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Survey & Interviews: OONI Probe feedback
by Maria Xynou 19 Jul '18

19 Jul '18

Hello, Do you use OONI Probe? We'd love your feedback! *# Survey** * We're excited to hear more about your experience with OONI Probe so that we can meet your needs in future releases! Please take a few minutes to complete our survey: https://ooniuxteam.typeform.com/to/a1P0cn Alternatively, you can fill out the survey using Tor's self-hosted version of it: https://storm.torproject.org/shared/VpAFK13fdAozTGTolFd2EsT1CkLY8-YlBLbRERy… *# Interview*** The OONI team is currently working on revamping the OONI Probe mobile apps to improve their usability, design, and include some new features based on community requests. By participating in a *10-15 minute interview*, you can gain a sneak peak into the new OONI Probe mobile apps and provide feedback on our mockups. If you're interested in being interviewed, please notify us via the above survey or by emailing me. Learn more through our blog post: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ooniprobe-ux-survey-and-interviews/ Thanks for your time. Your feedback will help us improve OONI Probe for a global community measuring internet censorship! Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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New Report: The State of Internet Censorship in Egypt
by Maria Xynou 02 Jul '18

02 Jul '18

Hello, Today OONI and Egypt's AFTE published a joint research report on the state of internet censorship in Egypt. * Full report in English: https://ooni.io/documents/Egypt-Internet-Censorship-AFTE-OONI-2018-07.pdf * Full report in Arabic: https://ooni.io/documents/Egypt-Internet-Censorship-AFTE-OONI-2018-07.AR.pdf * Summary of the report in English: https://ooni.io/post/egypt-internet-censorship/ & https://blog.torproject.org/egypt-internet-censorship * Summary of the report in Arabic: https://ooni.io/documents/summary-egypt-internet-censorship-arabic.pdf You may remember that AFTE previously reported on hundreds of websites being blocked in Egypt. OONI and AFTE have now joined forces. We conducted a comprehensive study based on the analysis of OONI Probe measurements collected from multiple local vantage points over the last year and a half. More than 1,000 URLs presented signs of network interference, 178 of which seem to most likely have been consistently blocked throughout the testing period. The majority of these URLs include media websites, human rights sites, circumvention tools and sites expressing political criticism. More than 100 URLs that belong to media organizations were blocked, even though Egyptian authorities have only officially ordered the blocking of 21 news websites. AFTE interviewed journalists working with Egyptian media organizations whose websites got blocked to examine the impact of censorship. Many Egyptian journalists reported that the censorship has had a severe impact on their work and that some media organizations have been forced to suspend their operations entirely as a result of persisting internet censorship. Egyptian ISPs primarily block sites through the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology that resets connections. In some cases, instead of RST injection, ISPs drop packets, suggesting a variance in filtering rules. In other cases, ISPs interfere with the SSL encrypted traffic between Cloudflare's Point-of-Presence in Cairo and the backend servers of sites (pshiphon.ca, purevpn.com and ultrasawt.com) hosted outside of Egypt. Egyptian ISPs also appear to apply "defense in depth" tactics for network filtering by adding extra layers of censorship, making circumvention harder. This is suggested by the blocking of Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party's (FJP) site, which was blocked by two different middleboxes, as well as by the blocking of numerous circumvention tools. Apart from pervasive levels of internet censorship, Egyptian ISPs were found to hijack unencrypted HTTP connections and inject redirects to ads and cryptocurrency mining scripts. We first detected this back in 2016, when we reported that state-owned Telecom Egypt was hijacking unencrypted connections to porn sites and redirecting them to ads. The Citizen Lab significantly expanded upon this research in their latest Sandvine report. Now, following the analysis of thousands of measurements collected from the last year and a half, we have enough evidence to believe that (many) Egyptian ISPs are carrying out an ad campaign. The affected sites are diverse, including the sites of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, the Women's Initiative for Gender Justice, as well as a number of LGBTQI and Israeli sites. Even the sites of the UN were affected by this ad campaign! We will continue to monitor internet censorship in Egypt and around the world. We therefore welcome any feedback you may have. Thanks for reading! All the best, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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New report: Unblocking of websites in Ethiopia
by Maria Xynou 29 Jun '18

29 Jun '18

Hello, OONI and Access Now published a joint report today, verifying the unblocking of websites in Ethiopia based on network measurement data. You can read our report here: https://ooni.io/post/ethiopia-unblocking/ We quite rarely see governments unblocking hundreds of websites in one go, and we even more rarely report on the unblocking of sites. Given that Ethiopia has experienced quite pervasive levels of internet censorship over the last decade, the unblocking of sites is a major event. An official list, however, detailing the 264 sites that are reportedly unblocked has not been published yet (to our knowledge). We therefore tested the sites that were previously known to be blocked in Ethiopia (based on our previous research). OONI data shows that most of the sites previously found to be blocked in Ethiopia are now indeed unblocked. Many thanks to volunteers running OONI Probe in Ethiopia, thus making this research possible! And thanks for reading! Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Reminder: OONI community meeting today
by Maria Xynou 25 Jun '18

25 Jun '18

Hello, I'm sending this email as a reminder that OONI's June community meeting is taking place today (25th June) at 14:00 UTC (for 1 hour). Where: https://slack.openobservatory.org (OONI Slack channel) or #ooni on IRC Please add topics that you would like to discuss as part of the meeting here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting Looking forward to connecting with you soon! Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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OONI Community Meeting: Monday 25th June 2018
by Maria Xynou 21 Jun '18

21 Jun '18

Hello, The OONI team warmly welcomes you to join us next week for our monthly community meeting. Where: https://slack.openobservatory.org/ (OONI Slack channel) When: Monday, 25th June 2018 at 14:00 UTC (for 1 hour) We'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how we can improve our tools and research methodologies. Please add topics that you would like to discuss as part of the meeting in this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting If you're not able to join us, please feel encouraged to join us on Slack or IRC any other day! Looking forward to connecting with you soon! All the best, ~ The OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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New report: Status of Internet Freedom in Nigeria
by Maria Xynou 11 Jun '18

11 Jun '18

Hello, Today OONI and Nigeria's Paradigm Initiative published a joint research report: "Tightening the Noose on Freedom of Expression: 2018 Status of Internet Freedom in Nigeria". * Full report: https://ooni.torproject.org/documents/nigeria-report.pdf * Summary: https://ooni.torproject.org/documents/nigeria-report-summary.pdf * OONI censorship findings: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/nigeria-internet-censorship/ This report examines surveillance and internet censorship in Nigeria, the latter based on OONI Probe network measurements: https://api.ooni.io/files/by_country/NG Most of the sites found to be blocked are associated with content on the secession agitations for Biafra in Eastern Nigeria. These sites were blocked by (at least) 3 Nigerian ISPs: MTN, Globacom, and Airtel. MTN appears to be blocking sites by means of DNS tampering, while Globacom blocks sites by means of TCP/IP blocking, and Airtel by means of HTTP blocking. News outlet naij.com was temporarily blocked in November 2017, but has since become accessible. Most sites and services appear to have been accessible in Nigeria throughout the testing period, including popular communications platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and circumvention tools like Tor. Thanks for reading! All the best, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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OONI Community Interviews: Julie Owono
by Maria Xynou 23 May '18

23 May '18

Hello Oonitarians, Today we publish a community interview featuring... Julie Owono! :) https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ooni-community-interviews-julie-owono/ Julie Owono is the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontieres, known for leading campaigns against internet shutdowns in Cameroon, Togo and Chad. Over the last years, Julie has spearheaded advocacy efforts and championed community engagement in West Africa. Meet Julie & learn more about her work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t842clfakt0 We'll be publishing more interviews with community members over the next months. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay tuned! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQhDgj9wBf4_w5bWFvLlq-w?sub_confirmation=1 Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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RightsCon
by Maria Xynou 11 May '18

11 May '18

Hello! Next week the OONI team will be attending RightsCon (https://www.rightscon.org/) in Toronto, between 16th-18th May. We'll be participating in 4 sessions (as speakers and moderators), which you can find in our blog post: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ooni-rightscon-2018/ If you're going to RightsCon and interested in meeting up, please get in touch! :) Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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OONI Community Interviews: Moses Karanja
by Maria Xynou 09 May '18

09 May '18

Hello Oonitarians! Today we published our first Community Interview featuring.... Moses Karanja! https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ooni-community-interviews-moses-karanja/ Over the last years, Moses has championed OONI community engagement across Africa, and we have worked with him on a number of research reports. We are grateful for all his work, and wanted to provide you a chance to learn more about his work. You can view his interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pam2UQoZ1qM This is the first interview of a series of community interviews that we'll be publishing over the next months. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay tuned! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQhDgj9wBf4_w5bWFvLlq-w?sub_confirmation=1 Cheers, Maria. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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ParkNet: OONI's Short Documentary on Internet Censorship in Cuba
by Maria Xynou 23 Apr '18

23 Apr '18

Hello, The OONI team is excited to let you know that we just published our first short film! Our 5-minute documentary is called "ParkNet: Exploring Internet Censorship in Cuba". * About the film: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/parknet-short-documentary-cuba/ * Watch the film on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslsL84jx4E Last year we traveled to Cuba to explore its internet landscape. You might remember that we published a research report on our findings: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/cuba-internet-censorship-2017/ Today we publish this short film to share some of our key findings and to provide a feel of Cuba's unique internet landscape. We also wanted to experiment with the idea of presenting censorship findings with video. Our OONI YouTube channel will feature new and exciting content over the next months. Subscribe to receive updates: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQhDgj9wBf4_w5bWFvLlq-w?sub_confirmation=1 Thanks for watching! Cheers, OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research and Partnerships Coordinator Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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