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Rhatto's Monthly Status Report, January 2023
by rhatto 01 Feb '23

01 Feb '23

Hi all :) This is my monthly status report for January 2023 with the main activities I have done during the period. ## 0. Onion Launchpad, a landing page helper for accessing Onion Services * Semi-automated GitHub deployments: Onion Launchpad now comes with a handy script to configure a repository and build a landing page on GitHub. More information at https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-launchpad#github-dep… * Analytics gathering using the Matomo API: * This is disabled by default. * Basic analytics can be sent to a backend Matomo or Clean Insights endpoint. * Gathering is opt-in through a consent UX. * Upcoming changes will include a customizable Privacy Policy URL. More information at https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-launchpad/-/blob/mai… * Misc fixes and enhancements. ## 2. Sponsor 123 I've also done the regular Sponsor 123 deployments, monitoring, maintenance and development. -- Silvio Rhatto pronouns he/him

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PieroV's Monthly Status Report, January 2023
by Pier Angelo Vendrame 01 Feb '23

01 Feb '23

Hi everyone! Here is my status report for January 2023. This month I worked on several small tasks to polish many small details, especially on the tor-browser-build repository. For example, I removed a shim used to launch tor on Tor Browser for macOS. It was used to declare some Python 2.x compatibility variables for obfs3, so it has not been needed for a long time [0]. Another macOS task was switching our DMG installers from ISO images to HFS filesystems to show a custom volume image [1]. This was quite involved because it introduced reproducibility issues, for which I had to patch the HFS creation to use a deterministic volume UUID [2]. All were part of a parent ticket about cleaning up the "Bundle-Data" directory of Tor Browser [3]. In a somehow related topic, I reviewed how we ship extensions [4]. Moving them to the distribution directory might allow us to enable some profile repair tools if needed, or multiple profiles. On the Tor Browser side, I fixed a problem when running the browser for a long time [5]. I did not handle stdout correctly when switching from nsIProcess to Subprocess. Shoutout to the members of our community for finding the cause, and apologies for any inconvenience it caused! Then, I investigated and tried to remove some calls to home that we inherited from Firefox [6]. Finally, I went back to improving our portable profile directory patch. I feel we are reaching its final form. Best, Pier [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41569 [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/2… [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [4] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [5] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41549 [6] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40788

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UX Team Meeting cancelled today
by Duncan Larsen-Russell 31 Jan '23

31 Jan '23

Hi folks, The UX Team meeting is cancelled today due to a conflict. But fear not, we shall meet again next week on Tuesday the 7th of Feb. Thanks, Duncan

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2023-01-26
by Shelikhoo 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-01-26-16.01.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THIS IS A PUBLIC PAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anti-censorship team meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday, February 2 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 check-in about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at the Tor Project and Tor community. == 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 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&… * Sponsor 96 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24 * Sponsor 139 <-- hackerncoder, irl, joydeep, meskio, emmapeel working on it * https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor139-meeting-pad == Announcements == * == Discussion == * * ln5 asks: does the anti-censorship team want a paid-for host to run STUN/TURN servers on? This is something that could be made part of a grant/fund request. * A server we run ourselves is, in principle, easy to block. The intent is either (not fully sure at this point): * Run a server that is open to the public, so that there are collateral users besides just Snowflake users. * Run a server just for Snowflake, and let it be blocked by the censors that know to block it, simply to reduce load on the other servers we use, in the places where it does not get blocked. (Like the default obfs4 bridges, which are also easy to block, but are not in many places.) * Not a lot of excitement for either idea, since connecting to a distinguished STUN/TURN server is a protocol identification risk. * Suggestion is to run a public STUN/TURN server, but only for Snowflake, and only for proxies (not clients), so that it does not become an identifier for clients. * Proxies-only would work for STUN, but if it were TURN, the connection would still be identifiable by censors (because both the proxy and client would relay through the same TURN IP address). * Will ask ln5 and cohosh for more context. * snowflake fallback from domain fronting to amp cache, how/whether/when/etc to implement (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…) * arma is going to check how hard would be to change c-tor to only connect to two bridges instead of all of them at once. So maybe we can duplicate bridges with domain fronting and amp cache * we need to check the consecuences of using amp cache, and if we are ok having half of our users using it * use ampcache for snowflake in IR? * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/115 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys-admin/-/merge_reque… * our domain front for both snowflake and circumvention settings is blocked in Iran * that will mean configuring amp cache in Circumvention Settings, the people that will get this configuration will still be able to use domain fronting to access snowflake, but they will keep == Actions == * We should make a ticket for pion to cache its stun answers when possible, because right now it surprises us by asking way more stun questions than it actually needs to. * We might want to be able to spin up our own stun servers, on our own ip/port, for debugging. We should talk to TPA about that goal at some point (not urgent). * Roger will look more at https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40578 ("only contact the first few working bridges on your bridge list" and plan to have a sense of whether it will be an easy hack or a hard one, for next week. == 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. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2023-01-26 Last week: - FOCI workshop prep - some progress on rust library for rdsys backend - https://gitlab.torproject.org/cohosh/rdsys-backend-api This week: - wrap up conjure documentation and write an announcement asking for testers - finish rust library for rdsys backend - continue working on lox client integration in Tor Browser - take a look at the dead on arrival rotating bridge problem - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/connectivity-measurement/… Needs help with: dcf: 2023-01-19 Last week: - made merge request to bring sample snowflake client torrc up to date https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - more review on abbreviating ice specifications https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - promoted the patch to remove Hello Verify Request and asked for testing https://ntc.party/t/second-snowflake-bridge-available-for-testing/3445/11 https://ntc.party/t/in-case-snowflake-rendezvous-gets-blocked/1857/25 - hacking on snowflake-graphs to do per-country graphs Next week: - migrate goptlib to gitlab https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/86#note_282… - try Conjure PT development version https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-dev-introducing-a-conjure-pt-for-tor/4429 Help with: meskio: 2023-01-26 Last week: - give support to bridgesanner (rdsys#143) - review gettor whatsapp implementation (rdsys!66) - investigate the situation of meek in uzbekistan (censorship-analysis#40031) - write S96 report - prepare a Circumvention Settings configuration with ampcache for IR (rdsys-admin!13) - explore snowflake proxy docker options to avoid using the host network (docker-snowflake-proxy#11) Next week: - implement bridgescanner needs (rdsys#143) Shelikhoo: 2023-01-26 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Discussion & Deployment] Rollout of Distributed Snowflake Support - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Research] HTTPT Planning https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… - reply a lot of tickets - [Merge Request] Automated Container Image Building in Continuous integration (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/connectivity-measurement/…) Next Week: - [Research] WebTunnel planning (Continue) - push the chunked upload raw data upload change to vantage points - research snowflake's performance issue in China Itchy Onion: 2023-1-26 Last week: - Investigate whether stun over TLS is beneficial to us (issues#40240) - Looking at options for standalone proxy runners to specify an interface (issue#40108) This week: - Lunar New Year break - Continue working on issue #40108 (standalone proxy bind specific IP) - Review MRs hackerncoder: 2023-01-12 last week: - figure out what makes ooni-exporter put all reports from a country in either success or failure (I still don't know why. But I got it to work) Next week: - getting ooni-exporter to work with torsf (snowflake) - work on monitoring bridges health cece: 2022-12-22 This week: - working on creating a dummy WhatsApp bot Next week: - My bot is not yet working as expected s still trying to figure that out Help with: - resources

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PSA: noisy GitLab bot on the loose
by Antoine Beaupré 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

Hi everyone, You might have noticed getting a little more email from GitLab than usual this week. It's because I have deployed the fancy 🤖Triage Bot🤖 that was already in operation inside the "team" TPA project to all TPA and web projects over the week. This has first generated a flurry of email as the bot went through all the stale issues we had lying around (and we had a lot!). It also was pinging the author of the ticket instead of the assignee. That was partly fixed: it doesn't explicitly ping anyone now, but still makes a comment. A discussion is ongoing on how to improve that workflow here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/triage-ops/-/issues/11 More stale issues are bound to come up in the future: the trick here is that, when you have an issue assigned to you and it's marked Next, Doing, or Needs Information, you MUST update it once in a while, at *least* once every other week. Technically, the bot should be even more aggressive: the ~Doing label is supposed to be "work done this week": https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-5-gitlab#… (On the other hand, the ~Next label is "work done this cycle, typically a month", so it's a bit too aggressive on that.. I personnally do not mind the reminder after two weeks, personnally, but I'm happy to tweak this if people find that too noisy.) I should probably have made a TPA-RFC for this since it seems to affect more people than I expected, but for now this announcement will have to do. Comments welcome in the above issue or please make a new issue in the triage-ops repository if you have more concerns about the bot! https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/triage-ops/-/issues Have a nice day and thanks for flying TPA. :) -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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Notification of my blog posts and internship progress
by Cecilia Orji 25 Jan '23

25 Jan '23

Hi, My name is Orji Cecilia, an Outreachy intern working to Extend GetTor to distribute TorBrowser on censored networks over IM and social media <https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-december-2022-internship-round/communit…>. My mentors are meskio and Gaba. I am writing to notify you of my blog posts which talk about my internship and how it is going. Below are links to my blog post which I will like to be added to the archives if possible; - https://dev.to/vivcis/introducing-cecilia-35jc - https://dev.to/vivcis/everybody-struggles-1085 - https://dev.to/vivcis/think-about-your-audience-extend-gettor-browser-2904 Regards, Cecilia

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Proxy Leak Detector/Preventor (Outreachy)
by Robert Mindo 17 Jan '23

17 Jan '23

Greetings! I wanted to share an update on the progress of the project. So far, the ability to detect the IP address and port that socket system calls are sending data to has been successfully implemented. Additionally, the capability to block system calls that are sending data to an IP address and port that is not the desired proxy. An option to kill the application if a proxy leak occurs has been added, which is useful for manual QA testing of applications. Furthermore, an option to allow proxy leaks but log any that occur has also been added, which is useful for automated testing of applications. Additionally, the capability to use the environment variables that Tor Browser uses, such as TOR_SOCKS_PORT, to decide what the desired proxy is, has been included. SOCKSification is currently being implemented. The approach is to intercept the connect syscall's entry point and modify the destination IP/Port by manipulating the syscall. The exit of the connect syscall is then intercepted in order to capture the returning file descriptor representing the established socket. The file descriptor is duplicated using pidfd getfd, then a SOCKS5 handshake is done. Overall, the project is progressing well and any suggestions are much welcomed. Github Repository <https://github.com/namecoin/heteronculous-horklump> Project Summary <https://www.namecoin.org/2022/11/29/introducing-intern-robert-nganga.html> Thank You, Robert.

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Next Tor Browser Meeting Moved to 2023-01-17
by Richard Pospesel 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

Hi Everyone, The 16th is a US Federal Holiday and therefore an official Tor Project holiday as well. We will therefore move the weekly applications dev meeting to Tuesday the 17th at 1500 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC IRC. best, -Richard

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2023-01-12
by Shelikhoo 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-01-12-15.58.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THIS IS A PUBLIC PAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anti-censorship team meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday, January 19 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 check-in about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at the Tor Project and Tor community. == 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 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&… * Sponsor 96 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24 * Sponsor 139 <-- hackerncoder, irl, joydeep, meskio, emmapeel working on it * https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor139-meeting-pad == Announcements == * Open Collective funding for Snowflake bridge operations is open * https://opencollective.com/censorship-circumvention/projects/snowflake-dail… * First update post: https://opencollective.com/censorship-circumvention/projects/snowflake-dail… == Discussion == * Enable snowflake-02 in Orbot * snowflake-02 (enabled in Tor Browser only) currently gets only about 5% the traffic of snowflake-01 * at this moment: * snowflake-01: 445 MiB/s * snowflake-02: 21 MiB/s * snowflake-01 reaching its CPU limit * discuss with topic with guardian project at next S96 meeting * deofuscation obfs4 issues are public * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/obfs… * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/91 * is the stun.stunprotocol.org situation resolved to everyone's satisfaction, or is more attention required? * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2022-December/0… * removed from default lists https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * it is resolved * (From last week) arti-based obfs4 quick reachability monitor https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/arti/-/issues/717#note_2866528 * feel free to comment on it * snowflake blocking in Russia (maybe TSPU only) by Hello Verify Request (since about 2022-07-20) * https://ntc.party/t/second-snowflake-bridge-available-for-testing/3445/7 * https://ntc.party/t/in-case-snowflake-rendezvous-gets-blocked/1857/9 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… * https://explorer.ooni.org/chart/circumvention?since=2022-07-08&until=2022-0… * Side note: see how correlated the number of daily reports is between CA and RU. Originally dcf included CA on this graph to highlight a potential problem in the OONI torsf test, since Snowflake should not be blocked in Canada. But a more likely explanation may be geolocation errors; i.e., that IPs in Russia are being mistakenly attributed to Canada, and therefore Canda shows an unexpectedly high rate of anomalies. We suspect something similar happened with IR->US in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…. * shelikhoo will look into it == 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. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2022-01-12 (away this week) Last week: - updated default STUN servers in the proxy and client - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - submitted MR for conjure on desktop TB - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re… - worked on debugging domian fronting issues with conjure - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41023 - wrote up an analysis of BridgeDB anti-enumeration methods - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/84 This week: - continue work on conjure client - more work on lox integration Needs help with: dcf: 2023-01-12 Last week: - snowflake CDN bookkeeping https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-co… - experimented with increasing conntrack limits on snowflake-01 and documented how to do it in the installation guide https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - reviewed merge request to abbreviate stun server specifications https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - made a public repo with code to generate snowflake graphs https://gitlab.torproject.org/dcf/snowflake-graphs, used for the graph at https://opencollective.com/censorship-circumvention/projects/snowflake-dail… - restarted snowflake-01 with 4 KCP state machines https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - made a public repo for obfs4 remote testing scripts https://gitlab.torproject.org/dcf/obfs4-checks and made a graph of obfs4 bridge upgrade progress https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/obfs… Next week: - migrate goptlib to gitlab https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/86#note_282… - try Conjure PT development version https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-dev-introducing-a-conjure-pt-for-tor/4429 Help with: meskio: 2023-01-12 Last week: - publish obfs4 deobfuscation bugs - start working on localization support for rdsys (rdsys#11) - review dummy whatsapp bot (rdsys!66) - add microsoft edge installation to snowflake website (snowflake-webext!62) Next week/after holidays: - add localization support to rdsys (rdsys#11) - support bridgescanner (rdsys#143) Shelikhoo: 2023-01-12 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Discussion & Deployment] Rollout of Distributed Snowflake Support - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Research] HTTPT Planning https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… - [Merge Request Done] Update to support chunked upload of probe log(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/connectivity-measurem… - [Merge Request Done] Add Resumable Upload to Log Collector (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/connectivity-measurement/…) - [Merge Request Done] cumulative updates on providing more options: loopback traffic collection, raw log collection, remove obfs4 bridge line input for snowflake (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/connectivity-measurement/…) Next Week: - [Research] WebTunnel planning (Continue) - Fixing the vantage point in Russia - push the chunked upload raw data upload change to vantage points Itchy Onion: 2022-1-12 Last week: - worked on RACE performance issue This week: - Made progress on the RACE performance improvement -- the plugin now is able to reuse snowflake connections to send multiple messages between the same hosts. I'm not entirely convinced the improvements are substantial yet. Will run some tests and see if it can be further improved hackerncoder: 2022-01-12 last week: - figure out what makes ooni-exporter put all reports from a country in either success or failure (I still don't know why. But I got it to work) Next week: - getting ooni-exporter to work with torsf (snowflake) - work on monitoring bridges health cece: 2022-12-22 This week: - working on creating a dummy WhatsApp bot Next week: - My bot is not yet working as expected s still trying to figure that out Help with: - resources

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OONI Monthly Report: December 2022
by Maria Xynou 11 Jan '23

11 Jan '23

Hello, Below I share OONI's status report for December 2022. *# OONI Monthly Report: December 2022* Throughout December 2022, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 79 (1st-4th December 2022) * Sprint 80 (5th-18th December 2022) * Sprint 81 (19th-31st December 2022) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. *## Year in Review: OONI in 2022* We published our annual blog post, "Year in Review: OONI in 2022", which shares: * OONI highlights from 2022 * Highlights from the OONI community (including many of our partners) * Our plans for 2023 You can read this post here: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-in-2022/ *## OONI’s 10th Anniversary* On 5th December 2022, OONI celebrated its 10th anniversary! To mark this milestone, we organized and hosted 2 live-streamed events, published a timeline animation, community video, and blog post. Further details are shared below. *### Live-streamed events* In celebration of OONI’s 10th anniversary, we organized and hosted 2 live-streamed events (https://ooni.org/post/10th-ooniversary-events/) on our YouTube channel: * 10th Ooniversary: OONI Highlights (5th December 2022) * 10th Ooniversary: OONI Community (6th December 2022) As part of the “OONI Highlights” live-streamed event, Arturo (OONI’s founder) shared OONI’s history and highlights from the past 10 years, as well as our plans for the future. This presentation can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4D4gq9TBMg As part of the “OONI Community” live-streamed event, we invited 5 community members who shared how they’ve used OONI tools and data as part of their research and advocacy efforts ( https://ooni.org/post/10th-ooniversary-events/#10th-ooniversary-ooni-commun…) Their presentations can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co_f8KPBIZM Both events included presentations followed by discussion addressing questions shared by participants through the live chat and shared pads. On 5th December 2022, we also hosted an online Distance Disco ( https://distancedisco.nl/dd/ooni-s-10th-birthday-party) to dance with community members in celebration of OONI’s 10th anniversary. *### New animation of OONI highlights* On 5th December 2022, we published an animation that provides a timeline of OONI highlights from the past 10 years. This animation was produced in collaboration with Robotina (https://www.robotina.it/) The animation is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjpfF2kQ9jA *### New OONI Community Video* In celebration of OONI’s 10th Anniversary, we published a new video with OONI community members. You can watch this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrclQ2QZjVo The video features 11 community members discussing how OONI has been useful to their work, and what they would like to see OONI do in the future. You can learn about the featured community members through our blog post: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-community-video/ *### Highlights: 10 Years of OONI* To mark OONI’s 10-year anniversary, we published a blog post where we document the key OONI highlights from the past 10 years, as well as some of our future plans. This blog post is available here: https://ooni.org/post/highlights-10-years-of-ooni/ *## OONI Probe Mobile* We released OONI Probe Android 3.7.3 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.7.3) and OONI Probe iOS 3.73 (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1199566366) with bug fixes and improvements. We worked towards ensuring that OONI Probe Mobile uses the check-in API instead of the test list API ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2390) we fixed broken Android tests ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2386) and we worked towards ensuring that the testing of OONI Run links does not stop if a device is locked ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2361) *## Published a new OONI Run user guide* To enable community members to use the OONI Run (https://run.ooni.io/) platform for custom website testing (and for coordinating censorship measurement campaigns around the world), we created and published a new user guide for OONI Run. Our OONI Run user guide can be accessed here: https://ooni.org/support/ooni-run/ Through the OONI Run user guide, you can learn how to: * Create OONI Run links for testing websites (of your choice) for censorship; * Use OONI Run links with the OONI Probe mobile app; * Share OONI Run links with other OONI Probe mobile app users; * Generate OONI Run widget code. Upon reading this guide, we hope you will feel empowered to share your OONI Run knowledge and skills with others! We also hope this guide helps with coordinating OONI Probe website testing around the world. *## OONI Probe CLI* We released OONI Probe CLI 3.16.6 ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.16.6) and OONI Probe 3.16.7 (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.16.7) These two releases include improvements to the experimental Web Connectivity v0.5 nettest, as well as the following important fixes: * In OONI Probe CLI 3.16.6, we included the reliability fix (developed in November) that makes OONI Probe try all the available test helpers, rather than just the first one in the list; * In OONI Probe CLI 3.16.7, we backported fixes for the WhatsApp and Telegram experiments that stop measuring unencrypted web endpoints to avoid possible false positives (an issue discussed in detail here: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1317) We continued the process of merging ooniprobe (the official CLI client) and miniooni (the experimental CLI client) by introducing a common database abstraction that could be used by both in the following pull request: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/988 *## OONI Probe Desktop* We released OONI Probe Desktop 3.8.3 to include fixes from OONI Probe CLI 3.16.7 https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.8.3 *## Expanding OONI’s testing model to support richer testing input* To improve the quality of OONI measurements (and reduce the risk of false positives), we stopped measuring unencrypted web endpoints for WhatsApp and Telegram (https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1317) We continued our refactoring work to support providing richer testing input ( https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1291, https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1292, https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2362) During December 2022, we focused on cleaning up “probeservices” (the Go package that communicates with the OONI API) to set the stage for implementing richer input. We removed support for deprecated APIs ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2380) we started to sync up the data format with the backend (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/996) and we added support in the backend and in ooniprobe for receiving compressed responses (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2379) The latter change, in particular, is required because adding more testing options to each URL significantly increases the size of the response message. We then annotated code to communicate with the backend with the request and response message types (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1010, https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1011) This change allows us to generate a swagger describing ooniprobe’s view of the API, which we can compare to the one generated by the server, to be sure the two implementations are (and stay) in sync. Regarding richer input, we started sketching out a design document ( https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2381) and a prototype ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1005) implementing this design document. The general idea is to give experiments freedom to call the specific backend API they require for getting their inputs, which removes the need to maintain middleware code that delivers inputs to the experiments. With more input diversity, such a middleware code becomes increasingly the bottleneck to innovation, so we want to experiment with removing it and adding additional functions that experiments can call to implement common functionality instead. We also added support to the Web Connectivity Test Helper (TH) for measuring HTTP/3 hosts (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/985) Support for HTTP/3 in the TH is crucial to start measuring websites using HTTP/3 in the Web Connectivity experiment. Reflecting on our own experience writing experiments in the step-by-step style ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/blob/master/docs/design/dd-003-step-by-st…) as well as by learning from users’ contributions ( https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/989#discussion_r1032544878) we determined that the step-by-step API provides the basic building blocks for writing all the experiments we need, but there is also a need to have more user-friendly and intuitive wrappers on top of it. To this end, we started experimenting with a simple domain specific language for expressing and composing low-level operations that should simplify the writing of experiments (https://github.com/bassosimone/oonidsl/) *## OONI Explorer* We started working towards integrating relevant third-party data into OONI Explorer. Specifically, we worked on third-party data visualizations on country and network pages using the internet outage data from IODA and internet traffic data from Cloudflare. We also continued conducting UX research to improve the OONI Explorer measurement pages ( https://6q8h6s64.optimalworkshop.com/optimalsort/avnrhnv5/sort) We added support for choosing the time granularity on the Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT), beyond day granularity (which has been the only option so far). Users can now also display the data per hour, week and month (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/818) *## Published an OONI Explorer demo* To enable community members to use OONI Explorer (https://explorer.ooni.org/) for investigating internet censorship based on OONI data, we published an OONI Explorer demo on our YouTube channel. The OONI Explorer demo is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rce-xshLac *## OONI backend* In response to a change in the testing of WhatsApp that made our tests fail, we implemented a temporary workaround that restores the functionality of the test (https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/403) We added support for HTTPS to the deb.ooni.org Debian package repository after it was requested by the community to circumvent blocking of the HTTP version. We also moved the service to the new backend host. We enabled gzip support in Nginx to compress responses from the check-in API and other JSON content and created a simple dashboard to monitor the improvement. This makes the responses from the Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) quicker for the browser to download. *## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements* As part of our ongoing effort to automate and improve our characterization of censorship events through the analysis of OONI measurements, we made significant progress on the ooni/data tool (https://github.com/ooni/data) Following internal technical discussions, as well as conversations with members of the OONI community, we implemented a new iteration of the data model used for representing the results of experiments ( https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/19) Moreover, we started the process of evaluating the new analysis engine against the analysis that currently exists and is mostly performed as part of the measurement workflow (https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/21) Some very preliminary findings suggest that it’s quite an important improvement both in terms of accuracy and recall. We also experimented with producing plots that breakdown the means through which blocking is implemented (https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/22) Smaller incremental improvements include: Handling the deduplication of already processed data to support the easier reprocessing of data ( https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/19/commits/eea26f7138b14fc4595d55b432d287… ); Expanding cloud provider detection to reduce DNS false positives ( https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/19/commits/01dc691d695dfc103d604846ad7568… ); Refactoring of the DNS anomaly analysis subsystem ( https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/20) We also started implementing the extraction of the blocking type in the fastpath pipeline. *## Creating a Social Media Censorship Alert System* We continued to work on the development of the Social Media Blocking Event detector. We started running a prototypal version, created a dashboard and a jupyter notebook. We ran the prototype for weeks to review the initial results and improve the algorithm over time. *## Published Test Lists Editor screencast* To enable community members to contribute websites for censorship testing, we created and published a new screencast for our Test Lists Editor ( https://test-lists.ooni.org/) The Test Lists Editor screencast can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2OVHUQEpE Through our Test Lists Editor, you can review and contribute websites for censorship testing by OONI Probe users around the world. *## TikTok blocked in Jordan* On 16th December 2022, Jordan blocked access to TikTok amid fuel protests. We rapidly responded by sharing relevant OONI data, charts, and information about the block on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1603845292343889924 *## Test list updates* Following the blocking of TikTok in Jordan, we added TikTok endpoints to the test list for Jordan (https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1201) Thanks to our URL prioritization system, these newly added URLs were immediately prioritized for testing in Jordan as soon as the pull request was merged (enabling the immediate collection of relevant measurements and supporting rapid response efforts). Throughout December 2022, we also reviewed and merged many other updates to test lists contributed by community members: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed *## Creating a new OONI Outreach Kit* Based on review and feedback, we continued to make improvements to the materials and resources of the upcoming OONI Outreach Kit. Specifically, we made extensive edits and improvements to the set of OONI workshop slides included in the OONI Outreach Kit. *## Updated OONI Partner pages* On our website, we have an “OONI Partners” section which features our partners, their important work, and the specific projects and research reports that we’ve collaborated on (https://ooni.org/partners) We updated many OONI Partner pages to include our latest collaborations: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1328 *## Cloudflare blog post* Cloudflare published a blog post describing how civil society organizations use Cloudflare Radar (https://radar.cloudflare.com/) to track internet shutdowns around the world: https://blog.cloudflare.com/partnering-with-civil-society-to-track-shutdown… This blog post highlights OONI, where we share how Cloudflare Radar has been useful to our work. *## Community use of OONI data### iMAP 2022: Research reports on internet censorship in 8 Asian countries* On 21st December 2022, our long-term partner, Sinar Project, published 8 new research reports on internet censorship in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong (China) in collaboration with their Internet Monitoring and Action Project (iMAP) partners (https://imap.sinarproject.org/) Based on the analysis of OONI data, these research reports investigate internet censorship in Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Their research reports can be found here: https://imap.sinarproject.org/reports/2022 Our iMAP partners launched and presented these 8 research reports through the following live-streamed presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9JsCqXebPI To highlight and help disseminate their important work, we published a blog post which briefly discusses and links to their 8 research reports: https://ooni.org/post/2022-imap-8-research-reports-southeast-asia/ *## Community activities### Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2022* On 1st December 2022, OONI’s Maria presented OONI on the panel “Help! The Kill switch is taking away my limited agency” at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2022 ( https://intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2022-town-hall-54-help-the-kill-swit… ). *### OONI workshop for journalists in Kyrgyzstan* On 20th December 2022, OONI’s Elizaveta facilitated an online OONI workshop for journalists in Kyrgyzstan as part of a training organized by Internews. During this workshop, Elizaveta explained how journalists can use OONI Probe and OONI data to investigate internet censorship. *## Userbase* In December 2022, 57,009,977 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,815 AS networks in 161 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/ ~ OONI team.

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