- ooni-talk - lists.torproject.org

New animation: OONI Partner Gathering 2024
by Maria Xynou 22 Oct '24

22 Oct '24

Hi friends, Earlier this year, we hosted the *OONI Partner Gathering*: a 2-day event in Malaysia to strengthen collaborations on internet censorship research. Today, we are excited to share a new animation that provides a glimpse into the event! *Watch the animation here*: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-mXSyAJfs We thank Robotina (https://www.robotina.it/) for creating this animation through their beautiful artwork! <3 Learn more: https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-animation/ https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/ Cheers, Maria.

1 0

OONI Monthly Report: September 2024
by Maria Xynou 17 Oct '24

17 Oct '24

Hello, This email shares OONI's monthly report for September 2024. *# OONI Monthly Report: September 2024* Throughout September 2024, the OONI team’s work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## New partnership with Digital Rights Nepal* In September 2024, we established a new partnership with Digital Rights Nepal (https://digitalrightsnepal.org/) a leading non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding and advancing digital rights in Nepal. As part of our partnership, we will collaborate on studying internet censorship in Nepal. We published a page featuring Digital Rights Nepal as a new OONI partner and highlighting their important work: https://ooni.org/partners/digital-rights-nepal/ *## Research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan* On 19th September 2024, in collaboration with our partners Internet Freedom Kazakhstan (IFKZ) and Eurasian Digital Foundation, we co-published a new research report documenting TLS MITM attacks and the blocking of news media, human rights, and circumvention tool sites in Kazakhstan. We published the research report in both: * English: https://ooni.org/post/2024-kazakhstan-report/ * Russian: https://ooni.org/ru/post/2024-kazakhstan-report/ Our partner, Internet Freedom Kazakhstan (IFKZ), published the following article about our joint research report: https://ifkz.org/ru/article/internet-censorship-in-kazakhstan Our report shares censorship findings based on the analysis of OONI data collected from Kazakhstan over the past year, as well as legal analysis and interviews with a few media representatives. Our analysis of OONI data from Kazakhstan reveals: * TLS Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacks * Blocking of at least 17 news media websites * Blocking of petition sites and of the Russian language edition of Amnesty International's website * Blocking of at least 73 circumvention tool websites In almost all cases, the blocks appear to be implemented by means of TLS interference, as OONI data shows that the TLS handshakes result in timeout errors after the Client Hello message. This is observed uniformly on all tested networks in Kazakhstan during the analysis period. Notably, we documented the use of the latest government-mandated root certificate authority (CA) – and its use to emit 6 distinct intermediate certificates – that were used to carry out TLS MITM attacks, targeting at least 14 domains on at least 19 networks in Kazakhstan. We found that these intermediate certificates were even being used to perform MITM attacks during periods of certificate invalidity. Overall, as the timing and types of blocked URLs are consistent across networks, ISPs in Kazakhstan likely implement blocks in a coordinated manner. Coordination among ISPs is further suggested by the fact that we found the same certificate used by 19 distinct ISPs to implement TLS MITM attacks. These TLS MITM attacks raise concerns because such practices weaken the online privacy and security of internet users in Kazakhstan. Our report received press coverage from the following outlets: * FactCheck Kazakhstan: https://factcheck.kz/novosti/internet-tsenzura-v-kazahstane-rezultaty-issle… * Ulysmedia Kazakhstan: https://ulysmedia.kz/rassledovaniya/38144-ramki-rukopozhatiia-i-lichnye-dan… * SecurityLab Russia: https://www.securitylab.ru/news/552299.php * Sledstvie Info: https://sledstvie.info/news/45234-informatcionnaja_izoljatsija_kazahstana_k… *## Report on the blocking of OONI Explorer in Russia* In September 2024, Russia started blocking access to OONI Explorer. We published a report, documenting the blocking of OONI Explorer in Russia based on OONI data: https://ooni.org/post/2024-russia-blocked-ooni-explorer/ On 11th September 2024, we received an email from Roskomnadzor, informing us of their decision to block access to OONI Explorer. On the same day, OONI data shows that ISPs in Russia started implementing the block. While Roskomnadzor mentioned their intention to restrict access to the Russian translation of our circumvention tool reachability measurements, in practice, the restriction is far-reaching. The block restricts access to all OONI data hosted on OONI Explorer. On some networks in Russia, we are able to automatically confirm the blocking of OONI Explorer based on fingerprints. For example, OONI data shows that DNS resolution returns an IP that hosts a block page. As part of this report, we made use of the data analysis capabilities of our upcoming OONI pipeline v5 to produce a chart with the breakdown of failure types and errors that enable the characterization of the block. On most networks in Russia, access to OONI Explorer appears to be blocked by means of TLS interference, as many measurements resulted in timeout errors and connection reset errors right after the Client Hello message during the TLS handshake. On 18th September 2024, our Russian partner, Roskomsvoboda ( https://roskomsvoboda.org/) shared news of the blocking of OONI Explorer with Russian communities via Telegram: https://t.me/ru_tech_talk/560 *## Report on the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania* On 30th August 2024, Tanzania blocked access to Twitter/X. In early September 2024, we published a short report on our Censorship Findings platform, documenting the block through OONI data. Our report on the (temporary) blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania is available here: : https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/188763810301 It’s worth noting that our community members also independently reported on the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania through the use of OONI tools and data: https://x.com/MelamiVictoria/status/1829502734078185879 https://x.com/ZainaFoundation/status/1829536688890085645 *## Report on the blocking of Twitter/X in Brazil* On 31st August 2024, Brazil blocked access to Twitter/X. In early September 2024, we published a short report on our Censorship Findings platform, documenting the block through OONI data. Our report on the blocking of Twitter/X in Brazil is available here: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/174962608001 It’s worth noting that our community members also independently reported on the blocking of Twitter/X in Brazil through the use of OONI tools and data: https://x.com/vesinfiltro/status/1830262921789669543 https://x.com/vinifortuna/status/1830349458384486599 https://x.com/OliverLinow/status/1829846237203333282 *## Presenting thematic censorship findings on OONI Explorer* In September 2024, we started developing the new thematic censorship findings pages for OONI Explorer based on the user research and mockups designed in previous months. These pages will focus on OONI measurements pertaining to News Media (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/940) Social Media (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/939) and Circumvention Tools (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/941) and will offer users a way to explore OONI data focused on these specific themes. We also added support for theme tags that will enable the display of relevant reports on each thematic page of OONI Explorer ( https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/965) The launch date of these new pages will be determined in the coming weeks. *## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements* We released the OONI Pipeline v5.0.0-alpha4: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/83 As part of this release, we: * Added a web interface for viewing observations; * Added an API for returning aggregates of observations; * Added a web view for plotting aggregates of observations; * Added support for performing observation generation using multiple cores (instead of multiple threads since it's CPU bound); * Separated the observation activities into distinct smaller activities allowing for more narrowly scoped scheduling and retry policies; * Changed the type of PrevRange so that it's possible to serialize it in JSON allowing to pass it as a parameter to activities; * Moved the update_assets into the observation activity; * Added support for passing config file via `CONFIG_FILE` environment variable; * Made improvements to the CLI commands; * Dropped several CLI arguments that should only be read from the config file; * Made other improvements related to typing. Following this release, we made some important improvements to the schema of the observation tables. Specifically, we: * Replaced observation_id with observation_idx ( https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/87) * Used the PARTITION KEY for deduplication instead of running deletes ( https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/88) These improvements are mainly targeted towards improving the performance of update operations and making them more robust to reprocessing since deduplication is handled natively using the MergeTree table engine deduplication. *## Data analysis for upcoming research report* As part of an upcoming research report on internet censorship in Russia, we analyzed OONI measurements collected from Russia over the past year. We completed this data analysis in September 2024, and further details about the analysis are available here: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/847 *## Activities supported by OTF FOSS ### OONI Explorer* Notably, we launched an improved navigation menu for OONI Explorer ( https://explorer.ooni.org/) This work is available here: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/950 Based on community feedback shared through our user research in previous months, we improved the navigation menu of OONI Explorer to enhance the discoverability of resources and to enable us to add upcoming new pages in the next months. *### OONI Probe Mobile* We continued to make progress on our multi-platform project that aims to refactor the OONI Probe mobile app. After making good progress on our internal MVP, we turned our attention to leveraging our initial work to start developing the iOS version of Deutsche Welle’s News Media Scan application. This includes tasks like creating the onboarding flow ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/104) building the results summary view (https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/109) and adding the ability to filter results ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/98) Additionally, we worked on the ability to update OONI Run v2 tests for our own internal MVP ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/53) Here is a list of all issues completed in September 2024 for our multi-platform project: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed… *### OONI Run* As part of our final preparation for the launch of OONI Run v2, we took steps to ensure that by releasing OONI Run v2 we would not accidentally introduce any bugs that cause a drop in measurements. We improved our ability to filter measurements by different release channels, ensuring we can filter measurements by our open testing or “beta” channel for our Android application on the Google Play store. This way, we can more accurately compare different versions of our applications as we make changes and enhancements so we can increase our confidence in not introducing issues (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2803) *### OONI Backend Maintenance & DevOps* We worked on switching api.ooni.org to be served from AWS ( https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/94) focusing first on what was necessary for the OONI Run v2 project so that both the mobile application and the web-based dashboard use the production API. As part of that work, we had to move our test helpers back to Digital Ocean as AWS was proving too costly (https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/91) We also worked on several other items related to this overall task. ( https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/93, https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/95) *## Hiring process for OONI Junior Backend Developer job opening* As part of the ongoing hiring process for a new OONI Junior Backend Developer (https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/) we continued to review incoming applications and interview shortlisted candidates. *## Test list updates* Throughout September 2024, we did multiple minor updates to the test lists for Kenya, Algeria, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and Uganda, as well as to the Global test list. All of these updates have been merged ( https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed) We also reviewed and merged a more extensive update to the Cambodian test list submitted by the iMAP project: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1699/files *## Collaboration with agency to boost OONI’s social media presence* In September 2024, we started collaborating with Latte ( https://www.lattecreative.com/en/) an agency in Rome which supports organizations (including many nonprofit organizations, such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace) on improving their communication, branding, advocacy, and fundraising efforts. We are collaborating with Latte on designing an end-of-year fundraising strategy with the goal of boosting OONI’s donations, as well as on improving OONI’s communication and social media presence. *## Fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society* In September 2024, OONI’s Maria started a research fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. As part of her year-long fellowship, Maria will explore how internet censorship changed globally over the past eight years through OONI data. She will also carry out interviews to explore the role of advocacy and circumvention tool groups in responding to emergent censorship events. More information about the 2024-2025 Berkman Klein Center fellowship cohort is available here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2024-07/incoming-2024-25-bkc-fellows *## Rapid response### Blocking of Telegram in El Salvador* On 15th September 2024, El Salvador blocked access to Telegram. On the same day, we rapidly responded by sharing relevant OONI data and findings on social media: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1835360393906074078 The information we shared included a chart produced by OONI data analysis that we performed to examine the reachability of Telegram IPs in El Salvador by probe ASN and target. We found that access to Telegram was blocked on at least 5 networks in El Salvador (starting from around 4am UTC on 15th September 2024), with some ISPs blocking access to Telegram IPs, while others blocked access to Telegram by means of TLS interference. This blocking event resulted in a significant OONI measurement spike in El Salvador on 15th September 2024, as well as in ongoing measurement coverage thereafter (suggesting increased OONI Probe adoption and use of automated testing following the block). This is evident through aggregated OONI measurement coverage in El Salvador: https://explorer.ooni.org/chart/mat?probe_cc=SV&since=2024-08-12&until=2024… *## Community use of OONI tools and data### Sinar Project Blocked or Not tool* Notably, our long-term Malaysian partner, Sinar Project ( https://sinarproject.org/) launched a new “Blocked or Not” tool, which makes use of our miniooni research client and submits data to OONI. Their tool is available here: https://blockedornot.sinarproject.org/ Sinar Project’s Blocked or Not tool is a web service that enables users to easily and quickly check if a website is blocked or not in Malaysia. *### Sinar Project report on the blocking of an entertainment platform* On 20th September 2024, our partner, Sinar Project ( https://sinarproject.org/) published a report documenting the blocking of ArtStation.com, a prominent platform for showcasing games, film, media, and entertainment art. As part of their report, Sinar Project made use of OONI data and encouraged further OONI Probe testing in Malaysia. Read their report here: https://imap.sinarproject.org/resources/internet-censorship-update-blocking… *### Access Now’s press statement on the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania* In response to the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania, Access Now published a press release condemning the blocking of the platform. Their press release cites OONI data as technical evidence on the block. Read their press statement here: https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/civil-society-asks-who-blocked-x-ta… *### Cloudflare blog post on a global assessment of third-party connection tampering* In September 2024, Cloudflare published a blog post providing a global assessment of third-party connection tampering: https://blog.cloudflare.com/connection-tampering/ As part of this post, they provide case studies through which they compare Cloudflare TCP connection anomalies with OONI reports of connection tampering. Specifically, they compared anomalous Cloudflare TCP connection data with relevant OONI data from our reports on connection tampering cases in Tanzania and Ethiopia, and found that relevant Cloudflare data was consistent with OONI data. This is very interesting because by publishing data on TCP connection anomalies ( https://radar.cloudflare.com/security-and-attacks#tcp-resets-and-timeouts) Cloudflare enable researchers to have stronger signals of connection tampering when compared (and corroborated) with OONI data (and other relevant datasets). Learn more about the launch of Cloudflare Radar’s new dashboard on TCP resets and timeouts here: https://blog.cloudflare.com/tcp-resets-timeouts/ *## Community activities### Workshop for human rights defenders in Nepal* On 19th September 2024, OONI’s Elizaveta facilitated an online OONI workshop for human rights defenders in Nepal. This workshop was hosted in coordination with our new partner, Digital Rights Nepal ( https://ooni.org/partners/digital-rights-nepal/) *### Quarterly OONI Partner Meeting* On 20th September 2024, we hosted the quarterly OONI Partner Meeting via an online video platform. As part of this meeting, we presented and discussed the OONI training calendar for October 2024 and November 2024, which will involve a series of online OONI workshops that we will facilitate for our partners. These workshops include: * Introduction to internet censorship (9th October 2024) * How to use OONI Probe (16th October 2024) * OONI Run v2 demo (23rd October 2024) * Maintaining/updating the Citizen Lab test lists (6th November 2024) * OONI Explorer #1 (13th November 2024) * OONI Explorer #2 (20th November 2024) As part of these upcoming workshops, we aim to share relevant skills and knowledge to enable our partners to participate in OONI censorship measurement activities in their countries and regions. As an outcome, we hope that our partners will be equipped to share such knowledge further with their communities. As part of our Quarterly Partner Meeting, we also discussed updates to our partnership MoUs, plans for censorship monitoring during the upcoming 2025 elections around the world, as well as plans for other future partner events. *### Global Gathering 2024* Between 27th-29th September 2024, OONI’s Elizaveta and Jessie traveled to Portugal to attend the Global Gathering 2024. The detailed agenda of the event is available here: https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=Global_Gathering_Agend… As part of their participation, Elizaveta and Jessie: Hosted an OONI booth, during which they provided a live demo of our upcoming OONI Run v2 tool and shared OONI swag (27th and 29th September 2024) Facilitated a discussion on rapid response (28th September 2024) *### OONI Community Meeting* On 24th September 2024, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) As part of this meeting, we provided updates from the OONI team, and we discussed the recent blocking of OONI Explorer in Russia, as well as the (global) community’s need to measure the availability of more VPN services and protocols. *## Measurement coverage* In September 2024, 56,049,250 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 3,182 networks in 176 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *As a non-profit, we rely on donations and grants to defend a free and open internet for all.You can support OONI’s work through a donation (https://ooni.org/donate <https://ooni.org/donate>) or by getting OONI swag (https://shop.ooni.org/ <https://shop.ooni.org/>). We thank our supporters Jigsaw, Pantheon, Luminate, Amazon, DigitalOcean, Greenhost, Netlify, Surfshark, and VPNCompare for supporting OONI’s work and mission.If you are a company interested in supporting OONI, please refer to our Supporters page for more information: https://ooni.org/about/supporters <https://ooni.org/about/supporters>We also thank our funders for supporting our work over the years: https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders <https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders> *

1 0

New OONI Community Interview: Chido Musodza, Localization Lab
by Elizaveta Yachmeneva 07 Oct '24

07 Oct '24

Hi everyone! We just published an interview with Chido Musodza, Program Associate, Community Engagement at our beloved Localization Lab <https://www.localizationlab.org/>: https://ooni.org/post/2024-interview-with-chido-musodza/ Many of our community members and partners are familiar with Localization Lab <https://ooni.org/partners/localization-lab/>’s work — thanks to their volunteers, OONI Probe is available in more than 20 languages, and OONI Explorer in more than 10. Chido is one of the people, grace to whom this became possible, and many of those who worked on our translations likely have already met her. In this interview, Chido shares why localization matters both for the products and the communities, how it empowers the development of minority languages and how it changes the digital space. Please watch the interview (https://youtu.be/nyXBfI6VZyc) share your thoughts in our Slack <https://slack.ooni.org/> and join Localization Lab’s community <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfgXL7UbC6eVk7YMg_gidFnBre3a6liYSn…> to support new translations! Warmly, Elizaveta

1 0

OONI at Global Gathering (Estoril)!
by Elizaveta Yachmeneva 26 Sep '24

26 Sep '24

Hi all! I (Elizaveta, Community Coordinator) and Jessie (OONI’s amazing Project Manager) are coming to the Global Gathering <https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=Global_Gathering_2024> this year, and we will be hosting a booth, a circle and attending a couple of circles organised by our amazing partners <3 At the booth we will be hosting a demo of the upcoming OONI Run release, so please join us for this unique chance to get a peak and share feedback for the new features that we are going to share with everyone in the nearest weeks. We will also have stickers and some other presents at the booth, so please make sure to come and say hi! Here is the list of the activities we will definitely take part in at the GG: * OONI's booth on 27th September from 13pm to 15pm. We will be demoing the new version of OONI Run at 13:40. * Circle 10, 'Current blocking trends, how states in different countries do it' on 27th September organised by Roskomsvoboda <https://roskomsvoboda.org/>. We will definitely stop by to hear insights on the current state of internet censorship in different countries. The pad will be updated with the agenda topics very soon: https://pad.riseup.net/p/GG-2024-Day1-Circle10c * Circle 10, 'The How and Why of Rapid Response' on 28th September from 13:30 to 14:30 that we will co-host together with IODA <https://ioda.inetintel.cc.gatech.edu/>. More detailed agenda for our circle on rapid response: https://pad.riseup.net/p/GG-2024-Day2-Circle10a * OONI's booth on 29th September from 15.30pm to 17.30pm. We will start the demo of the updated OONI Run at 16:00. If you are hosting any other circles and/or community events and you want OONI to join, please drop me a message :) Looking forward to seeing some of you in the upcoming days! Warmly, Elizaveta

1 0

Report on Russia blocking OONI Explorer
by Maria Xynou 25 Sep '24

25 Sep '24

Hello, Russia recently blocked access to one of our platforms, OONI Explorer: a large open dataset on internet censorship worldwide ( https://explorer.ooni.org/) Today we published a *report, documenting the blocking of OONI Explorer in Russia* based on OONI data: https://ooni.org/post/2024-russia-blocked-ooni-explorer/ On 11th September 2024, we received an email from Roskomnadzor, informing us of their decision to block access to OONI Explorer. On the same day, OONI data shows that ISPs in Russia started implementing the block. While Roskomnadzor mentioned their intention to restrict access to the Russian translation of our circumvention tool reachability measurements, in practice, the restriction is far-reaching. The block restricts access to all OONI data hosted on OONI Explorer. On some networks in Russia, we are able to automatically confirm the blocking of OONI Explorer based on fingerprints. For example, OONI data shows that DNS resolution returns an IP that hosts a block page. On most networks in Russia, access to OONI Explorer appears to be blocked by means of TLS interference. Many measurements resulted in timeout errors and connection reset errors right after the Client Hello message during the TLS handshake. While ISPs in Russia blocked access to OONI Explorer, they did not block access to our main website (ooni.org) nor to our censorship measurement app (OONI Probe) – as suggested by the fact that the overall OONI measurement coverage from Russia seems quite stable. It is still possible for people in Russia to download OONI data from the OONI API (https://api.ooni.io/) or to fetch OONI data from our S3 bucket ( https://docs.ooni.org/data/) We thank OONI Probe users in Russia for contributing measurements! ~ OONI team.

1 0

OONI Community Meeting: Tomorrow, 14:00 (UTC)
by Elizaveta Yachmeneva 23 Sep '24

23 Sep '24

Hi everyone! This is a reminder that the monthly OONI Community Meeting takes place tomorrow. Please add any questions about internet censorship or OONI tools to this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep You are also very welcome to come and share news and updates on your projects from the past months. Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow in #ooni channel! => Where? OONI Slack channel: https://slack.ooni.org/ => When? Tuesday, 24th September 2024 at 14:00 UTC (for 1 hour) Warmly, ~ Elizaveta

1 0

New Report on TLS MITM attacks and blocks in Kazakhstan
by Maria Xynou 19 Sep '24

19 Sep '24

Hello, Today, in collaboration with Eurasian Digital Foundation and Internet Freedom Kazakhstan (IFKZ), OONI co-published a *new research report documenting TLS MITM attacks and the blocking of news media, human rights, and circumvention tool sites in Kazakhstan*. Read our report in: * *English*: https://ooni.org/post/2024-kazakhstan-report/ * *Russian*: https://ooni.org/ru/post/2024-kazakhstan-report/ Our report shares censorship findings based on the analysis of OONI data collected from Kazakhstan over the past year, as well as legal analysis and interviews with a few media representatives. Our analysis of OONI data from Kazakhstan reveals: * *TLS Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacks* * *Blocking of at least 17 news media websites* * *Blocking of petition sites and of the Russian language edition of Amnesty International's website* * *Blocking of at least 73 circumvention tool websites* The blocked news media websites include: * Many Russian news media websites (such as the Russian TV Channel Tsargrad, Sputnik and Pogrom, the 360 Russian satellite TV channel, and the Ferghana Information Agency); * A few Kyrgyz news media websites (Kloop and Centralasia.media); * One international news website (Vice News). OONI data shows the targeted blocking of amnesty.org.ru, www.change.org, www.ipetitions.com, and egov.press. Meanwhile, Amnesty International’s English language website was accessible in Kazakhstan, as were many other international human rights websites (such as Human Rights Watch). OONI data also shows the blocking of numerous censorship circumvention tool websites, including those of NordVPN, ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN, OpenVPN, TunnelBear, and Surfshark VPN. However, OONI data suggests that both Tor and Psiphon VPN were reachable in Kazakhstan during the analysis period. In almost all cases, the blocks appear to be implemented by means of *TLS interference*, as OONI data shows that the TLS handshakes result in timeout errors after the Client Hello message. This is observed uniformly on all tested networks in Kazakhstan during the analysis period. Notably, we documented the *use of the latest government-mandated root certificate authority (CA) – and its use to emit 6 distinct intermediate certificates – that were used to carry out TLS MITM attacks, targeting at least 14 domains on at least 19 networks in Kazakhstan*. We found that these intermediate certificates were even being used to perform MITM attacks during periods of certificate invalidity. Overall, as the timing and types of blocked URLs are consistent across networks, ISPs in Kazakhstan likely implement blocks in a coordinated manner. Coordination among ISPs is further suggested by the fact that we found the same certificate used by 19 distinct ISPs to implement TLS MITM attacks. These TLS MITM attacks raise concerns because such practices weaken the online privacy and security of internet users in Kazakhstan. Learn more through our report: https://ooni.org/post/2024-kazakhstan-report/ We also summarize some of the findings in these social media threads: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1836831876524527853, https://mastodon.social/@ooni/113166013137593960 We thank OONI Probe users in Kazakhstan for contributing measurements, supporting this study. ~ OONI team.

1 0

OONI Monthly Report: August 2024
by Maria Xynou 07 Sep '24

07 Sep '24

Hello, This email shares OONI's monthly report for August 2024. *# OONI Monthly Report: August 2024* Throughout August 2024, the OONI team’s work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Published the OONI Outreach Kit in Arabic and Farsi* In August 2024, we published the OONI Outreach Kit in: * Arabic: https://ooni.org/ar/support/ooni-outreach-kit/ * Farsi: https://ooni.org/fa/support/ooni-outreach-kit/ Huge thanks to the translators for making the OONI Outreach Kit materials available in Arabic and Farsi, supporting OONI community engagement efforts in the Middle East! The OONI Outreach Kit is also available in English, Russian, French, Spanish, and Swahili ( https://ooni.org/support/ooni-outreach-kit/) *## Published report on the blocking of Instagram in Turkiye* On 2nd August 2024, we published a short report on the blocking of Instagram in Turkiye: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/330022197701 This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the measurement findings. *## Research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan* In preparation for the upcoming publication of a research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan, we continued to review the findings and edit the text accordingly in collaboration with our partner, Internet Freedom Kazakhstan (https://ooni.org/partners/ifkz) Notably, we translated the whole research report in Russian so that we can publish it in both English and Russian, reaching more audiences. We also coordinated with designers to plan the upcoming design of the report in PDFs. We aim to publish this research report in September 2024. *## OONI Probe Mobile* In August 2024, we released OONI Probe 3.8.9 for both Android ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2791) and iOS ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2792) We also continued making progress on our multi-platform project. Specifically, we identified the initial suite of features we will focus on for our first internal build of the new application. We will use this application for testing, further development and to ensure feature parity with the old application. We worked on several different features, and some highlights include: * Implementing the dashboard: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/55 * Running tests: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/59 * Results lists: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/42 * Implementing application settings: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues/50 The full list of completed issues can be found here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed… *## OONI Probe CLI* In August 2024, we released OONI Probe CLI 3.23.0. The full changelog is available here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.23.0 *## OONI Probe Desktop* In August 2024, we released OONI Probe Desktop 3.9.7 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.9.7) and 3.9.8 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.9.8) The latest release integrates the OONI Probe CLI 3.23.0 into OONI Probe Desktop: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2793 *## OONI Run* As part of our work on creating the next generation version of OONI Run (“OONI Run v2”), we continued our efforts with QA testing for the Android version of the new OONI Probe app that will include both an improved UI and support for new OONI Run links. We addressed several bugs and UI improvements: * We improved the layout of the test overview screen: https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/186 * We fixed some issues with the updated tag not appearing properly: https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/188 In preparation for the upcoming launch of OONI Run v2, we: * Continued to test OONI Run v2 extensively; * Finalized the copy; * Wrote a blog post for the announcement of the OONI Run v2 launch (which includes a detailed user guide); * Updated the OONI Data Policy to account for changes introduced with OONI Run v2 (https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1601) * Updated all documentation across our website to ensure the correct OONI Run domain (https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1602) *## OONI Explorer* In August 2024, we worked on revising the navigation bar for OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/938 We wanted to do this because the current navigation bar is fairly crowded and we will eventually need the ability to add more items to it in the near future. We will launch this in the coming months. *## OONI Backend* We finished setting up integration tests for a framework to allow us to A/B test our improved APIs more effectively: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/856 We updated the OONI Explorer Findings platform to use postgresql to store findings, since our Clickhouse database is not backed up. This helps improve the stability of this feature: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/855 We also finished the core refactor of our measurements service, which implements improved API principles ensuring ease-of-use and stability of the API: https://github.com/ooni/backend/pull/851 *## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements* In August 2024, several important improvements were landed inside of the main branch of the OONI data pipeline v5. Specifically, we worked towards releasing the OONI Pipeline v5.0.0-alpha.3 ( https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/81) which includes the following improvements: * Switched to threaded workers via co-routines; * Removed unused commands; * Removed unused and dead code; * Added support for update assets from s3 instead of archive.org; * Removed file based locking for asset updates; * Added alter queries for buffer tables in DB migration helper; * Fixed bug in database migration generation; * Addressed issues related to setting workflow and schedule IDs to facilitate re-running backfills; * Properly set the transaction_id for more modern tests that support it (eg. web_connectivity 0.5). We then worked towards making a release candidate for OONI Pipeline v5. As part of this, in order to empower our team to view the new observations, we developed a simple web interface for viewing observations and plotting them in charts: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/83 We also started experimenting with a Bayesian network based approach to analysis which is implemented as several notebooks inside of the following pull request: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/85 *## Hiring process for OONI Junior Backend Developer job opening* As part of the hiring process for a new OONI Junior Backend Developer ( https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/) we continued to review incoming applications, track applications, follow-up with applicants, and interview shortlisted candidates. *## Test list updates* We reviewed and merged updates to the test list for Myanmar: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1754 *## Updated Nepal report following the unblocking of TikTok* We updated our previous report on the blocking of TikTok in Nepal to include OONI data and information in relation to the unblocking of the service: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/112092297601 *## Rapid response### Blocking of Signal in Russia, Venezuela, and Pakistan* In response to the blocking of the Signal Private Messenger app in Russia, Venezuela, and Pakistan (which was blocked in all 3 countries in August 2024), we shared relevant OONI data and information on social media channels: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1828028323269611553 *### Blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania* In response to the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania, we shared relevant OONI data and information on social media channels: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1829600571327914094 *## Citations### USENIX paper on measuring the Great Firewall’s web censorship at scale* In August 2024, researchers from the University of British Columbia, University of Chicago, University of Toronto, Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International and Stony Brook University wrote a paper (“GFWeb: Measuring the Great Firewall’s Web Censorship at Scale”) which was published by USENIX. Their paper cites OONI quite extensively, and it’s available here: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/usenixsecurity24-hoang.pdf *### Global Voices article on Instagram block in Turkiye * Global Voices published an article on the blocking of Instagram in Turkiye, citing OONI data: https://globalvoices.org/2024/08/02/turkey-blocks-access-to-instagram/ *### Report on Internet shutdowns in Tanzania* Our partner, Zaina Foundation, published a report on internet shutdowns in Tanzania, which is available here: https://zainafoundationtz.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TZReport-on-Intern… As part of their report, they cite OONI data (and include an OONI MAT chart) on the blocking of Twitter/X in Tanzania. *### RSF Resource for Journalists on OONI Probe and OONI Explorer* Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published an article about OONI Probe and OONI Explorer as part of their resources for journalists: https://safety.rsf.org/ooni-a-tool-to-check-whether-an-online-service-is-be… *## Measurement coverage* In August 2024, 60,819,022 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 3,238 networks in 170 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *As a non-profit, we rely on donations and grants to defend a free and open internet for all.You can support OONI’s work through a donation (https://ooni.org/donate <https://ooni.org/donate>) or by getting OONI swag (https://shop.ooni.org/ <https://shop.ooni.org/>). We thank our supporters Jigsaw, Pantheon, Luminate, Amazon, DigitalOcean, Greenhost, Netlify, Surfshark, and VPNCompare for supporting OONI’s work and mission.If you are a company interested in supporting OONI, please refer to our Supporters page for more information: https://ooni.org/about/supporters <https://ooni.org/about/supporters>We also thank our funders for supporting our work over the years: https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders <https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders> *

1 0

OONI Monthly Report: July 2024
by Maria Xynou 07 Sep '24

07 Sep '24

Hello, This email shares OONI's monthly report for July 2024. *# OONI Monthly Report: July 2024* Throughout July 2024, the OONI team’s work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## New partnership with Indonesia’s Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet)* In July 2024, we established a new partnership with Indonesia’s Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet): https://safenet.or.id/ We published a page to feature SAFEnet’s work on our Partner pages: https://ooni.org/partners/safenet/ Through our partnership with SAFEnet, we aim to collaborate on measuring internet censorship in Indonesia. *## Publication of OONI Partner Gathering 2024 Report* We published a report on the OONI Partner Gathering 2024: a 2-day event hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which brought our partners from Asia and the Middle East together to exchange skills and knowledge on internet censorship research. Read the report here: https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/ In May 2024, we hosted the OONI Partner Gathering with the goal of strengthening regional and global collaborations on censorship measurement research and advocacy. The event included 45 individuals from 30 countries. Specifically, the participants included OONI partners from Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, some OONI partners who work internationally, as well as the OONI team. Why Malaysia? We developed a script which identified Malaysia as a visa-friendly location for our participants. We also loved the fact that this data finding coincided with the base of our long-term partner, Sinar Project! Based on partner feedback which shaped the agenda, the OONI Partner Gathering included a diverse set of 25 censorship-related sessions -- ranging from advocacy and litigation to research and data analysis. View the detailed Agenda here: https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Partner-Gathering-Agenda.pdf As part of the event, we had the opportunity to exchange experiences, skills and knowledge, to improve our understanding of local challenges and community needs, and to collect invaluable feedback. We have documented the partner feedback here: https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/#partner-feedback We expect such feedback to inform the improvement of OONI tools! As an outcome of the OONI Partner Gathering, we also expect to see increased use of OONI tools & data in support of research and advocacy over the next years! We share more details on the outcomes of the event here: https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/#outcomes Huge thanks to our partners for their invaluable feedback and participation! You made the event an unforgettable experience for us all. Warm thanks to the Ford Foundation and Luminate for supporting the OONI Partner Gathering 2024 and making this event possible! We aim to host additional OONI Partner Gathering events for our partners in Africa and Latin America over the next few years. *## Published new reports on the OONI Censorship Findings page### Report on the blocking of Al Jazeera in Israel* On 4th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of Al Jazeera in Israel: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/62771144901 This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the measurement findings. *### Report on the blocking of Facebook in Bangladesh* On 18th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of Facebook in Bangladesh amid student protests: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/45013413801 This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the measurement findings. *### Report on the blocking of DuckDuckGo in Indonesia* On 30th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of the DuckDuckGo search engine in Indonesia: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/282511010901 This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the measurement findings. *## Release of the OONI Test Lists Editor in 9 languages* In July 2024, we released our Test Lists Editor ( https://test-lists.ooni.org/) in 9 new languages: Arabic, Burmese, French, German, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. By adding such localization support to the Test Lists Editor, many more community members around the world can now more easily contribute to websites for censorship testing. We thank the Localization Lab community ( https://www.localizationlab.org/) for the translations! *## OONI Probe Mobile* Building on our proof of concept that we worked on in previous months, we took the next step in our multi-platform project. The goal of this is to unify how we build our applications across mobile and desktop to make it more efficient for us to build and maintain them. We will start with focusing on our Android and iOS applications first. You can see our repository for this work here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues The specific tasks we started include: * Building up a project backlog; * Working on tooling and instrumentation set up ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed+) * Iterating on PoC to finalize approaches for specific features ( https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1535) We also fixed a crash reported by the community https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2750 *## OONI Run* As part of our work on creating the next generation version of OONI Run (“OONI Run v2”), we continued our efforts with QA testing for the Android version of the new OONI Probe app that will include both an improved UI and support for new OONI Run links. We addressed several bugs and UI improvements: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2756 We also took steps to ensure that OONI Run v2 links would also work on iOS, since we are prioritizing releasing OONI Run v2 on Android first: https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/182 In preparation for the upcoming launch of OONI Run v2, we edited the copy in the strings for the OONI Run v2 web interface, as well as the copy in the new strings for OONI Probe Mobile. We also tested OONI Run v2 extensively. *## OONI Design System* We wrapped up the changes required to migrate from Styled System to TailwindCSS. The changes included removing a lot of redundant components and replacing them with utility classes instead, and replacing old styles with tailwind utility classes for the remaining components: https://github.com/ooni/design-system/pull/175 *## OONI Explorer* We fully integrated the updated ooni-components (design system implementation), we fully removed redundant components (replaced with TailwindCSS utility classes), and we replaced Styled Components with TailwindCSS styling: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/947 *## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements* In July 2024, OONI’s Arturo visited the Oxford Internet Institute – with whom we have a research collaboration (https://ooni.org/partners/glitch/) – to exchange knowledge and ideas with researchers on advancing OONI’s data analysis techniques. This led to exploring some other approaches in terms of analyzing OONI data through Bayesian network based techniques ( https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/84) and we worked on these techniques throughout August 2024. We also made progress on getting the OONI data pipeline ready for a production deployment. Specifically, we: * Added support for running the temporal workflows in temporal cloud: https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/78 * Fixed a bug related to parsing the new network_events data format, which was affecting our ability to process web_connectivity 0.5 and tor tests: https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/80 * Implemented several other code quality improvements: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/79 *## OONI Backend* We worked on porting the OONI Findings API to our new pattern, as well as migrating it to Postgresql. Additionally, we got started on porting the Measurements API to the new pattern: https://github.com/ooni/backend/pull/862 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/814 We worked on setting up integration tests for a framework to allow us to A/B test our improved APIs more effectively ( https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/856) We finalized our CloudHSM set up for managing certificates related to our desktop application ( https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/55) We also shut down unneeded droplets we weren’t using on DigitalOcean ( https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/64) *## Hiring process for OONI Junior Backend Developer job opening* Throughout July 2024, we reviewed applications submitted for our OONI Junior Backend Developer job opening ( https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/) As part of this process, we tracked applications, followed up with applicants, and interviewed shortlisted candidates. *## Research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan* Based on the analysis of OONI measurements ( https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/846) we worked on writing a research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan. We worked on this research report in collaboration with our partner, Internet Freedom Kazakhstan (https://ooni.org/partners/ifkz) Throughout July 2024, we completed the necessary research and writing of all sections of the research report. We aim to publish this research report in September 2024. ## Published designed PDFs for research reports on internet censorship in Russia and Iran Thanks to support from the Open Technology Fund (OTF) User Experience & Discovery Lab (UXD Lab), Ura Design (https://ura.design/) created designed PDFs for two of our research reports: Technical multi-stakeholder report on Internet shutdowns: The case of Iran amid autumn 2022 protests: https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Iran-multi-stakeholder-report.pdf New blocks emerge in Russia amid war in Ukraine: An OONI network measurement analysis: https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Report-New-blocks-emerge-in-Russia-amid-war… By designing PDF copies of the above 2 research reports, Ura Design helped ease the accessibility of the findings and support their dissemination and long-term impact. We therefore thank Ura Design and the OTF for these designs! *## Community use of OONI data* *### FOCI 2024 paper on automated DNS tampering detection using machine learning* A FOCI 2024 paper was published which applies supervised and unsupervised models to recent global DNS measurement data collected by OONI. This paper is available here: https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0008.pdf *### Other OONI citations in FOCI 2024 papers* OONI was also cited in the following FOCI 2024 papers: https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0007.pdf https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0006.pdf https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0012.pdf *### Tehran E-Commerce Association Report* In July 2024, the Tehran E-Commerce Association published a report on the “Quality of Internet in Iran”, which makes use of OONI data. Their report is available here: https://etchamber.ir/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Internet-Quality-Report-v3.… *### News article by Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo on the Facebook block* Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo media outlet published a news article on the blocking of Facebook in Bangladesh, citing OONI data. Their article is available here: https://www.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/h4uzv1zi9f *## Community activities### FOCI 2024* On 15th July 2024, OONI’s Arturo attended the Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI) 2024 Summer Workshop in Bristol, UK ( https://foci.community/foci24.html#2024-summer-program) The event included the presentation of numerous academic papers on internet censorship research, including some that cite OONI data (as mentioned previously). As part of his participation, Arturo served as the session chair for the sessions on “Censorship Circumvention Strategies”. He also generally serves on the FOCI Program Committee. *### OONI Community Meeting* On 30th July 2024, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) As part of this meeting, we discussed the outcomes of the OONI Partner Gathering 2024 and the possibility of hosting similar sessions online for the broader OONI community. We also discussed plans for OONI’s new Social Media Censorship Alert System, research based on OONI data, and how to contribute fingerprints for censorship detection. *## Measurement coverage* In July 2024, 58,294,513 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,996 networks in 173 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *As a non-profit, we rely on donations and grants to defend a free and open internet for all.You can support OONI’s work through a donation (https://ooni.org/donate <https://ooni.org/donate>) or by getting OONI swag (https://shop.ooni.org/ <https://shop.ooni.org/>). We thank our supporters Jigsaw, Pantheon, Luminate, Amazon, DigitalOcean, Greenhost, Netlify, Surfshark, and VPNCompare for supporting OONI’s work and mission.If you are a company interested in supporting OONI, please refer to our Supporters page for more information: https://ooni.org/about/supporters <https://ooni.org/about/supporters>We also thank our funders for supporting our work over the years: https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders <https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders> *

1 0

OONI Monthly Report: June 2024
by Maria Xynou 07 Sep '24

07 Sep '24

Hello, This email shares OONI's monthly report for June 2024. *# OONI Monthly Report: June 2024* Throughout June 2024, the OONI team’s work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Published Job Opening for OONI Junior Backend Developer* In June 2024, we published a new job opening for a Junior Backend Developer: https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/ We are looking for a dedicated backend developer to join our team to work on our backend components and infrastructure, and to provide OONI data analysis support for our research efforts. Following the publication of the job opening, we started to receive many applications and we allocated team resources towards reviewing incoming applications. *## Published OONI Community Interview with Tawanda Mugari (Digital Society of Africa)* In June 2024, we published a new OONI Community Interview with Tawanda Mugari, the Co-Founder and Geek in Chief of Digital Society of Africa ( https://digitalsociety.africa/) You can watch Tawanda’s interview and learn about his work here: https://ooni.org/post/2024-interview-with-tawanda-mugari/ Through the OONI Community Interview series, we aim to share the amazing work of our partners, highlighting the different ways through which they make use of OONI tools and data. You can find more OONI Community Interviews through our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pam2UQoZ1qM&list=PL1sH9kYR-16nlPlFT-RDBs8O0… *## OONI Probe Mobile* In June 2024, we released OONI Probe 3.8.8 on Android ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.8.8) and iOS ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v3.8.8) We also released version 3.8.8 of the News Media Scan app, which included support for OONI Run V2 functionality so that Deutsche Welle can maintain their list of test URLs. We also worked on fixing the following bugs on OONI Probe iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2710 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2744 *## OONI Run* After completing the work for the News Media Scan app, we turned our attention back to our implementation of OONI Run v2. We started working on the iOS implementation of the new dashboard view: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1512 https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1516 https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1514 We also fixed the following bugs and addressed feedback during our internal beta testing round: https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/180 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2756 Additionally, we discussed how we want to handle backwards compatibility for v1 OONI Run links, once we launch v2. We decided that v1 links will have an intermediary page before launching the mobile application which will encourage users to migrate to v2 before a specific date ( https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/183) *## OONI Probe CLI* Notably, we merged the OpenVN experiment, implemented by Ain Ghazal as part of their OTF ICFP fellowship with us: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1585 This experiment allows OONI Probe users to measure OpenVPN blocking. Further information about the experiment is available in the specification: https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/master/nettests/ts-040-openvpn.md *## Creating a methodology for measuring throttling * We revised our plan for performing the A/B testing to make sure that Web Connectivity v0.5 produces the same results as v0.4 in terms of top-level metrics (i.e., the “blocked” and “accessible” values and the resulting colors shown by OONI Explorer). Between 11th to 13th June 2024, we traveled to Atlanta, USA, to participate in the first Open Measurement Gathering: a 3-day event (hosted at Georgia Tech) that brought the OONI, IODA, Censored Planet, M-Lab and Cloudflare Radar teams together to share skills, knowledge, and methods on network measurement. As part of this event, we co-facilitated a session with IODA on “Existing and new methods for measuring throttling”. During this session, we shared details of our methods, and learned details of the new methods that IODA are developing for measuring cases of throttling. While our approaches and methods for measuring throttling are very different (and look at different types of throttling), they are very complementary, and we identified opportunities for future collaboration. *## Expanding OONI’s testing model to support richer testing input* We have successfully expanded our testing model to support richer testing input: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pulls?q=label%3A2024-06-richer-input+is%3… In June 2024, we refactored the OONI Probe engine to improve its internal representation of richer input and to enable each experiment to define its own richer testing input structure ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1615) This refactoring change enabled us to reduce the entailed complexity by moving richer testing input around. In turn, this lower complexity enabled us to read richer testing input from experiment-specific APIs, as well as from OONI Run v2 descriptors. We merged the OpenVPN experiment (developed by Ain Ghazal as part of their ICFP fellowship with OONI) with full support for using richer testing input (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1585) We also published a document which provides details of our design choices for supporting richer testing input, the refactoring of the OONI Probe engine to enable richer testing input, our implementation of richer testing input through the OpenVPN experiment, as well as our implementation of other related improvements. This document also lists next steps for potential future work: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/blob/master/docs/design/dd-008-richer-inp… *## OONI Explorer* As part of the effort to update our design system implementation, we updated most of the components to use Tailwind CSS (instead of previously used styled-system and styled-components): https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/947 *## General backend work* We added IPv6 support to ooni-backendproxy and other AWS based deployments, allowing us to migrate DigitalOcean-based test helpers to the new deployment strategy: https://github.com/ooni/devops/pull/61 *## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements* Notably, we merged a large area of work related to: Optimizing the performance of the table writers for observations; Refactoring of the observation data model. Details on what was done are available through the following pull request description: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/74 Between 11th to 13th June 2024, we also presented and shared our new pipeline (https://github.com/ooni/data) and data analysis advancements with internet measurement experts as part of our participation at the Open Measurement Gathering in Atlanta, USA. This enabled us to gather feedback from experts working on similar problems (such as Censored Planet). Quite similarly, we continued to collect feedback for the improvement of our data analysis methods through meetings with internet measurement experts at the Oxford Internet Institute. *## Data analysis for upcoming research report* As part of an upcoming research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan, we analyzed OONI measurements collected from Kazakhstan over the past year. We completed this data analysis in June 2024, and further details about the analysis are available here: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/846 *## Test list updates* In response to the adoption of an LGBT propaganda law in Georgia, we updated the Georgian test list to include the websites of LGBTQ+ organizations: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1739 Based on the statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1959391/) we added 80 foreign news media websites (whose services were suspended in Russia) to the Russian test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1744 We also reviewed and merged community contributions to the following test lists: * Vietnam, Malaysia: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1745 * Belarus: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1738 * South Korea: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1700 * Brazil: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1701 * Cambodia: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1699 * Slovenia: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1697 * Other: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1705 *## Call for LGBTQ website testing during Pride Month* LGBTQ websites are blocked in many countries around the world. Similarly to previous years, we made a call to action to encourage the OONI Probe testing of LGBTQ websites during Pride Month (and beyond) through our social media channels: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1806284856998936597, https://mastodon.social/@ooni/112688417530827272 The threads through the above links: * Include a call for OONI Probe testing of LGBTQ websites (which we previously collected in collaboration with OutRight International); * Encourage people to contribute LGBTQ websites for ongoing monitoring/testing through our Test Lists Editor; * Share our previous reports documenting the blocking of LGBTQ websites based on OONI data; * Share links for ongoing OONI Probe testing and for monitoring the blocking of LGBTQ websites worldwide based on real-time OONI data. *## Outreach Kit with new illustrations * In June 2024, we updated the materials of the OONI Outreach Kit with the new illustrations created by Ura Design: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1569 *## Community use of OONI data### ISOC Pulse blog post on internet disruptions in Kenya* In June 2024, ISOC published a blog post documenting the internet disruptions in Kenya amid protests: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/kenya-internet-disrupted-amidst-prot… Their blog post cites OONI data, includes OONI data charts and encourages readers in Kenya to run OONI Probe to contribute more measurements. *## Community activities### Ford Foundation Retreat* Between 3rd-5th June 2024, OONI’s Maria attended the Ford Foundation Tech & Society Retreat in Nebraska City, USA. As part of her participation, Maria co-facilitated a session on partner engagement, and facilitated a session which provided a live demo on using OONI Explorer to investigate internet censorship. *### Open Measurement Gathering* Between 11th-13th June 2024, OONI’s Jessie, Maria, Maja, and Simone traveled to Atlanta, USA, to participate in the first Open Measurement Gathering (OMG): a 3-day event which brought internet measurement projects together to exchange skills and knowledge on measuring and reporting on internet censorship globally ( https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1803734336300032218) This event was hosted by IODA at Georgia Tech, organized in collaboration with M-Lab, and supported by the Open Technology Fund. The participants included team members from the following organizations/projects: IODA, M-Lab, Censored Planet, Cloudflare, and OONI. As part of our participation in this event, we: * Presented OONI’s measurement methodologies and tools (“OONI Measurement 101” session); * Presented OONI’s open dataset and methods for interpreting the data (“OONI Data Dive” session); * Co-facilitated a session on methodologies for measuring cases of throttling; * Facilitated a session on strengthening collaboration on research and reporting on internet censorship. We thank the Open Technology Fund for supporting this event, and we thank IODA, M-Lab, Censored Planet and Cloudflare for the valuable insights and discussions! *### OONI Partner Quarterly Meeting* On 25th June 2024, we hosted the first OONI Partner Quarterly Meeting (a private video meeting with our partners) to gather feedback and discuss the future of the Partnership Program with the OONI Partner Network. During the call, we agreed to host similar calls every quarter to share updates from the community, share OONI updates, and to discuss partner needs. *### OONI Community Meeting* On 25th June 2024, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) As part of this meeting, we gathered feedback from the community on the structure of OONI’s documentation and received a request to update the structure of the community documents and educational materials. We also discussed the possibility of hosting open training sessions for the OONI community. *## Measurement coverage* In June 2024, 54,898,348 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,825 networks in 173 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *As a non-profit, we rely on donations and grants to defend a free and open internet for all.You can support OONI’s work through a donation (https://ooni.org/donate <https://ooni.org/donate>) or by getting OONI swag (https://shop.ooni.org/ <https://shop.ooni.org/>). We thank our supporters Jigsaw, Pantheon, Luminate, Amazon, DigitalOcean, Greenhost, Netlify, Surfshark, and VPNCompare for supporting OONI’s work and mission.If you are a company interested in supporting OONI, please refer to our Supporters page for more information: https://ooni.org/about/supporters <https://ooni.org/about/supporters>We also thank our funders for supporting our work over the years: https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders <https://ooni.org/about/supporters#funders> *

1 0