Hi,
About two weeks ago, we have disabled the last remaining build box for
our poor old 32 bit ARM builds (armel and armhf). It seems like no one
noticed, but we have failed to do an announcement then so I figured it
was important to let people know that we do not plan on fixing that
situation right now. Those machines are hard to come by (and maintain
remotely) so we want to focus on the better supported ARM64 ecosystem
going forward.
We do support ARM 64 builds through a virtual machine provided by Linaro
right now (thanks!) and would be happy to expand that capacity. Let us
know if you have any ideas on that.
See this ticket for details:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/32920
A.
--
Antoine Beaupré
torproject.org system administration
Hi everyone!
We have a new job opening for a Browser Developer: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/tor-browser-developer/
The job description is also below in plaintext.
Please help us spread the word! Thank you! :)
Best,
Erin Wyatt
Director of People Operations
ewyatt(a)torproject.org
PGP: 35E7 2A9F 6655 45F9 2CB6 6624 BA0C 9400 F80F 91CE
https://www.torproject.orghttp://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/
———————————————————————————>8
Internet Freedom Nonprofit Seeks Browser Developer
The Tor Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, is seeking an experienced developer to work on Tor Browser.
Tor is for everyone, and we are actively working to build a team that represents people from all over the world - people from diverse ethnic, national, and cultural backgrounds; people from all walks of life. Racial minorities, non-gender-binary people, women, and people from any group that is generally underrepresented in tech are encouraged to apply.
This Browser Developer will be an integral part of a small team that maintains the Tor Browser as well as other Tor applications inside the organization. The team coordinates both synchronously and asynchronously via IRC, email, bug trackers, and some voice meetings. A personal commitment to free and open source software, good communication and documentation skills, and passion for contributing to the greater good are all essential.
This is a full-time, remote position.
Browser Developer
April 19, 2021
The Job:
• Provide code review for new browser modifications, and accept code review from other team members
• Evaluate and audit recent changes in Firefox, and understand how that affects Tor Browser users
• Support maintaining Tor Browser on top of recent versions of Firefox
• Improve Tor Browser's security, privacy, and anonymity properties
• Collaborate with Mozilla and directly improve Firefox
• Simplify and improve Tor Browser's current protections
• Support the continuous integration testing framework and tests
• Collaborate with other teams at the Tor Project, external software projects (e.g. OONI), and research groups.
• Improve Tor Browser's web compatibility
Our main codebases: Tor Browser is the combination of multiple codebases.
Requirements -- Technical Abilities/Experience:
• Advanced skills in writing C/C++, Rust and JavaScript.
• Possess a solid understanding of issues surrounding secure C++ programming and reference counted memory (at least to the level of avoiding issues).
• Be comfortable diving into new, unfamiliar codebases, looking for ways to alter and augment their functionality in specific, goal-oriented ways.
• Be familiar with web technologies and how the web works, especially the same-origin model and web tracking.
• Willingness and ability to justify and document technical decisions for a public, world-wide technical audience.
• Be comfortable working remotely with a geographically distributed team.
• Experience interacting with users and other developers online, including experience being confronted with differing ideas and opinions (not always in a nice manner), while maintaining a high level of professionalism.
• Comfort with transparency: as a non-profit organization that develops open source software, almost everything we do is public, including your name (or at least your business name) and possibly salary information.
Preferred qualifications:
• Familiarity and/or experience with writing add-ons and/or patches for Mozilla Firefox or other web browsers.
• Familiarity with compiling software for the Android platform.
• Familiarity with browser fingerprinting defenses
• Familiarity with Firefox's internal architecture, including its use of multiple processes and sandboxing.
• Be intensely creative yet also ruthlessly pragmatic in your thinking.
• Know enough about networking to be able to visualize what HTTP 1.1 looks like on the wire while encapsulated within Tor's network protocol.
• Open-source experience: contributed significant chunks of code to multiple open-source projects in the past.
• Familiarity with distributed version control systems, including Git.
• Genuinely be excited about Tor and its values!
For a more detailed understanding of the full breadth and depth of the work you'd be doing, have a look at The Design and Implementation of the Tor Browser, especially The Design Requirements section at https://spec.torproject.org/torbrowser-design#DesignRequirements.
Academic degrees are great, but not required if you have the right experience!
How to Apply
To apply, submit a cover letter, your CV/resume (including three professional references), and a link to a code sample or some non-trivial software project you have significantly contributed to. In your cover letter, please include the reason you want to work at the Tor Project.
IMPORTANT: Please email application materials in PDF format to job-browser at torproject dot org with "Browser Developer" in the subject line.
The Tor Project's workforce is smart, committed, and hard working. We currently have a paid and contract staff of around 24 developers and operational support people, plus many thousands of volunteers who contribute to our work. The Tor Project is funded in part by government research and development grants, and in part by individual, foundation, and corporate donations.
Salary for this position depends on experience and there is voluntary opt-in salary transparency for employees and contractors.
The Tor Project has a competitive benefits package, including a generous PTO policy, 16 paid holidays per year (including the week between Christmas and New Year's, when the office is closed), and flexible work schedule. Insurance benefits vary by employment status and country of residence.
The Tor Project, Inc. is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.
Hi everyone!
We have a new job opening for a Junior Systems Administrator! https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/junior-system-administrator/
I’ve also pasted the job description below in plaintext.
Please help us spread the word! Thank you! :)
Best,
Erin Wyatt
Director of People Operations
ewyatt(a)torproject.org
PGP: 35E7 2A9F 6655 45F9 2CB6 6624 BA0C 9400 F80F 91CE
https://www.torproject.orghttp://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/
------------------------------------ >8
Internet Freedom Nonprofit Seeks a Junior Systems Administrator
JUNIOR SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
April 12, 2021
The Tor Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, is seeking a Junior System Administrator to work on the sysadmin team and help with internal websites and tools.
This Junior Systems Administrator 2021will work as part of a small team responsible for managing the torproject.org servers, which, in turn, allow the Tor Project to create the software we know and love. Work is both synchronous and asynchronous, coordinated over email, IRC, and some voice meetings (over Mumble or Big Blue Button). A personal commitment to free and open source software, good communication and documentation skills, and passion for contributing to the greater good are all essential.
This is a full-time, remote position.
Main responsibilities:
• Maintain websites templates and static site generators (Lektor, Hugo, etc.)
• Use HTML and CSS knowledge for any change necessary in the organization's websites
• Support onion services configuration for external organizations
• Junior sysadmin work and support
Required skills:
• Ability to work in a self-directed and independent way
• Comfortable with working remotely, across time zones
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills; ability to train users in applications and operating system fundamentals and to write basic documentation
• Strong skills with most Linux commands/utilities and familiarity with most basic system administration processes; for example, ability to boot/shut down a machine, add and remove user accounts, use backup programs, manage shared resources (e.g., file systems snapshots, RAID arrays), update DNS zonefiles, and install a server
• Familiarity with the principles and practice of system configuration management using modern declarative tools
• Familiarity with Git, "forges" (GitLab, GitHub), and "merge-request" based workflows, experience with ticketing systems like RT or GitLab issues
• Ability to manage an OpenPGP private/public keypair, verify OpenPGP public keys, and manage SSH private keys securely
• Familiarity with the Python or similar programming languages
Required background:
• One to three years of system administration experience
• A degree in computer science or a related field, or equivalent experience
Desirable skills:
• Experience with Lektor
• Experience with Debian system administration and packaging
• Experience with managing large Apache and/or Nginx deployments, Ganeti clusters, and/or Prometheus monitoring servers
• Experience managing users and hosts in LDAP (with e.g. `ldapvi(1)`)
• Experience restoring backups from Bacula
• Familiarity with IPsec tunnel setup
• Ability to write Puppet manifests
• Experience as postmaster of a Postfix site
• Familiarity with Tor's internal services and the network architecture (for example: check.torproject.org, what "bridges" are, the metrics services, what is an "exit relay", etc.)
To apply, submit a cover letter, your CV/resume (including three professional references), and a link to a code sample or some non-trivial software project you have significantly contributed to. In your cover letter, please include the reason you want to work at the Tor Project.
IMPORTANT: Please email application materials in plain text or PDF format, if possible, to job-sysadmin at torproject dot org with “SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR” in the subject line.
Tor is for everyone, and we are actively working to build a team that represents people from all over the world — people from diverse ethnic, national, and cultural backgrounds – people from all walks of life. We encourage applications from BIPOC, non-cis people, women, and from people in any group that is underrepresented in tech.
The Tor Project's workforce is smart, committed, and hard working. We currently have a paid and contract staff of around 24 developers and operational support people, plus many thousands of volunteers who contribute to our work. The Tor Project is funded in part by government research and development grants, and in part by individual, foundation, and corporate donations.
Salary for this position depends on experience and there is voluntary opt-in salary transparency for employees and contractors.
The Tor Project has a competitive benefits package, including a generous PTO policy, 16 paid holidays per year (including the week between Christmas and New Year's, when the office is closed), and flexible work schedule. Insurance benefits vary by employment status and country of residence.
The Tor Project, Inc., is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.
Hi!
We are going to start having meetings on Mondays at 16UTC in
irc.oftc.net #tor-meeting.
Next meeting is on Monday April 12th at 16UTC.
We will be taking notes in the pad
http://kfahv6wfkbezjyg4r6mlhpmieydbebr5vkok5r34ya464gqz6c44bnyd.onion/p/tor…
You are all invited of course.
cheers,
gaba
--
pronouns she/her/they
GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19
Hello,
Throughout March 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints:
* Sprint 34 - Hapi (1 - 14 March 2021)
* Sprint 35 - Octariinae (15 - 28 March 2021)
Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories:
https://github.com/ooni
Highlights are shared in this report below.
## Published report on internet blocks and outages in Myanmar
In collaboration with IODA and MIDO, we published a new research report
which shares network measurement data on the internet blocks and
internet outages in Myanmar, following the military coup.
Our report is available here:
https://ooni.org/post/2021-myanmar-internet-blocks-and-outages/
In the report, we share OONI data on:
* Blocking of social media (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp,
Instagram, Twitter) in Myanmar;
* Blocking of Wikipedia (primarily seen from 20th February 2021 onwards);
* Blocking of circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com);
* Blocking of Justice for Myanmar (www.justiceformyanmar.org): an
activist campaign which aims to pressure businesses and investors around
the world to divest from Myanmar military businesses;
* Blocking of a COVID-19 website (coronavirus.app);
* Ongoing blocking of news media (which started last year), including a
few ethnic media sites.
Through OONI data, we observe the following:
1) Censorship variance across networks: Internet censorship appears to
vary across networks in Myanmar, as we observe different sites being
blocked on different networks (and the blocks are not implemented on all
networks).
2) Variance in censorship techniques:
* IP blocking: In many cases, we observe the IP blocking of websites and
apps across networks in Myanmar.
* DNS based interference: In some cases, ISPs in Myanmar block sites by
means of DNS based interference, returning IP addresses that host block
pages (59.153.90.11, 167.172.4.60) or an address in private IP space
(such as 127.0.0.1 or 172.29.8.1). We were able to automatically confirm
these censorship cases.
3) Non-deterministic censorship: Not all IP blocks appear to be
effective. OONI data shows that it is sometimes possible for connections
to go through (even though IP blocks appear to be in place), which is
likely why we observe inconsistent measurements (in terms of
accessibility and blocking).
The report also shares IODA data (along with Google traffic data &
Oracle Internet Intelligence data) on the nightly internet outages that
Myanmar has been experiencing. The first internet disruption was
observed in the early hours of 1st February 2021 (on the day of the
military coup), followed by a second, higher impact internet outage on
6th February 2021 (which lasted for almost 30 hours). As of 15th
February 2021, Myanmar has been experiencing complete internet outages
every night (between around 1am to 9am local time).
The findings of this study suggest an alarming shift in Myanmar’s
internet censorship landscape. In our 2017 study (which examined
internet censorship in Myanmar based
on the analysis of all OONI measurements collected between 2016-2017),
we barely found any internet censorship in the country. Now, the ongoing
social media blocks and nightly internet outages raise major human
rights concerns, particularly in light of the current political environment.
Our report received media coverage from Deutsche Welle (DW):
* English article:
https://www.dw.com/en/myanmar-military-coup-press-freedom/a-56829376
* German article:
https://www.dw.com/de/myanmars-milit%C3%A4r-macht-massiv-druck-auf-die-pres…
VPNCompare also wrote an article about the report:
https://www.vpncompare.co.uk/myanmar-military-coup-leads-to-censorship-blac…
## OONI Probe Desktop
We released OONI Probe Desktop 3.3.0
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.3.0) which
includes support for regular automated testing on Windows and macOS.
We also implemented the new Signal test in OONI Probe Desktop
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1408) and worked on adding RTL
support in the OONI Probe desktop app
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1087).
### Automated testing on OONI Probe Desktop
The OONI Probe Desktop App now supports automated testing!
Automated testing was added in OONI Probe Desktop 3.3.0 on Windows and
macOS: https://ooni.org/install/desktop
Instead of having to remember to manually run tests, users can now
enable "automated testing" in the settings of their OONI Probe desktop
app (version 3.3.0) and OONI Probe will automatically run tests every
hour in the background (without user intervention). OONI Probe test
results will automatically get published on OONI Explorer (in near
real-time): https://explorer.ooni.org/
With automated testing, OONI Probe users can regularly contribute
censorship measurements (without having to do anything), enhancing the
internet freedom community’s ability to monitor and detect censorship
events around the world.
## OONI Probe Mobile
In March 2021, we released OONI Probe mobile 2.10.0 and 2.10.1 on:
* Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.10.0 &
https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.10.1
* iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.10.0 &
https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.10.1
With these releases, we added support for dark mode, improved the API
calls to the Citizen Lab test lists, removed the collection of app usage
metrics entirely, removed all analytics from F-Droid (i.e. removed the
collection of crash reports), and we made bug fixes and other improvements.
We decided to remove the collection of app usage metrics entirely from
the OONI Probe mobile apps, since we concluded that this information was
not as useful as we originally thought (and we wanted to increase user
privacy). We also decided to remove Firebase analytics and only use
Sentry for the collection of crash reports (when users opt-in to this)
and Countly for sending push notifications (on Android). We reached
these decisions following a careful audit of these tools
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1399), with the goal of ensuring
greater data minimization and only collecting data that is necessary.
We also implemented the new Signal test in OONI Probe Mobile:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/422 &
https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/pull/430
### Progress on automated testing on OONI Probe Mobile
We made significant progress in adding support to the OONI Probe mobile
app for automated testing, as documented through the following pull
request: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/380
Throughout March 2021, we created 2 APKs for automated OONI Probe
testing on Android. We tested these APKs extensively and based on our
testing, we made a series of improvements. Currently, the OONI Probe APK
for automated testing on Android performs all tests automatically every
hour, testing 100 URLs each time. We have configured it to only run
these tests when the user is connected to WiFi and when their mobile
device is charging (though we have also added settings which allow users
to enable and/or disable these options).
We will soon release a beta version for more extensive testing by
community members, in preparation for the upcoming stable release.
## Publication of OONI Probe user guides
We published 2 new user guides for the OONI Probe apps!
1) User Guide: OONI Probe Mobile:
https://ooni.org/support/ooni-probe-mobile
2) User Guide: OONI Probe Desktop:
https://ooni.org/support/ooni-probe-desktop
These guides share step-by-step instructions (with screenshots) on how to:
* Install and run OONI Probe (to measure various forms of internet
censorship)
* Access and share OONI censorship measurement data
* Customize the use of OONI Probe (for example, to test websites of
your choice)
* Configure OONI Probe settings
With our new user guides, we share detailed information that will
hopefully enable many community members to become OONI Probe power
users, and to share their OONI Probe knowledge and skills with others.
## OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI)
We released OONI Probe CLI 3.6.0
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/239) which includes the new
Signal experiment, data quality improvements, exposing a new API to call
the URLs endpoint from mobile devices, end-to-end tests, and other
improvements (as documented here:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.6.0). Details from
this release are also documented through the following ticket:
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1340. We also implemented a fix for
the TRR2 DoH resolver: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1365
We added support for go 1.16 in the OONI Probe CLI
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1367) and we started adding
support for a new experimental test card, which would include the
DNSCheck experiment (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1262). We also
implemented the check-in API in OONI Probe CLI
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1299).
## OONI Probe Engine
We continued to work on a Go-based nettest API for the OONI Probe mobile
app (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1346). We continued to
redesign the probe-services package to add circumvention support
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1355), making OONI Probe more
resilient to censorship. We also continued to redesign the
probe-services package to increase its reliability
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1405).
## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies
In preparation for the release of the new OONI Probe test for the Signal
Private Messenger app, we implemented the test in the OONI Probe mobile
and desktop apps (as discussed previously), and we published a Signal
test description on our website: https://ooni.org/nettest/signal. This
description explains how the OONI Probe test for Signal works, linking
to our test specification
(https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/master/nettests/ts-029-signal.md).
As part of efforts to improve OONI data quality, we tested bootstrapping
Psiphon with a pre-existing cache
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1192) in order to
understand the impact of using a cache directory. We improved upon the
data quality of Web Connectivity measurements by adding support for
exporting all URLGetter fields
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1157). We also fixed a
critical issue in our STUN reachability experiment
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1403).
## OONI Explorer
We made progress on creating multi-dimensional charts for the
Measurement Aggregation Toolkit of OONI Explorer
(https://explorer.ooni.org/experimental/mat). This work is documented
through the following ticket: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/536
We also looked into and evaluated self-hosted crash reporting solutions
for OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1401
A number of developers joined the OONI Slack/IRC channel, expressing
interest in our Google Summer of Code (GSoC) OONI Explorer project
(“Improving OONI Explorer code quality”):
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-explorer-code-quality/. Some
of these developers have already worked on OONI Explorer tickets (see:
https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3AEddges and
https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Amsaaddev)! We
therefore coordinated with prospect GSoC students who are interested in
working on OONI Explorer.
## OONI backend
Throughout March 2021, we worked on the following backend activities:
* Completed the process of reprocessing old measurements in the OONI
fastpath pipeline
* Deployed quic.ooni.org
* Added support to the API for an experimental test group:
https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/484
* Completed an initial experiment which involved correlating domains and
server IP addresses in Web Connectivity measurements
* Worked on investigating duplicate measurements with different
measurement_uid
* Worked on implementing the first login and registration backend prototype
* Continued to look into bintray alternatives
## Data analysis for Cameroonian partner
We analyzed all OONI measurements collected from Cameroon to identify
cases of website blocking. Based on the analysis, we generated and
shared charts (that summarize the findings) with our local partner
(COMPSUDEV), and we shared instructions for further testing.
## Data analysis for researchers in Uganda
Two independent researchers from Uganda are using OONI Probe and OONI
data as part of their work. In support of their research, we analyzed
relevant OONI measurements (collected from Uganda) and provided them
charts (summarizing key findings) that they will use in their research
reports.
## Updated test lists
Throughout March 2021, we contributed updates to the following test lists:
* Global: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/732,
https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/734,
https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/736
* Senegal: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/733
* Myanmar: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/744
We also started a new test list for Togo:
https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/740
## Collaboration with Netalitica on test lists
We continued to collaborate with Netalitica researchers, who did
excellent work updating more Citizen Lab test lists.
Throughout March 2021, we reviewed (and shared feedback on) Netalitica
updates to the Malaysian and Palestinian
(https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/745) test lists.
## Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2021
This year, we have 5 OONI Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects
(https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/) that students can apply to:
1) OONI: Implement Roaming Test Helpers:
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-roaming-test/
2) OONI: Integration And Unit Testing Of OONI Probe Desktop Apps:
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-probe-testing/
3) OONI Probe Network Experiments:
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-probe-experiments/
4) OONI: Measure The Accuracy Of OONI GeoIP Lookup:
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-geoip-accuracy/
5) OONI: Improve OONI Explorer Code Quality:
https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/ooni-explorer-code-quality/
Accepted students will work on an OONI GSoC project (paid by Google)
during the summer of 2021 (between 7th June 2021 to 16th August 2021)
with mentorship from the OONI team.
Information about GSoC is available here:
https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com
Students can apply until 13th April 2021:
https://hub.osc.dial.community/t/gsoc-2021-dial-open-source-center/2134
## Micro-course on Internet censorship
Asuntos del Sur (https://asuntosdelsur.org/) launched Plataforma
Inteligencia de Riesgos
(https://riesgosdigitales.academiainnovacionpolitica.org/), an online
platform that provides micro-courses on digital security and digital
rights related topics.
This platform features a micro-course on internet censorship, which we
had the opportunity to contribute:
https://riesgosdigitales.academiainnovacionpolitica.org/cursos/censura-e-in…
For the micro-course on Internet censorship, we created 3 short videos on:
1) What is Internet censorship?
2) The Problem of Internet censorship
3) Detecting Internet censorship with OONI Probe
The micro-course also includes the slides from each video presentation,
as well as relevant resources for further reading.
All of the above are available through the “Curriculum” section of this
page:
https://riesgosdigitales.academiainnovacionpolitica.org/cursos/censura-e-in…
As these micro-courses are primarily geared towards civil society groups
in Latin America, the materials include Spanish translations.
We are grateful to Asuntos del Sur for offering us the opportunity to
contribute to this project!
## Community use of OONI data
### Lebanon blocking currency exchange rate sites
SMEX published an article on the blocking of currency exchange rate
websites in Lebanon:
https://smex.org/internet-censorship-in-lebanon-the-case-of-currency-exchan…
In their article, SMEX shared an OONI Run link for the OONI Probe
testing of specific currency exchange rate websites, and a link to OONI
measurements collected from Lebanon. They also shared their OONI Probe
findings (from the testing of currency exchange rate sites in Lebanon)
on social media: https://twitter.com/alisibai/status/1369943574054375424
## Community activities
### DigitalReach event
On 17th March 2021, OONI’s Simone participated as a speaker on
DigitalReach’s webinar, “From Beijing with Love: The Internet Firewall
in Southeast Asia”. This online event was hosted for civil society
groups in Southeast Asia, and information about the event is available
here:
https://digitalreach.asia/event/from-beijing-with-love-the-internet-firewal…
As part of his participation, Simone presented OONI’s methodologies and
explained how civil society groups in Southeast Asia can use OONI Probe
and OONI data to investigate internet censorship. He also discussed some
of OONI’s recent censorship findings from Myanmar, as well as how
communities in Cambodia and China can participate in censorship
measurement research.
### MozFest 2021
On 17th March 2021, OONI’s Arturo and Sarath facilitated a workshop at
MozFest 2021, during which they demoed OONI Explorer and explained how
human rights defenders can use the platform to investigate internet
censorship around the world.
Information about our MozFest session (“Exploring Internet censorship
through OONI data”) is available here:
https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/FPRYTV-1
### OONI Community Meeting
On 30th March 2021, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our
Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/), during which we discussed the
following topics:
1. Automated testing on OONI Probe Desktop and OONI GSoC projects.
2. Updates regarding the web platform for contributing to the Citizen
Lab test lists.
3. We know that OONI Probe tests a sample of the URLs included in a
given country list. If I run in parallel network tests on both Desktop
and Mobile (mobile connected to wifi), will the apps sample the test
list in the same way? Is there a way to make the probe go through the
entire test list instead of testing a random sample of URLs?
## Userbase
In March 2021, 7,960,987 OONI Probe measurements were collected from
5,408 networks in 204 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.
--
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
Hello,
Apologies for sharing this late.
Throughout February 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints:
* Sprint 32 - Tursiop truncatus (1 - 14 February 2021)
* Sprint 33 - Actinia Equina (15 - 28 February 2021)
Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories:
https://github.com/ooni
Highlights are shared in this report below.
## New OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI) for Linux and macOS
We released a new OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI) for Linux and
macOS!
OONI Probe can be installed on the command line on:
* Debian/Ubuntu: https://ooni.org/install/cli/ubuntu-debian
* macOS: https://ooni.org/install/cli/macos
Upon installation, OONI Probe will run all tests *automatically* every
day, enabling the regular contribution of measurements (without user
intervention).
Given that all OONI Probe measurements are openly published in near
real-time (https://ooni.org/data/), this will enable the internet
freedom community to better investigate internet censorship.
As we are in the process of discontinuing the python legacy ooniprobe
version (https://github.com/ooni/probe-legacy), we encourage legacy
ooniprobe users to switch over to the new OONI Probe CLI:
https://ooni.org/install/cli
Similarly to the legacy version, the new OONI Probe CLI runs all tests
automatically in the background every day and it will also receive
important future updates (such as new tests,
code improvements, etc.).
## OONI Probe Mobile
In February 2021, we released OONI Probe mobile 2.9.2 and 2.9.3 on:
* Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.2 &
https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.3
* iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.2 &
https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.3
With these releases, we added crash reporting tools (but removed Countly
for crash reports on F-Droid), fixed bugs, and made improvements to the
app. We also added dark mode support to OONI Probe on iOS
(https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/925), and we added wrappers for
test list URLs (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1331).
We also created a proof of concept for a Go API that runs Web
Connectivity measurements (and other tests) on mobile devices. This work
is documented through the following ticket:
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1346
## OONI Probe Desktop
In February 2021, we released OONI Probe Desktop 3.2.2
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.2.2) and 3.2.3
(https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.2.3).
With these new releases, we:
* Implemented a new Dashboard screen (with detailed screens for each
test group): https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1274
* Added support for running all OONI Probe tests with the click of a
single button
* Added the “Choose websites” button inside the Websites card, enabling
users to test websites of their choice
* Added support for the new OONI Probe RiseupVPN test
* Added a setting for limiting the test duration of the Web Connectivity
test (default run time set to 90 seconds)
* Removed the setting for specifying the number of websites tested in
each run
* Removed the setting which enabled users to share their IP address
With these latest releases, we made significant progress towards
achieving feature parity between the OONI Probe mobile and desktop apps,
as the OONI Probe desktop app now has the same design/layout and many of
the same features as the OONI Probe mobile app.
We also added support for automated OONI Probe testing on Windows and
macOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/pull/198. As part of this,
we added the ability support for scheduling ooniprobe as a task on
Windows: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1350.
## OONI Probe for Raspberry Pi
We worked on adding support for creating armv7 and arm64 builds of OONI
Probe CLI in our continuous integration (CI) platform. Through these
builds, we will be able to create Debian packages that can run on
Raspberry Pi computers.
Progress on this front is documented through the following pull requests:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/199https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1334https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/807
## OONI Probe Engine
We merged the probe-engine and probe-cli codebases to make the build
process smoother and make maintenance easier in the long run. This work
is documented through the following ticket:
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1335
We also improved the data quality of measurements by addressing a bug,
as documented in this ticket:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/1191. We also made progress
on adding circumvention support to the OONI Probe apps.
## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies
As part of our ongoing efforts to expand OONI Probe measurement
methodologies, we:
* Worked on implementing a new OONI Probe test for the Signal Private
Messenger app: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/278
* Updated the Telegram endpoints (used in the OONI Probe Telegram test)
to new IPs: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/232
* Investigated WireGuard blocking in the UAE and discussed the
implementation of a relevant test
* Carried out research on measuring QUIC blocking in Iran and Uganda
* Carried out research on alternative TLS stacks
## OONI Explorer
We created a UI for presenting blocked websites in the country pages of
OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/289
We aim to display the aggregates for tested websites within the selected
time period and we will expose functionality that will enable users to
filter websites based on “confirmed blocked” or “anomalous” measurement
values. When the user clicks on a row, we may display a chart of
measurements for that website over time. We also aim to add links to the
website-centric charts that will display metrics about that particular
URL around the world.
We made SEO improvements to OONI Explorer. We improved the meta tags in
the measurement and country pages to expose more useful information. The
title tags of the pages were also updated to contain more relevant
information about the page in question.
See:
https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/547https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/202https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/550
## OONI backend
Throughout February 2021, we worked on the following backend activities:
* Implemented the processing of minicans from S3 in the OONI fastpath
pipeline
* Added YAML support in the OONI fastpath pipeline
* Worked on reprocessing old data in the OONI fastpath pipeline
* Looked into alternatives for bintray
* Looked into duckdb for the counters aggregation
* Looked into deploying new, dynamic “test helpers” on cloud services
* Looked into tracking and scoring measurements using stateful data
around DNS, SSL certificates and integration with our event detector
* Carried out an initial experiment with correlating domains and server
IP addresses in Web Connectivity measurements
* Added nspawn and Docker-based runners in the API
* Refactored the probe-services codebase to increase its reliability:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/755
## Created mockups for URL submission web platform
To enable community contributions to the Citizen Lab test lists
(https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists), we are creating a web
platform that will enable community members to add, edit, and remove
URLs (included in the Citizen Lab test lists), without using GitHub.
In February 2021, we created some initial mockups, outlining what the
web platform would look like and how community members would contribute
to the Citizen Lab test lists. These mockups are available here:
https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/787#issuecomment-779231391
We subsequently shared the mockups with community members (particularly
Netalitica) in order to collect their feedback in the early stages of
design and development. We also opened a ticket, where community members
can share their feedback: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/810
## Updated OONI Data Policy
We edited the OONI Data Policy to reflect changes with respect to our
use of analytics (primarily used for crash reports). On 12th February
2021, we published the updated version of the OONI Data Policy:
https://ooni.org/about/data-policy
## Data analysis for Azerbaijan Internet Watch
In support of our partner, Azerbaijan Internet Watch, we analyzed OONI
measurements collected from Azerbaijan between December 2020 to February
2021.
We documented the findings of our analysis in a report (including
relevant charts), which Azerbaijan Internet Watch published here:
https://www.az-netwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-Azerbaijan-I…
Azerbaijan Internet Watch also published a blog post, summarizing the
key findings from this report:
https://www.az-netwatch.org/news/ooni-measurements-indicate-censorship-rema…
## OONI training
Between 9th-11th February 2021, we organized and facilitated a 3-day
OONI training for our partners: the Software Freedom Law Centre of India
(SFLC.in).
The goal of this training was to familiarize SFLC.in staff with OONI’s
censorship measurement tools, dataset, and terminologies to enable
their use as part of research and advocacy in India. We also facilitated
this training with the goal of collecting feedback from SFLC.in on how
to improve our methods to better serve community needs.
In preparation for the training, we collected feedback from SFLC.in on
how to structure the training to best meet their needs, we prepared a
relevant agenda, created slides for each training session, and we
created a document which lists relevant resources for further reading.
The training consisted of the following 6 sessions:
1. Introduction to Network Measurement & Internet Censorship
2. Using the OONI Probe Mobile App
3. Using OONI Probe on GNU/Linux
4. Using OONI Run to coordinate censorship testing in your community
5. Using OONI Explorer
6. Interpreting and understanding OONI data
We demoed all OONI tools, and walked participants through each setting
with the goal of enabling them to become power users. This included
hands-on exercises, as well as practice on coordinating censorship
measurement (based on real-world scenarios). The sessions also included
theoretical components with the aim of introducing participants to
technical terms and concepts used by OONI and required for interpreting
and understanding OONI data.
At the end of the training, we shared a short survey with SFLC.in to
collect their feedback and learn how we can improve future training.
## Ford Foundation Financial Innovation & Resilience Training
Between 16th-18th February 2021, we participated in the Ford
Foundation’s 3-day intensive Financial Innovation & Resilience training
program.
We were offered this great opportunity because we are a grantee of the
Ford Foundation, who support OONI’s community-related work. The
knowledge and skills gained through this training program have helped us
rethink and improve OONI’s fundraising strategies.
## Community activities
### NDSS DNS Privacy Workshop 2021
On 21st February 2021, OONI’s Simone presented our academic paper,
“Measuring DoT/DoH Blocking Using OONI Probe: a Preliminary Study”, at
the 2021 DNS Privacy Workshop of the NDSS Symposium. Information about
the event is available here:
https://dnsprivacy.org/wiki/display/DNSPWS/2021%3A+NDSS+DNS+Privacy+Workshop
We designed DNSCheck, an active network experiment to detect the
blocking of DoT/DoH services. We implemented DNSCheck into OONI Probe,
which we ran in Kazakhstan (AS48716), Iran (AS197207), and China
(AS45090) with the help of volunteer OONI Probe users. Our paper
presents preliminary results from measurements, having tested 123
DoT/DoH services, corresponding to 461 TCP/QUIC endpoints.
We found endpoints to fail or succeed consistently. On AS197207 (Iran),
50% of the DoT endpoints seem blocked. Otherwise, we found that more
than 80% of the tested endpoints were always reachable. The most
frequently blocked services are Cloudflare’s and Google’s. In most
cases, attempting to reach blocked endpoints failed with a timeout. We
observed timeouts connecting, during, and after the TLS handshake. TLS
blocking depends on either the SNI or the destination endpoint.
Our paper has been published by the NDSS Symposium here:
https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/dnspriv21-02-paper.pdf
Information about Simone’s presentation (including the slides he used)
is available here:
https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/auto-draft-123/
We are working towards shipping DNSCheck as part of the OONI Probe apps.
### OutRight Action International webinar
On 24th February 2021, OONI’s Maria participated in OutRight Action
International’s webinar titled “Censored: How LGBTIQ People And
Activists Are Threatened By - And Surviving In - Restrictive And
Repressive Digital Environments”.
As part of her participation in this webinar, Maria presented OONI’s
work and discussed how OONI has been collaborating with OutRight Action
International (https://outrightinternational.org/) and the Citizen Lab
(https://citizenlab.ca/) on investigating the blocking of LGBTIQ
websites around the world. This webinar included a presentation of our
research findings, and we plan to co-publish a research report soon.
### OONI Community Meeting
On 23rd February 2021, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on
our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/), during which we discussed
the following topics:
1. New OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI).
2. Can it happen that OONI Probe will test URLs that are not on the
Citizen Lab test list for a given country during a standard test in that
country? In a single run, does the probe test all URLs from a given list
or a sample of them? What variables determine the size of the sample? Is
it possible to use the probe remotely and collect data similar in
quality to that when using the probe locally?
3. Adding circumvention support to OONI Probe.
4. Developing a new OONI Probe Signal experiment.
5. OONI paper on measuring DoT/DoH blocking at the 2021 DNS Privacy
Workshop of the NDSS Symposium
(https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/auto-draft-123/) and making
this test (DNSCheck) available on OONI Probe.
## Userbase
In February 2021, 7,386,719 OONI Probe measurements were collected from
5,606 networks in 201 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.
--
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