Hi,

OONI just published a report on the analysis of network measurements collected from (7 networks in) Iran over the last week, confirming the blocking of Telegram, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.

This report is available here: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/2018-iran-protests/

OONI data shows that Iranian ISPs started blocking access to Telegram and Instagram on 31st December 2017 by means of DNS and TCP blocking. Irancell (AS44244) however only started blocking access to these services on 2nd January 2018.

Facebook Messenger was already blocked (by means of DNS tampering), independently from the recent protests. We previously reported on the blocking of Facebook Messenger in our last Iran report: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/iran-internet-censorship/

OONI data shows that WhatsApp is accessible in all tested networks in Iran.

Tor Metrics show a spike in Tor usage in Iran on 31st December 2017 (most likely in response to the blocking of Telegram and Instagram), but a sudden drop thereafter, indicating an increased blocking of the Tor network.

OONI data corroborates Tor Metrics and suggests that Iranian ISPs started throttling access to the Tor network on 31st December. Some ISPs started blocking access to the Tor network on 1st January. But the Tor network appeared to be blocked in all networks (where measurements were collected) in Iran on 2nd January 2018.

To circumvent the censorship, we recommend the use of obfs4 bridges (particularly since bridge reachability tests show that they work). We will continue to monitor the situation.

If you're interested in reproducing these findings in Iran, you can do so by running OONI Probe: https://ooni.torproject.org/install/

All network measurement data is made publicly available: https://ooni.torproject.org/data/

All the best,

Maria.