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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 09 Apr 2020
by Philipp Winter 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Hi all, Here are our meeting minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-04-09-17.59.html And here is our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday April 9th 18:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 18:00 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: https://gitlab.torproject.org/torproject/anti-censorship/roadmap/boards * Our roadmap consists of a subset of trac tickets. For 2020 Q1, the trac keyword is anti-censorship-roadmap-2020Q1 * Next planning session: last week of April * The anti-censorship team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/AntiCensorshipTeam * Past meeting notes can be found at: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ * GetTor's roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/torproject/anti-censorship/gettor-proj… * Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on: * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor30 * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor28 * Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep ------------------------- --- April 9th 2020 -- ------------------------- == Announcements == * == Discussion == * == Actions == * Please jot down your March 2020 highlights for our monthly team report * https://pad.riseup.net/p/GDSSo-bqhi_dE1oJENyP == Interesting links == * == Reading group == * We will discuss "SymTCP: Eluding Stateful Deep Packet Inspectionwith Automated Discrepancy Discovery" on April 16 * https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Wang2020a * 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 (related to anti-censorship work). Help with: - Something you may need help with. phw: This week (2020-04-09): * Made sure that my feedback was still covered in catalyst's rebase of #5304. * Left some feedback in #10831. * Found a new maintainer of a next default bridge in noisebridge. * Finally wrapped up #13727 now that noisebridge01 is no longer in Tor Browser. * Wrapped up #29686 and #30941. * Filed #33835. * Reviewed Tor Research Safety Board submission. * Organised letter of support for an OTF application that seeks to distribute bridges in Turkey. * Made good progress on #32740. Next week: * Write a summary of our current BridgeDB distribution mechanisms and brainstorm new ones * Make BridgeDB report internal metrics (#31422) * Will have to tackle #32740 (Implement a feedback loop between BridgeDB and OONI) Help with: * Gaba: () Last week (2020-03-30): * not much related to anti-censorship This week (planned): * anti-censorship retrospective cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-04-09 Last week: - diagnosed proxy issues (#33666) - some grant submission things - started looking into building a test suite for NAT topologies (#25595) - investigated setting up a TURN server (#25596) - gave feedback on #32740 - team retrospective - popets things (paper reviews, artifact review) - sent an email to the pion peeps about testing NAT topologies (#25595) This week: - Resume obfs4 tests (#31701, #32657) - see if i can help push snowflake for android along (#28672) - set up some kind of NAT topology testing suite (#25595) - look into setting up a TURN server (#25596) - take a look at reviving the twitter responder in GetTor (#33036) - review GSoC proposals Needs help with: juggy : This week: - Tried to study Moat to implement audio captchas Next week: - Implement audio captchas in moat - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Question about current Moat implementation - it seems to be using XUL, which is deprecated by Firefox if I'm not wrong. I saw a thread in trac discussing reimplementing it with the newer Web Extensions API (but that was years ago)- is that still going on? arlolra: 2020-03-26 Last week: - merged #33665 Next week: - maybe the proxy parts of #19026 - start on #31201 Help with: - review of #19026 but also answer the question there dcf: 2020-04-09 Last week: - worked on branches for snowflake turbotunnel merge (#33745) - helped test snowflake proxy failures (#33666) - removed uniuri dependency from snowflake (#33800) Next week: - branches for snowflake turbotunnel merge (#33745) - share access to the snowflake broker CDN configuration (#30510) Help with: cjb: 2020-04-09 Last week: - gonna be afk with kids Next week: Help with: antonela: 2020-03-26 - working with Babatunde's interviews (OTF Fellowship) from Nigeria and Cameroon. Shared preliminar notes with Tunde and Nah (#32811) - started to work on this user research document, we still stick to the plan of running it during April (#31870) Help with: - nothing yet :) agix:2020-04-09 Last week: - Worked on #19997, but the issue seems to be in check.torproject - Worked on #33835, patch needs a few more tests before submission Next week: - Check out check.torproject's code base Help with: - catalyst: 2020-04-09 last week: - network team roadmapping and estimating s28/s30 tickets this week: - looking into how best to coordinate work on reachability testing (thanks, teor) 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: Hiro: (last updated before 2020-01-09) Started restoring Twitter Responder. When retrieving tweets I need to check for new tweets only otherwise Gettor will end up responding to old back log and already answered messages. <-- is this #27330 ? Next Week: - Work on gettor specs <-- Is this #3781? - More with review of strings and website content and translation

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April's roadmap for the metrics team
by Gaba 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Hi! Last week we met to discuss priorities and roadmap for April for the metrics team. You can read about it in the team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/MetricsTeam cheers, gaba -- Project Manager: Network, Anti-Censorship and Metrics teams gaba at torproject.org she/her are my pronouns GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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roadmap for the network team
by Gaba 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Hi! Today we met to discuss priorities for the next 3 months as well as roadmap. If you are interested in it we have updated the team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/NetworkTeam Any needed changes to the roadmap will be discussed during the team's weekly meetings. cheers, gaba -- Project Manager: Network, Anti-Censorship and Metrics teams gaba at torproject.org she/her are my pronouns GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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March 2020 report for the Network Health team
by Georg Koppen 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Hello! Here come the highlights from the network health work in March: 1) We made substantial progress fixing the last critical bugs before we can deploy sbws and replace Torflow as our bandwidth scanner. We, additionally, mapped out the remaining work for April and started to tackle that, too. 2) As I indicated in my previous status report I've been working on detecting and resolving DNS resolution issues of exit relays[1]. I managed to get the analysis done and contacted relay operators provided they had a valid ContactInfo. Those, that were not able to fix their setup got the bad exit flag which should improve performance for Tor Browser users and other clients. It's been, however, only a first step in helping exit operators diagnosing and resolving those DNS problems. We need to do more work in this area in the future. For April the only big item on our list is getting sbws in a shape so it finally can replace Torflow as our bandwidth scanner. Georg [1] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32864

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Network health meeting notes, 6 Apr 2020
by Georg Koppen 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Hello! We had another weekly network-health meeting on Monday. The IRC log can be found at: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-04-06-18.00.log… The notes from the pad are for your convenience below: Discussion: - What should we do about #33775? - sbws measures some relays 100x lower than Torflow [GeKo: we move forward two-fold: a) we try to get more bw auths back to Torflow/using Torflow data as a short-term workaround and b) we intensify our efforts to fix the remaining sbws blockers] - IRC: Tor relay operators meetup [GeKo: we try to get to IRC meetups again being a mix of ask-me-anything and other agenda items] - Relay associations research and form [GeKo: we'll start with approaching one operator first, to refine what we have right now and then contact more] Statuses: GeKo: Last week: -sbws: posted all my review comments for #30905, put a patch for #33009 into needs_review -worked on the EFF legal FAQ update (ggus: Is it okay to reply to the EFF folks with what we came up with so far? Or should I wait a bit longer? (GeKo: I'll get to it this week]) -monthly/quarterly team admin stuff -started to work on integrating badexiting into our badconf-entry script (#33696) -dgoulet: there is some small shell script up for review, not sure if you saw it, see: #32864 and https://gitlab.torproject.org/gk/helper-scripts/-/commit/b40a0e100e8d3e6d15… for the actual commit. If you have some time for that that would rock This week: -sbws work -help with #33775 besides sbws work if needed -getting back to EFF for the legal FAQ update juga: Last week: - started a patch for #33831 Next week: - see with *GeKo*: where, what, to how info to add regarding #33775 and https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-April/018337.html - revision #30905 - review #33009 - Work on one of the following and see which other GeKo could work on: - work on #33350 - work on #33831 - work on #33832 gaba: Last week: nothing related Next Week: nothing related gus: Last week: - Tor Legal FAQ comments - Docshackathon - Helping Tor relay operators Georg

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Notes from Vegas Meeting APRIL 2 2020
by Erin Wyatt 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Vegas Team Meeting Notes April 2 2020 + GENERAL NOTES Georg 1. network health work 2. H1 bug bounty coordination 3. more work on the licensing/copyright issue for TPI folks 4. maybe more work on onion service education coordination (depending on steph's reply) Charly 1. Working on some non-technical documentation so we can all start leveraging our tools better i.e. syncing NextCloud calendars to Thunderbird, etc...https://nc.torproject.net/s/EWsRoQgqffept8a 2. Troubleshooting using NextCloud calendar - fun fact is that you cannot add attendees to shared calendars. Only the owner of the calendar can do that. Here is the link to the issue : https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/15676#issue-281071778 Antonela 1. Wrapping S27 2. Planning remote user research with Nah for S9 3. Working with Tunde on personas for S30 4. Met SimplySecure to sync about the OTF usability grant for Metrics. 5. 1.1 with isabela this week Antoine 1. partially resolved a IP address shortage, needs deployment 2. migrated vineale/gitweb and rude/RT to new ganeti cluster 3. handling reboots and other routine work Steph 1. Sent out Tor News 2. Incorporating final comments into an onion services page 3. Applying to be a def con vendor. They're still moving fwd at the moment https://forum.defcon.org/node/231015 4. Edited onion strings for translation 5. Press inquiries 6. Promoting Lumenthrophy's match of XLM donations throughout April 7. Preparing for our next webinar Sarah 1. Webinar for SF major donors on Thursday went well. We had 10 attendees and about 20 no-shows. We learned some things that we will use to improve our next event. We are working on following up with the attendees. 2. Making final preparations for webinar April 13th for foundation program managers. So far we have 8 planning to attend. We will be using Jitsi this time around. 3. Helping promote the stellar.org/Lumenthropy match campaign this month. We have $115 in donations so far that will be matched and this is in addition to the $4K the Stellar Development Foundation is contributing. 4. Preparing documents for the board meeting. Gus 1. DocsHackathon happening last week and this week. Happy to see new and old folks around! 2. Outreachy applicants: the contribution period ends on April 7. Some of them are engage on docshackathon too. (I've seen a few messages from applicants on frontdesk@ and wanted to make sure someone is checking there. - sarah)(yes, it's their answer to the 'common questions', I'm reviewing today/tomorrow --gus) 3. Reviewing Tor EFF Legal FAQ. 4. Contacting our training partners in the Global South regarding their work and plans. isabela: 1. working on follow ups from last week events plus organizing the next event w/ foundations 2. was researching about it and now I am working on Tor's application to the federal loans re:covid19 3. preparing for Board meeting this coming week 4. had my feedback delivered by the Board Alex: 1. Network Team retrospective went well. 2. Delivered TROVE info to the network team. Waiting for some review. 3. Team seems to be doing OK. Pili: 1. GSoC mentor wrangling. We got 11 applications for 7 projects 2. Wrapping up S27 and planning follow up projects 3. Tiny bit of work on websites last week 4. Helping out Outreachy applicants 5. Submitted torproject profile to Github sponsors 6. Meetings: S9, Tor Browser release meeting 7. Trying to figure out getting swag for volunteers in these times. (If they don't mind being sent this past year's campaign t-shirt, we can use our fulfillment company for this. - sarah)(Swag ops are on hold until Seattle's COVID19 situation is under control. -ewyatt)(I don't think there's a huge rush on it, we just need to know what to say :) -pili) Erin: 1. Deadline for feedback reviews extended to May 31 2. Working on US Federal COVID-19 loan stuff 3. Chatting with Kat today about swag stuff and how we should best communicate the pause in swag ops. 4. General HR/personnel stuff Matt: 1. Wrapping up S27 in Tor Browser-land 2. New Tor Browser releases next week 3. Full-steam ahead on Tor Browser migration to Rapid Release now Gaba 1. Teams Retrospectives this week 2. Metrics Roadmap for April - we are doing it month by month now 3. Will start sponsor 30 Q2 report soon 4. Gitlab dreams 5. Bringing proposals to grants team from David and George. 6. Soundtrack this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q99_jobgGzA Philipp 1. Moving forward with sponsor 30 work (merged and deployed several BridgeDB fixes) 2. Some non-sponsor BridgeDB work 3. Reviewing volunteer patches Nick: 1. walking onion moves ahead; (also paper has been accepted to usenix security '20) \o/ congrats! 2. Likely 0.4.3.x release candidate next week. Mike: 1. HS DoS Discussions + investigation 2. Onionbalance + vanguards integration test investigation 3. Trying to decide what to prioritize in April and beyond <do you need roadmap help? --gaba> Karsten: 1. Made a metrics team roadmap for April. 2. Fixed two bugs in our user number estimates (#18167, #18203), still under review.

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GitHub Phishing Emails
by teor 06 Apr '20

06 Apr '20

Hi, Just letting everyone know that I've received a spam email that looks like a GitHub notification. But it's fake. Please don't click links in emails like this! T -- teor ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 02 Apr 2020
by Philipp Winter 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Hi all, Here are our meeting minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-04-02-17.59.html And here is our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday April 2nd 18:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 18:00 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: https://gitlab.torproject.org/torproject/anti-censorship/roadmap/boards * Our roadmap consists of a subset of trac tickets. For 2020 Q1, the trac keyword is anti-censorship-roadmap-2020Q1 * Next planning session: last week of April * The anti-censorship team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/AntiCensorshipTeam * Past meeting notes can be found at: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ * GetTor's roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/torproject/anti-censorship/gettor-proj… * Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on: * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor30 * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor28 * Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep ------------------------- --- April 2nd 2020 -- ------------------------- == Announcements == * == Discussion == * == Actions == * == Interesting links == * https://www.eff.org/pages/speaking-freely-ada-palmer * "The expurgation system was basically 'you may have this book, but you must go to page 210 and cross out paragraph 3—that paragraph is forbidden, but the rest of it you may have.' * "What you produce at the end doesn’t actually obliterate the content—you can put a light behind it and see the text, it’s not that hard—but what it means is that every time you turn the page and see the blacked-out parts, you’re reminded of power, reminded that there is an authority out there, lurking. And one of the most telling examples of this is that the content censored isn’t always what we’d think of as the most meaningful." == Reading group == * We will discuss "Detecting Probe-resistant Proxies" on April 2 * https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Frolov2020a * 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 (related to anti-censorship work). Help with: - Something you may need help with. phw: This week (2020-04-02): * Merged and deployed #30317 (Update howto on https://bridges.torproject.org/ to take mobile Tor Browser into account) * Merged and deployed #33631 (BridgeDB doesn't allow bridges to change their distribution mechanism) * Implemented #29686 (filenames conflict on case-insensitive filesystems) * Implemented #30941 (Need better instructions for requesting bridges via email) * Released and deployed BridgeDB version 0.10.0. Next week: * Write a summary of our current BridgeDB distribution mechanisms and brainstorm new ones * Make BridgeDB report internal metrics (#31422) * Will have to tackle #32740 (Implement a feedback loop between BridgeDB and OONI) Help with: * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29686 * https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/30941 Gaba: () Last week (2020-03-30): * not much related to anti-censorship This week (planned): * anti-censorship retrospective cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-04-02 Last week: - Review of #19026 and #30941 - worked with gsoc applicants on proposals - patch for #33693 - commented on turbo tunnel merge ticket (#33745) - merged #23226 and closed a bunch of old/outdated GetTor tickets - did some debugging of proxy issues (#33666) - restarted recurring snowflake health tests (#32545) - removed 11 unnecessary projects from tor browser (#33761) This week: - Resume obfs4 tests (#31701, #32657) - finish a slightly different variation of proxy webrtc test (?) (#32938) - see if i can help push snowflake for android along (#28672) - continue working on proxy issues (#33666) - take a look at reviving the twitter responder in GetTor (#33036) - review GSoC proposals Needs help with: - merge of #33693 and #33761 (tb-team) - review of #33666 juggy : This week: - Worked on #10831 (made a sample webpage with audio captchas enabled) Next week: - Get #10831 reviewed and make improvements - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Reviewal of #10831 arlolra: 2020-03-26 Last week: - merged #33665 Next week: - maybe the proxy parts of #19026 - start on #31201 Help with: - review of #19026 but also answer the question there dcf: 2020-04-02 Last week: - filed ticket for snowflake turbotunnel merge (#33745) - reviewed snowflake dummy address change (#33693) - reviewed snowflake dependency reduction (#33761) Next week: - branches for snowflake turbotunnel merge - share access to the snowflake broker CDN configuration (#30510) Help with: cjb: 2020-03-26 Last week: - gonna be afk with kids Next week: Help with: antonela: 2020-03-26 - working with Babatunde's interviews (OTF Fellowship) from Nigeria and Cameroon. Shared preliminar notes with Tunde and Nah (#32811) - started to work on this user research document, we still stick to the plan of running it during April (#31870) Help with: - nothing yet :) agix:2020-04-02 Last week: - Patched #31528 - Patched #33647 - Read "Detecting Probe-resistant Proxies" - Started on #19997 Next week: - Work on #19997 Help with: -Questions regarding #19997: Are IPv6 addresses still removed from check.torproject.org? How many bridges can currently be requested by a user from a particular Tor exit address? catalyst: 2020-04-02 last week: - fixed a mis-merge in my #5304 rebase; still evaluating existing work - mostly unrelated CI stuff and reviews this week: - more work on #5304 and other s28/s30 tickets 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: Hiro: (last updated before 2020-01-09) Started restoring Twitter Responder. When retrieving tweets I need to check for new tweets only otherwise Gettor will end up responding to old back log and already answered messages. <-- is this #27330 ? Next Week: - Work on gettor specs <-- Is this #3781? - More with review of strings and website content and translation

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Tor Browser Team Meeting Notes, 30 March 2020
by Nicolei Ocaña 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Has the meeting log for this date been emailed yet? Thanks in advance. -- N

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OONI Monthly Report: March 2020
by Maria Xynou 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Hello, Throughout March 2020, the OONI team worked on the following 2 (two-week) sprints: * Flounder Sprint (2nd March 2020 - 15th March 2020) * Ariel Sprint (16th March 2020 - 29th March 2020) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Details and highlights are available in this report below. ## OONI Probe mobile app We released OONI Probe mobile 2.3.0! * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.3.0 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.3.0 Highlights include: 1. You can re-test URLs. This new feature can be useful if you want to collect more evidence on potential blocking, or if a test fails. 2. You can test many more websites in one go! By disabling the “Limit test duration” option (of the website settings), you can test all of the URLs included in the Citizen Lab's global and country-specific test lists. This release also fixed a bug that led to WhatsApp false positive test results (once WhatsApp made changes to its infrastructure), and includes a series of other improvements documented here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/v2.3.0 To address certain infrastructure issues that emerged following the release of OONI Probe mobile 2.3.0, we released OONI Probe mobile 2.3.1 with a fix: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.3.1 We also released OONI Probe mobile 2.3.2 with further UX improvements and bug fixes: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.3.2 In March 2020, we also started working on adding support for automated testing: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/304 Finally, we planned the backlog and roadmap of OONI Probe mobile to better determine the next steps of OONI Probe mobile development: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/977 ## Research on push notifications In order to add support to the OONI Probe mobile app to send push notifications, we have been researching the use of Countly as a potential frontend and backend solution for push notifications. As part of this, we: * Enabled analytics on countly: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1002 * Tested countly to see whether we can use push notifications for sending OONI Run links: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1055 * Checked how to set-up and use the countly rich notification plugin: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1056 * Explored whether the countly community edition is sufficient to meet our needs: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1057 We also researched how to design the push notification backend, as documented through the following ticket: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/339 ## OONI Probe desktop app Throughout March 2020, we continued to make improvements to the OONI Probe desktop app in preparation for the upcoming public launch. More specifically, we: * Made a new release candidate for the OONI Probe desktop app (including newly translated strings for the circumvention tool tests): https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.0.0-rc.6 * Made UX improvements to the Dashboard and measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1047 & https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1042 * Integrated the animation for the circumvention tool tests: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1063 * Investigated the failures in the auto-update system and added better exception logging: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1008 * Aligned the middlebox test results in the Test Results page: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1049 * Fixed the markdown in the Psiphon measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1051 * Edited the copy in the Websites card: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1048 * Fixed OONI Explorer links: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1041 * Fixed the z-index and draggability of Hero on measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1033 * Fixed the scrolling on measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/959 * Fixed the sorting of columns in the Tor test details page: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1007 ## Creating official Linux packages for OONI Probe To better support the Linux OONI community (which contributes the largest volume of measurements from stable vantage points), we aim to create official Linux packages for OONI Probe. To this end, we started doing some initial Debian packaging for Linux in March 2020 and we created a prototype (see: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/117) which is available here: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1061 ## OONI Probe measurement engine OONI Probe has relied on the MaxMind database (https://www.maxmind.com/) for IP geolocation, but they recently changed their license. In March 2020, we continued to work on replacing the MaxMind ASN database following the license change: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/336 ## Making the OONI Probe apps rely entirely on the OONI Probe golang engine We continued to make progress on making the OONI Probe mobile and desktop apps rely entirely on the golang based probe-engine. To this end, we completed the work in the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/348 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/350 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/351 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/353 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/362 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/399 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/369 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1030 ## Improving censorship circumvention tool methodologies We are improving our censorship measurement methodologies by including metrics that are related to measuring the performance of circumvention tools. We aim to add support for running the NDT speed and performance test over circumvention tools (Tor, Psiphon, obfs4proxy). This will allow us to determine at what throughput (for example, a 1Mbit download) the tool is able to perform on the network in question, and to better characterize the circumvention tool’s performance. In March 2020, we started off by replacing NDT with the next generation ndt7 speed test in the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI). This work is available through the following pull request: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/119 ## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies As part of our ongoing efforts to expand OONI Probe measurement methodologies, we made improvements to the implementation of our SNI experiment, which involved addressing feedback shared by an engineer at Jigsaw (Vinicius Fortuna): https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/309 ## Prototype of system for probe URL selection Throughout March 2020 -- during the OONI Team Meeting and during our weekly backend and frontend development calls -- we did a lot of brainstorming in order to determine what an MVP for the URL selection prototype should look like. Our plan for the MVP is documented in the following github ticket: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/361 We also documented several issues related to the creation of the prototype: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/320 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/361 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/321 https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/431 https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/430 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/322 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/221 https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/207 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/930 https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/392 https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/391 ## Data analysis and pipeline work necessary for extracting per site metrics In March 2020, we started experimenting with ClickHouse to evaluate whether it could be suitable for the more advanced batch analysis required for extracting website metrics. So far, the results are quite promising. The cursory findings of this research are documented here: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/380 We also did a lot of database tuning and troubleshooting related to adding counter tables which support aggregating per website metrics: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/371 Furthermore, we: * Wrote an analysis script to close active database connections and fix a connections issue: https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/306 * Made progress on keeping the fast-path rows in the measurement table: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/233 ## OONI Probe orchestration logic for circumvention tool testing As part of our work on developing OONI Probe orchestration logic that is specific to circumvention tool testing, we: * Added backend support for provisioning circumvention tool test configurations to probes: https://github.com/ooni/orchestra/issues/68 * Made it possible to instruct probes in near real-time to test a specific circumvention tool with a particular configuration: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/889 ## OONI Explorer Throughout March 2020, we made a few improvements to OONI Explorer. More specifically, we: * Fixed the anomaly indicator to ensure that the search results are consistent with the anomaly status in the measurement pages: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/360 * Made measurement pages resilient to the absence of nullable data: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/414 * Handled cases where tcp_connect test keys are missing: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/412 * Wrote copy for the new Psiphon test results: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/419 * Wrote copy for the new Tor test results: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/418 * Opened tickets based on community feedback: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22u… ## Quality assurance and testing of OONI software As part of our ongoing efforts to increase the quality of OONI software components, we carried out the following activities in March 2020: * Created an end-to-end testing strategy for OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/159 * Added end-to-end tests for the OONI Probe desktop app: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1062 * Tested the OONI Probe mobile app 2.3 release: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/398 We also made the improvements to the probe-engine, as documented through the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/310 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/315 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/317 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/327 ## OONI infrastructure As part of our efforts to improve our server infrastructure and the performance of reliant tools, we: * Dealt with an incident affecting API slowdown and frequent 500 errors: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/371 * Dropped some unused hosts once they stopped receiving traffic: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/309 * Investigated slow OONI Explorer / OONI API queries: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/327 * Investigated why certain OONI Explorer measurements were unreachable: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/329 * Added supported for automatically building docker images as part of the CI process: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/346 * Performed VACCUM of the metadb: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/354 * Stopped doing full table scans in some places to improve API performance: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/356 ## OONI website In preparation for the upcoming public launch of the OONI Probe desktop app, we worked on re-designing the Install page of our website. A community member generously volunteered to write the code for implementing the new Install page based on our design mockups. This work is available here: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/446 We also wrote and published the following: * Tor test description: https://ooni.org/nettest/tor/ * Psiphon test description: https://ooni.org/nettest/psiphon/ Furthermore, we made improvements to how images are handled in the OONI website: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/390 ## Published report on the temporary blocking of the Farsi edition of Wikipedia in Iran We published a report on the temporary blocking of the Farsi language edition of Wikipedia in Iran: https://ooni.org/post/2020-iran-blocks-farsi-wikipedia/ OONI measurements showed that the Farsi edition of Wikipedia (fa.wikipedia.org) was blocked on at least 6 networks in Iran between 2nd to 3rd March 2020. We also found the Farsi edition of Wikinews (fa.wikinews.org) blocked in Iran, though we're being told that it's been blocked for several years now. Both Farsi Wikipedia and Wikinews were blocked by means of DNS tampering and SNI filtering. In our report, we share relevant data. ## Published blog post encouraging the testing of COVID-19 websites Ensuring a free and open internet during emergencies is important, but access to COVID-19 information has already been censored in China and Venezuela. We therefore published a blog post encouraging community participation in a global measurement campaign to increase testing coverage of COVID-19 relevant websites. This blog post (providing relevant instructions for testing) is available here: https://ooni.org/post/covid-19-ooni-measurement/ We also embedded a “COVID-19” button on the OONI website to enable OONI Probe testing of COVID-19 websites: https://ooni.org/get-involved/run/ ## Year in Review: OONI in 2019 We published a blog post sharing highlights from the OONI-verse over the last year, as well as some of the great ways that community members made use of OONI Probe and OONI data as part of their work. The “Year in Review: OONI in 2019” post is available here: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-in-2019/ OONI highlights from 2019 were also discussed in a separate blog post written and published by VPNCompare: https://www.vpncompare.co.uk/ooni-censorship-2020s/ ## Published blog post on OONI highlights between 2017-2019 We wrote a blog post that shares OONI highlights from 2017 to 2019 that were made possible thanks to OTF support. This blog post was published on the OTF website: https://www.opentech.fund/news/ooni-highlights-2017-2019/ We also cross-posted this blog post on the OONI website: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-highlights-2017-2019/ ## OONI Team Meeting We held a 4-day OONI Team Meeting between 10th to 13th March 2020. We were originally planning on facilitating this meeting in person in Rome. However, due to the escalating impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) and the national lockdown of Italy (which started on 10th March 2020), we cancelled travel arrangements (for OONI team members not based in Rome) and facilitated the entire 4-day meeting remotely, online. During our team meeting, we refined our roadmap for the next 6 months and held various meetings/sessions that enabled us to discuss plans and next steps for the various projects in the OONI-verse. Below we share the sessions that we held during our 4-day team meeting. ### Day 1 * Discussion of team meeting agenda * Time for reflection: What worked well and what didn’t work well over the last 6 months * Test vectors and technical documentation * Expanding OONI Probe methodologies * Data analysis needs: Building capacity * Data analysis required for extracting website metrics ### Day 2 * What do you want OONI to be? * Adding support for OONI Probe push notifications * Brainstorming on URL prioritization * Server infrastructure: Next steps * Presenting website metrics on OONI Explorer * OONI Explorer: Next steps ### Day 3 * Improving OONI Run * OONI Probe Mobile: Next steps * OONI Probe Desktop: Next steps * Identifiers of measurements (OOID) and in defense of the report ID * OONI data processing pipeline design ### Day 4 * OONI Team Roadmap for 2020 * Fundraising priorities Most of Day 4 of the team meeting was spent creating a detailed roadmap for all of our projects until December 2020. We expect to revise our roadmap during our next team meeting which we plan to have in about 6 months from now (September or October 2020). ## Fundraising In March 2020, we were invited by the Ford Foundation to submit a proposal to seek support for hosting the next OONI Partner Gathering and other community-related work. We previously submitted a proposal to the OTF Community Lab to seek support for hosting the OONI Partner Gathering, and in March 2020 we addressed their latest feedback. ## Test list updates Throughout March 2020, we: * Updated the Venezuelan test list to include reportedly blocked coronavirus-related sites: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/591 * Updated the Global test list to include many coronavirus-related websites (particularly data maps): https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/594 * Updated the Global & Saudi Arabian test lists to include LGBTQI sites shared by OutRight International: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/593 * Updated the Myanmar test list to include URLs from a new blocklist (shared by an OTF Information Controls Fellow): https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/596 & https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/597 ## Data analysis Throughout March 2020, we performed OONI data analysis for the following: * Azerbaijan Internet Watch: Analysis of measurements collected from Azerbaijan * Small Media: Analysis of OONI measurements collected from Lebanon & Rwanda, in support of relevant stakeholder submissions to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR): https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/435 Based on these analyses, we wrote reports explaining and interpreting the findings, which we shared with Azerbaijan Internet Watch and Small Media. ## Supported OTF Fellow Over the last year, we have hosted an OTF Information Controls Fellow who has been researching internet censorship in certain states of India. In preparation for the publication of their research report, we continued to review it, share suggested copy edits and other feedback. We also made improvements to the data visualizations included in their research report: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/441 ## Google Summer of Code (GSoC) OONI is participating in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) under The Tor Project and the DIAL Open Source Center (OSC). In March 2020, prospect GSoC students interested in working on OONI projects over the summer reached out to us. Below are some of the projects that we suggested to the prospect GSoC students: * OONI Probe Desktop support for OONI Run and custom URLs, https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-probe-desktop-custom-urls/ * OONI Probe network experiments, https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-probe-experiments/ * OONI Explorer: Improvements to testing, https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-explorer-testing/ * OONI Explorer findings: Improvements related to social media sharing, https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-explorer-findings/ ## IEEE article discussing OONI OONI’s Arturo was interviewed by IEEE to explain and discuss OONI. IEEE subsequently published an article that presents OONI and discusses how our project measures internet censorship around the world. This article is available here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/how-to-detect-a-govern… ## Community activities ### RIPE hackathon We contributed project ideas to the online RIPE hackathon: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/becha/hackathons-in-the-time-of-corona We also participated in the hackathon video-chat (23rd March 2020) and offered the #ooni-dev channel (on Slack and IRC) as a space for online communication and coordination during the hackathon. ### OONI Community Meeting On 31st March 2020, we facilitated the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) during which we discussed the following topics: 1. Updates on blocked Biafra websites in Nigeria 2. Testing a custom list of URLs with the OONI Probe CLI 3. The future of automatic OONI Probe testing on desktop and Raspberry Pis 4. Storage data format that is easier to consume 5. Faster event analysis ## Userbase In March 2020, 8,214,072 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 5,719 networks in 212 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): http://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ The OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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