December 2020 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Are there countries where using Tor is illegal?
by Cristian Consonni 11 May '25

11 May '25

Hi, (Sorry if this question has already been asked in the past, feel free to point me to the relevant resources.) I know that the legal FAQs by the EFF state that: «we believe that running a Tor relay — including an exit relay that allows people to anonymously send and receive traffic — is legal under U.S. law.»[1] I also know there is a list of countries for which there is legislation that exclude communication service providers from liability. They are indicated in the Legal of the Tor Exit Guidelines page[2], they are USA, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, and Sweden. >From some articles in the press[3a][3b] it may be illegal - depending on how you interpret the wording[*] - to use Tor (and other technologies such as VPNs or proxies) in the UAE, with fines ranging in the millions of dirhams (hundreds of thousand of dollars). A couple of weeks ago it was discussed - on this list as well - that a law was introduced to the state parliament to ban Tor[4a][4b]. This follows a case of some months ago of a Russian Tor exit node operator being arrested for inciting mass riots and terrorism[4c][4d]. The idea of blocking VPNs or Tor seems to have already been considered in the past[4e]. This infographic about pluggable transports[5] suggests access to the Tor network is censored or limited in China, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Kazakhstan. Tor being censored orblocked may be different from it being illegal. What about other countries? Is there a place where I can find more about this topic? Cristian [1]: https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en [2]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorExitGuidelines [3a]: http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/dh500-000-fine-if-you-use-fraud-ip… [3b]: http://news.softpedia.com/news/people-caught-using-vpns-tor-or-proxies-in-t… [*]: «Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery» [4a]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2017-June/043293.html [4b]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22055 [4c]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2017-April/043109.html [4d]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/24/dmitry-bogatov-tor-russia/ [4e]; https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-and-tor-ban-looming-on-the-horizon-for-russia-… [5]: https://www.torproject.org/images/PT/2016-07-how-to-use-PT.png

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reminder: trac.torproject.org retires in two days
by Antoine Beaupré 29 Dec '20

29 Dec '20

Hi, This is just a quick heads up to remind everyone that our dear old Trac instance, https://trac.torproject.org/ is retiring in two days, on December 9th, as announced 6 months ago[1]. [1]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2020-June/002866.html Around that time, Trac was put in "read-only mode", in that no changes were allowed through the web interface whatsoever. We have heard approximately zero complaints about the change: while some people have concerns about GitLab and lots of things could be improved there, it seems no one is actually missing poor old Trac. As much of the Trac content as possible was migrated into GitLab. An integral copy of the [Trac wiki] and [Trac issues] will be kept as is in GitLab. Most of those issues were migrated to their own projects, and lots of the wiki content was spread out to different, team-specific wikis (which makes the content a bit hard to find, see [issue 66] for details on that). [Trac wiki]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/wikis/home [Trac issues]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/issues [issue 66]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/gitlab/-/issues/66 Trac was also thoroughly archived on the Wayback machine[2] for those cases where you really only know how to find something by looking at it "the Trac way". This should also salvage some pages that do not get rendered quite right in the GitLab migration, which happens. [2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40003 The plan, right now, is to redirect the Wiki and issue URLs into GitLab's relevant legacy project, and everything else to the GitLab front page. (It is considered bad practice to hotwire old sites into the wayback machine: we prefer to refer to live data instead, even though that old data is still available.) The actual virtual machine where Trac is hosted will be destroyed 30 days after the redirections are in place, as an exceptional measure considering the service Trac has given us over the years. Absolutely do tell us if you feel there is some critical data that would be lost when that happens, something that was not correctly migrated to Gitlab *and* would not be available through the Wayback machine. Further progress updates on the life and tribulation of troodi, the machine that hosted trac.torproject.org all those years, will only be posted in this ticket: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/34373 ## Post-scriptum: history People might also be interested in the history of bug trackers at the Tor project: * lost in the mists of time: migration from Bugzilla to Flyspray (40 tickets) * 2010-04-23: [migration from Flyspray to Trac completed][] (last Flyspray ticket is [1393][], first Trac ticket is [2000][]) * 2016-11-29: [first request to setup a GitLab server][] * ~2017: oniongit.eu (warning: squatted domain) deployed to test GitLab with the network team, considered as gitlab.torproject.net but ultimately [abandoned][] * 2019-02-28: `gitlab-01` AKA dip.torproject.org test server setup ([issue 29400][]), following the [Brussels meeting][] * 2019-07-17: GitLab discussed again at the [Stockholm meeting][] * 2019-07-29: Formal proposal to deploy GitLab [sent to tor-project][], no objection * 2020-03-05: GitLab migrated from `gitlab-01` (AKA "dip") to `gitlab-02` using the Omnibus package * 2020-04-27: `gitlab-01` retired * 2020-06-13 19:00UTC: [Trac readonly][] * 2020-06-13 02:25UTC: Trac tickets migrated (32401 tickets, last ticket id is [34451][], first GitLab legacy project ticket id is 40000) * 2020-06-14 21:22UTC: Trac wiki migrated * 2020-06-15 18:30UTC: bugs.torproject.org redirects to gitlab * 2020-06-16 02:15UTC: GitLab launch announced to tor-internal * 2020-06-17 12:33UTC: Archivebot starts crawling all tickets of, and the entire Trac website * 2020-06-23: Archivebot completes the full Trac crawl, Trac is fully archived on the Internet Archive Coming up next: * 2020-09-09: Trac redirects to GitLab * 2021-01-09: Trac server, troodi, destroyed [migration from Flyspray to Trac completed]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2010-April/000183.html [1393]: https://bugs.torproject.org/1393 [2000]: https://bugs.torproject.org/2000 [first request to setup a GitLab server]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/services/-/issues/20821 [abandoned]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/services/-/issues/21840 [issue 29400]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/services/-/issues/29400 [Brussels meeting]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2019BrusselsAdmi… [Stockholm meeting]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/wikis/org/meetings/2019Stockhol… [sent to tor-project]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2019-July/002407.html [Trac readonly]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2020-June/002872.html [34451]: https://bugs.torproject.org/34451 A. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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(FWD) Research assistant position on Tor and Lightweight Cryptography
by Roger Dingledine 29 Dec '20

29 Dec '20

Forwarding on behalf of Tariq. We helped them get some funding to do research work on the intersection of Tor and IoT, and here is one of those spots. (Ok, reading the page in more detail, maybe it's more like the union of Tor and IoT, not the intersection. :) I asked him for clarification around timing and citizenship, and he said "We are flexible in the dates. Also the person just needs the right to work in the UK, but does not need to be a UK citizen." --Roger ----- Forwarded message from Tariq Elahi <t.elahi(a)ed.ac.uk> ----- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2020 16:50:06 +0000 From: Tariq Elahi <t.elahi(a)ed.ac.uk> To: Roger Dingledine <arma(a)torproject.org> Cc: Vesselin Velichkov <vvelichk(a)staffmail.ed.ac.uk> Subject: Research assistant position for Tor and LWC Hi Roger, I hope you are well. As you know we were successful in our bid for the REPHRAIN centre and are now in the process of hiring fine researchers and implementers to join our projects. I am writing about a joint project with my colleague at Edinburgh Vesselin Velichkov (a crypto analyst) and myself. I was wondering if you would mind spreading the word around your network for a 6 month Research Assistant/Post-doctoral researcher position. Maybe you already know of someone, so any leads out be greatly appreciated. In short, the project is about implementing and evaluating various light weight crypto algorithms on embedded platforms. The project seeks to investigate the viability and directions for embedding PETS like Tor and mixnets to networks of IoT-class devices. The start date is early January, but we have some slight flexibility there. Remote work is possible, but a UK bank account is necessary. More information can be found here: https://www.rephrain.ac.uk/preserve/ Thanks for you help in advance. Best wishes, Tariq -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ----- End forwarded message -----

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Tails report for November 2020
by intrigeri 18 Dec '20

18 Dec '20

Hi, The Tails report for November 2020 is out: https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2020_11/ Cheers!

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Sponsor 38 2020-12 update (Shadow simulator)
by Jim Newsome 17 Dec '20

17 Dec '20

Our latest update on the Shadow simulator is in Shadow's new Discussions forum <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/discussions/1060>. Thanks, and Happy Holidays! The Shadow team <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/blob/master/docs/nsf-sponsorship.md#people>

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 17 Dec 2020
by Philipp Winter 17 Dec '20

17 Dec '20

Hi all, Here are our meeting minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-12-17-15.57.html And here is our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday December 17th 16:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress) == Goal of this meeting == Weekly checkin about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at Tor. == Links to Useful documents == * Our anti-censorship roadmap: * Roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards * The anti-censorship team's wiki page: * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home * Past meeting notes can be found at: * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ * Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on: * All needs review tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/merge_requests?s… * Sponsor 30 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 * Sponsor 28 * must-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10 * possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… * Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep <-- it will be moved into gitlab with TPO labels <-- do we still need this? The label is 'for anticensorship team' * Public bug-reporting pad: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep == Announcements == * Tor is moving to ed25519 IDs as relay/bridge identifiers. * Current fingerprint format (SHA-1 over RSA key) may not be around anymore. == Discussion == * Post mortem of moat outage * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… * How can we prevent this from happening again? * Is this the last meeting until 2021? == Actions == * == Interesting links == * == Reading group == * We will discuss "" on * * Questions to ask and goals to have: * What aspects of the paper are questionable? * Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work? * Are there long-term actions we can take based on this work? * Is there future work that we want to call out, in hopes that others will pick it up? == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week. Help with: - Something you need help with. phw: This week (2020-12-17): * Wrote obfs4proxy patch that fixes -unsafeLogging. * https://gitlab.com/yawning/obfs4/-/merge_requests/1 * Helped Benjamin from Guardian Project debug ongoing obfs4proxy HPKP issue. * Still dealing with tor's dormant mode issue in bridgestrap. * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40228 * Created a Prometheus dashboard for bridgestrap. It's beautiful. * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/13 * Mostly read rBridge paper. * Closed our obfs4proxy HPKP issue because numbers have mostly recovered. * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… * Made progress on rdsys's persistence layer. * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/5 Next week: * Progress on Salmon's privacy improvements. * Brainstorm a way to do censorship measurement for Salmon. Help with: * cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-12-17 Last week: - met with protozoa people about a new PT - did some research on issues with stacking reliable protocols - ran some tests for an increased window size in snowflake#40026 - merged snowflake!24 - read release notes for pion/webrtc v3.0.0 This week: (AWAY DEC 21 - JAN 06) - try an update to pion/webrtc/v3 (snowflake#40027) - update webrtc and snowflake versions in tor browser - continue to monitor snowflake stats - Figure out why we still have unknown proxies Needs help with: juggy : last updated before 2020-12-17 This week: - Got very basic "suggested readings" list up and running here : https://jugheadjones10.github.io/anti-censorship-reading/ Next week: - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Open issues here (https://github.com/jugheadjones10/anti-censorship-reading ) for papers/resources/readings that you think might be useful for newcomers arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2020-12-17 Last week: - looked at cohosh's patch to increase the KCP window size https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: - Wrapping Babatunde's research on the use of circumvention tools during internet censorship in Africa. Wrapping Personas for s30 with it. For september: - We are planning interviews with users in China to run our bridges discovery issues script in real time. We discussed to include TBA + snowflake as a task for users to run over a week or two and report back. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4 - I still have bridges.tpo to lektor issue open - More work on UX/UI for TB 10.0/10.5 - Review Salmon related tickets (im late with it!) agix:2020-12-17 Last week: -More on research httpt #4 -Worked on rdsys #6 (took a deep dive into extra-info descriptors)¶ Next week: -Finish rdsys #6 -More work on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2020-10-22 Last week: - Took break to focus on work Next week: - #32117: Look at CAPTCHA success rate for users from the US across different types of bridges Help with: - thymbahutymba: 2020-04-02 Last week: - CI/CD pipeline for multiarch docker images, which has a problem with the apt tor version even though the apt repository have been changed into the Dockerfile. Next week: Help with: HashikD: 2020-11-19 This week: - Next week: - Research on how to implement a STUN check on Android. Help with: -

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ANN: Updated Tor Browser Signing Key
by Matthew Finkel 14 Dec '20

14 Dec '20

Hello everyone, The OpenPGP Tor Browser signing key is due to expire this Saturday (19 December). While we usually rotate the signing key, we extended the expiration date instead due to the difficulty of activating a new key at this time. The signing key now expires on 12 June 2021. We may extend the expiration date again when we get closer to that date if key rotation is not a viable option over the next 6 months. The updated key is available from keys.openpgp.org [0], and it will be available from The Tor Project's key server [1] within the next few days. [0] https://keys.openpgp.org/search?q=torbrowser%40torproject.org [1] https://support.torproject.org/tbb/how-to-verify-signature/

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You're invited: PrivChat hosted by Snowden | Friday 12/11 @ 18:00 UTC
by Al Smith 11 Dec '20

11 Dec '20

Hello Tor, Next Friday, *Edward Snowden *will host Tor’s third PrivChat (https://torproject.org/privchat) a fundraising livestream event and conversation with human rights defenders + real-life Tor users *Alison Macrina* (Founder, Library Freedom Project), *Berhan Taye *(Africa Policy Manager and Global Internet Shutdowns Lead, Access Now) and *Ramy Raoof* (Security Labs Technologist, Amnesty International). *What: *PrivChat | Tor Advancing Human Rights *When: *Friday, December 11 @ 18:00 UTC / 13:00 Eastern / 10:00 Pacific *Where: *The Tor Project’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2N3GoewgC8 * **// What’s PrivChat? //* PrivChat is a fundraising event series held to raise donations for the Tor Project. Through PrivChat, we bring you important information related to what is happening in tech, human rights, and internet freedom by convening experts for a chat with our community. * **// Tor Advancing Human Rights //* The Tor Project's main mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies. People use our technology, namely the Tor network and Tor Browser, in diverse ways. Tor is used by whistleblowers who need a safe way to bring to light information about wrongdoing -- information that is crucial for society to know -- without sharing their identity. Tor is used by activists around the world who are fighting against authoritarian governments and to defend human rights, not only for their safety and anonymity, but also to circumvent internet censorship so their voices can be heard. Tor allows millions of people to protect themselves online, no matter what privilege they have or don't have. For our third edition of PrivChat, we are bringing you some real-life Tor users who will share how Tor has been important for them and their work to defend human rights and freedoms around the world. Please spread the word! There’s an easy tweet pinned to the top of our Twitter page: https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1334209034392465409?s=20 Hope to see you there, Al -- Al Smith (they/them) Fundraising • Communications The Tor Project

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 10 Dec 2020
by Philipp Winter 10 Dec '20

10 Dec '20

Hi all, Here are our meeting minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-12-10-15.58.html And here is our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday December 10th 16:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress) == Goal of this meeting == Weekly checkin about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at Tor. == Links to Useful documents == * Our anti-censorship roadmap: * Roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards * The anti-censorship team's wiki page: * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home * Past meeting notes can be found at: * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ * Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on: * All needs review tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/merge_requests?s… * Sponsor 30 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 * Sponsor 28 * must-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10 * possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… * Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep <-- it will be moved into gitlab with TPO labels <-- do we still need this? The label is 'for anticensorship team' * Public bug-reporting pad: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep == Announcements == * == Discussion == * Your thoughts on httpt #4 ( https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… ) * How would you approach this issue? * What does the threat model look like? == Actions == * == Interesting links == * == Reading group == * We will discuss "" on * * Questions to ask and goals to have: * What aspects of the paper are questionable? * Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work? * Are there long-term actions we can take based on this work? * Is there future work that we want to call out, in hopes that others will pick it up? == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week. Help with: - Something you need help with. phw: This week (2020-12-10): * Reviewed https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * Reviewed https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * A bit of brainstorming at https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… * Bridgestrap debugging https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/11 * Added rdsys's backend to our monit config. * Wrote a patch for obfs4proxy's certificate pinning issue. * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… * Published Nov 2020 report on tor-project@ and on our blog. * Debugged a memory exhaustion issue in rdsys: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/30 * Attended some DRL meetings. * Filed TPA ticket to have rdsys's backend metrics scraped by Prometheus: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40113 * Realised that tor's dormant mode broke bridgestrap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/12 Next week: * Reach out to a few folks to have emma run in different places. * Progress on Salmon. Help with: * cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-12-10 Last week: - reviewed bridgestrap!4 - reviewed snowflake!22 - worked on debugging performance issues with snowflake#25723 - found some throughput bottlenecks in KCP (snowflake#40026) - created https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/gettor-project/onionsprou… project and read through source code This week: - reduce KCP bottlenecks (snowflake#40026) - continue to monitor snowflake stats - Figure out why we still have unknown proxies - have broker inform proxies when to poll (snowflake#25598) - Finish work on avoiding double delays (snowflake#34080) - Continue snowflake multiplexing debugging (snowflake#25723) Needs help with: juggy : This week: - Got very basic "suggested readings" list up and running here : https://jugheadjones10.github.io/anti-censorship-reading/ Next week: - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Open issues here (https://github.com/jugheadjones10/anti-censorship-reading ) for papers/resources/readings that you think might be useful for newcomers arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2020-12-09 (will miss 2020-12-10 meeting) Last week: Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: - Wrapping Babatunde's research on the use of circumvention tools during internet censorship in Africa. Wrapping Personas for s30 with it. For september: - We are planning interviews with users in China to run our bridges discovery issues script in real time. We discussed to include TBA + snowflake as a task for users to run over a week or two and report back. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4 - I still have bridges.tpo to lektor issue open - More work on UX/UI for TB 10.0/10.5 - Review Salmon related tickets (im late with it!) agix:2020-12-10 Last week: -Did some research for httpt #4 -Started with rdsys #6 -More Go Next week: -Finish rdsys #6 -More work on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2020-10-22 Last week: - Took break to focus on work Next week: - #32117: Look at CAPTCHA success rate for users from the US across different types of bridges Help with: - thymbahutymba: 2020-04-02 Last week: - CI/CD pipeline for multiarch docker images, which has a problem with the apt tor version even though the apt repository have been changed into the Dockerfile. Next week: Help with: HashikD: 2020-11-19 This week: - Next week: - Research on how to implement a STUN check on Android. Help with: -

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OONI Monthly Report: November 2020
by Maria Xynou 09 Dec '20

09 Dec '20

Hello, Throughout November 2020, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 25 - Näkki (October 26 - November 8, 2020) * Sprint 26 - Neerali (November 9 - 22, 2020) * Sprint 27 - Hexacorallia (Nov 23 - Dec 6, 2020) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. ## OONI Probe Mobile ### Released OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.1 We released OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.1 for: * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.7.1 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.7.1 This release includes the following noteworthy changes: * We have removed the "Include Network Info" setting (which enabled you to opt-out of ASN collection). Now ASN information (https://ooni.org/support/glossary/#asn) is collected by default. We decided to do this because measurements that don't include ASN information are non-actionable. * We have removed the setting which enabled you to share your IP address (on an opt-in basis). We decided to remove this setting because we think the potential risk associated with sharing IP addresses is greater than the benefit. Furthermore, when users did choose to share their IP addresses over the last years, we did not find them particularly useful. Following these changes, the "Sharing" setting is no longer available in the OONI Probe mobile app (since the above options have been removed), and the "Publish Results" setting (which is enabled by default) has been moved under the Privacy tab of the app. Through these changes (in OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.1), we aim to make OONI Probe measurements both more secure and more actionable. ### Progress on adding support for automated regular testing We continued to make progress towards adding support in the OONI Probe mobile app for automated regular testing, as documented through this ticket: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/916 We also worked on activities pertaining to the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1269 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1271 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/970 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1249 In addition, we released the beta version of OONI Probe Android 2.8.0: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.8.0-beta.1 ## Updated OONI Data Policy We updated the OONI Data Policy to reflect the changes made in the OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.1 release. The updated version (1.4.1) of the OONI Data Policy is available here: https://ooni.org/about/data-policy This is a minor update, mainly aiming to reflect that OONI Probe mobile app users can no longer opt-out from ASN collection, nor opt-in to IP address collection. These options are currently available through the OONI Probe desktop app (though future releases will remove these options too). ## OONI Probe Desktop ### Released OONI Probe Desktop 3.1.0 We released OONI Probe Desktop 3.1.0 for macOS and Windows: https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.1.0 With the latest version (3.1.0) you can: * Choose the categories of websites that you want to test (by enabling/disabling website categories in the settings) * Change the language of your OONI Probe desktop app (thanks to support from the Localization Lab community!) The latest version also features a new settings screen layout. In preparation for the OONI Probe Desktop 3.1.0 release, the Localization Lab coordinated the translation of new OONI Probe strings. We also translated the new strings to Greek ourselves. Towards the end of November 2020, we released OONI Probe Desktop 3.1.1 with some bug fixes: https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.1.1 We also worked on the activities documented through the following tickets and pull requests: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1243 https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/pull/185 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1274 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1290 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1291 ### Updated OONI Probe macOS homebrew package We worked on updating the OONI Probe macOS homebrew package with the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI). This work is documented through the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1270 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1289 We have opened a pull request for the new OONI Probe homebrew package here: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/66474 ## OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI) We continued to improve upon the OONI Probe CLI through the following releases: * 3.0.10: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.0.10 * 3.0.11: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.0.11 ## Building Debian package for OONI Probe We made progress on building a Debian package for OONI Probe. Our work on this is available here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/162 The Debian package for OONI Probe could optionally be periodically invoked by systemd to perform automatic testing. ## OONI Probe Engine In November 2020, we made the following improvements to the OONI Probe measurement engine: * Implemented fallback for lookup IP: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1026 * Routine releases: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1004 * Removed the ASN, country code, and IP settings (in line with the OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.1 release): https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/974 * Reverted the sanitization of the resolver IP in the Web Connectivity test: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1047 * Bug fix: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/994 ## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies As part of our ongoing efforts to expand our measurement capabilities, we: * Wrote the Web Connectivity test helper in Go: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1078 * Split TLS ClientHello to better characterise SNI blocking (as part of research on how to measure TLS middleboxes): https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/622 * Added support to the http3 experiment (contributed by community members) for using an alternative resolver: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1024 * Wrote a basic specification for the `urlgetter` experiment: https://github.com/ooni/spec/pull/205 * Made `urlgetter` experiment measurements public through the OONI API: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1056 We also fixed a bug which occurred when the new RiseupVPN experiment (contributed by community members) ran after the OONI Psiphon experiment, resulting in the failure of the RiseupVPN experiment. This bug occurred because the RiseupVPN experiment was mistakenly forced to pass through the tunnel created by Psiphon. This was caused by an implementation detail where the tunnel created by Psiphon was associated with the measurement session and subsequently reused by other experiments (in this case, the RiseupVPN experiment). The fix therefore entailed changing the codebase so that the OONI Psiphon experiment uses its own private tunnel and does not share it with the measurement session. This work is documented through the following ticket: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1050 ## OONI Explorer ### Website-centric stats page We made progress on creating a website-centric stats page for OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/475. The goal of this page is to present users with OONI measurement stats and visualizations based on a tested website around the world. We created an initial version of this page, which is available here: https://explorer.ooni.org/experimental/website We encourage community feedback! We are collecting feedback through the following ticket: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/525 ### Other OONI Explorer improvements We also made progress on the activities documented through the following tickets: * Adding more end-to-end testing of OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/490 & https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/493 * UI improvements: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/511 * Upgrading to the latest ooni-components: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/509 * Adding nivo-toy to OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/514 * Fixing issues in WhatsApp measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/406 * Linking to measurements on OONI Explorer Country pages: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/338 ## OONI backend Throughout November 2020, we worked on the following backend activities: * Created documentation, diagrams, dashboards, and runbooks * Monitored 500 status code errors * Looked into missing Telegram measurements * Changed the rate limiting * Wrote tooling to manage CI/CD deployments on test and prod hosts * Implemented a backup/export of the fastpath table into S3 * Wrote a measurement_forwarder * Deployed an event detector on test * Monitored coverage before switching all traffic to test-list/urls from ams-pg * Fixed Nginx logging and ipaddr truncation * Implemented API that allows OONI Probes to check-in before running tests * Implemented and deployed the reactive test-list * Added a dashboard to monitor the reactive test-list * Added 2 new test types to the OONI API * Tested the persistent journald * Implemented a deployer to support OSX ## Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for Advocates Throughout November 2020, we continued to facilitate (as a lead partner) Internews’ Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for human rights advocates in Sub-Saharan Africa. During the week of 2nd November 2020, we helped facilitate the synchronous training provided by M-Lab for the module on “Measuring Internet Performance”. During the week of 9th November 2020, we helped facilitate the synchronous training for the module on “Contextualizing Your Data: Using Local Insight and Qualitative Research”. During the week of 16th November 2020, we helped facilitate the synchronous training provided by Access Now for the module on “Using Measurements in Advocacy”. During the final week of November 2020, we helped training participants prepare for their group presentations (at the end of the training program on 1st December 2020). Throughout the training program, we supported the training participants by sharing relevant resources, addressing questions, reviewing their homework assignments, and helping them prepare their projects. ### Created post-training survey We created a (second, overall) survey for the participants of Internews’ Internet Shutdown Measurement Training program. This survey was distributed towards the end of the 6-week training program with the goal of collecting participant feedback on: * The overall training program * Each of the training modules (speaker and guest speaker sessions) * The quality of the training mentorship * Their intra-group collaboration * The homework assignments * How future training programs can be improved Through this post-training survey, we also aimed to gauge participant knowledge and skills acquired throughout the training program, in order to evaluate its effectiveness. ## Created videos for micro-course on internet censorship We created 3 short videos (as well as relevant slides and resources) for an online micro-course on internet censorship. Each of these videos cover the following topics: * What is Internet Censorship? * The Problem of Internet Censorship * How to Detect Internet Censorship with OONI Probe We expect to see these resources published by community members in 2021. ## Worked on research report on LGBTIQ website blocking In collaboration with OutRight Action International and the Citizen Lab, we have been working on a joint research report which examines the blocking of LGBTIQ websites in 6 countries based on OONI data. Throughout November 2020, we continued to edit the report. ## Collaboration with Netalitica on test lists Netalitica researchers continued to update the Citizen Lab test lists, and we reviewed (and shared feedback on) the updates to the Zimbabwean and Algerian test lists. We also made updates to several other test lists based on URLs shared by community members: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/682 https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/694 https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/684 ## Data analysis for Azerbaijan Internet Watch In support of our partner, Azerbaijan Internet Watch, we analyzed OONI measurements collected from Azerbaijan between September 2020 to November 2020. In recent months, OONI measurements show that a number of social media services started presenting signs of blocking in Azerbaijan (in addition to the ongoing blocking of media websites) over the last months as well. We documented the findings of our analysis in a report (including relevant charts), which we shared with Azerbaijan Internet Watch. ## Preparing new Partnerships page for the OONI website We have created a new page for the OONI website which features all of our partners, highlights their work, links to their websites, and shares some of the research reports and projects that we have collaborated on. We plan to publish this page in December 2020. In preparation, we reached out to our partners requesting their feedback on this new page and we edited accordingly. ## Creating a new Donate page for the OONI website We started working on creating a new Donate page for the OONI website. Our work on this front involved the design and creation of relevant mockups and frontend development. ## Community use of OONI data ### OTF Fellow research report on information controls in Myanmar Over the last year, we had the opportunity to collaborate with and support Phyu Phyu Kyaw, an OTF Information Controls Fellow, who investigated surveillance and internet censorship (through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data) in Myanmar. More specifically, we supported Phyu Phyu Kyaw with OONI data analysis (and relevant charts) on cases of internet censorship in Myanmar. Phyu Phyu Kyaw’s report is published here: https://www.opentech.fund/news/information-controls-unprotected-legal-lands… ### Internews community needs assessment report Internews carried out a study that aimed to document community needs with respect to advocating against internet shutdowns. Their report, based on this study, is available here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a9efdd2f2e6b149480187ea/t/5fbd37cda… Internews’ research found that the vast majority of advocates who participated in this study reported that (out of several network measurement tools) they are mainly familiar with (and have experience using) OONI Probe. The community feedback collected through this study is valuable as it will help inform the development and improvement of our work. ## Community activities ### Internet Governance Forum (IGF) We participated in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2020 (which took place entirely online) by hosting an OONI e-booth between 2nd to 13th November 2020. We also presented OONI during the IGF Village virtual tours. Through the OONI e-booth, we aimed to engage participants with OONI’s censorship measurement tools and datasets, share resources, address questions, and receive community feedback (through live consultations). Information about the OONI e-booth at the IGF Village is available here: https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2020-village-booth-60-… ### State of the Onion 2020 On 16th November 2020, OONI’s Maria presented OONI during the Tor Project’s annual State of the Onion 2020: https://blog.torproject.org/state-of-the-onion-2020 More specifically, we shared OONI highlights from 2020, as well as upcoming OONI projects for 2021. The State of the Onion 2020 event can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyWyTypRGWQ ### OONI Community Meeting On 24th November 2020, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) during which we discussed the following topics: 1. Brief updates from the OONI-verse 2. Open source and reliable auditing frameworks 3. Integrating the new DNSCheck experiment into the OONI Probe mobile and desktop apps 4. Requirements for running and shipping new experimental tests: Request for community feedback ## Userbase In November 2020, 3,368,016 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 4,679 networks in 195 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/ We examined this drop in measurement coverage (in comparison to previous months), and we found that it is explained primarily by the following 2 reasons: * We recently stopped processing and publishing AS0 measurements, particularly because measurements without an ASN have very limited value; * Several legacy probes (which contributed large volumes of stable measurements) were discontinued over the last few months. That said, we aim to boost global measurement coverage over the next months once regular automatic testing is shipped as part of the OONI Probe mobile app. We also plan to release official Linux and macOS packages for OONI Probe, which will serve as a replacement for legacy probe users. ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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