurement discussions you would like to
have, we invite you to facilitate them as part of the monthly OONI
Community Meetings which usually take place at 14:00 UTC every last
Tuesday of the month on the OONI Slack channel: https://slack.ooni.org/
You can propose topics to discuss for the next OONI Community Meetings
here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep
Hope to see many of you at IFF 2021!
Until then, stay safe... and see you on the internet!
Warm regards,
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 friends,
Interested in doing research on internet censorship through the use of
network measurements?
The magma guide (created by community member Vasilis Ververis) can help
you get started: https://magma.lavafeld.org/
Learn more about the guide here:
https://www.opentech.fund/news/helping-quantify-online-controls/
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
Hello,
The OONI team published a report on the blocking of instant messaging
apps in Togo last Saturday, amid their 2020 presidential election.
The report is available here:
https://ooni.org/post/2020-togo-blocks-instant-messaging-apps/
Thanks to measurements contributed by OONI Probe users
(https://ooni.org/install/) in Togo, we found that access to the
WhatsApp mobile app, Telegram Web, and Facebook Messenger were blocked
on 2 networks (Togo Telecom & Atlantique Telecom) in Togo on election
day. They were, however, accessible on the Canalbox network, suggesting
that internet censorship varies across networks in Togo.
Warm thanks to OONI Probe users in Togo for contributing measurements
and making this study possible!
All the best,
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
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 February 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