Hello Tor world,
In June 2018, the OONI team established a new partnership with the Jordan Open Source Association and published two research reports. We also made progress on the new OONI Probe desktop and mobile apps, made improvements to the OONI API, and we came up with a new scheme for an OONI measurement ID. Further information is available below.
# Established a new partnership
We are excited to have established a new partnership with the Jordan Open Source Association!
As part of our partnership, we aim to collaborate on the study of internet censorship in Jordan through the collection and analysis of OONI Probe network measurements.
## Recap of partnerships
Overall, we have established new partnerships with the following 5 organizations over the last months:
1. Paradigm Initiative (Nigeria)
2. The Advocates for Human Rights and Democracy (South Sudan)
3. Karisma Foundation (Colombia)
4. Asociacion por los Derechos Civiles (Argentina)
5. Jordan Open Source Association (Jordan)
# Report on internet censorship in Nigeria
In collaboration with Paradigm Initiative, we published a research report examining internet censorship in Nigeria.
The full report is available here: https://ooni.torproject.org/documents/nigeria-report.pdf
The OONI network measurement findings are summarized here: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/nigeria-internet-censorship/
A summary of the report is also available: https://ooni.torproject.org/documents/nigeria-report-summary.pdf
# Report on the unblocking of websites in Ethiopia
In collaboration with Access Now, we published a research report examining whether and to what extent websites have been unblocked in Ethiopia, following the government's announcement on the unblocking of 264 websites.
Our research report is available here: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ethiopia-unblocking/
## Recap of reports
Over the last months, we have published reports covering censorship events in the following 5 countries: 1. Pakistan: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/how-pakistan-blocked-social-media/
2. Iran: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/2018-iran-protests/ (Part 1) & https://ooni.torproject.org/post/2018-iran-protests-pt2/ (Part 2)
3. Sierra Leone: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/sierra-leone-network-disruptions-2018-elect...
4. Nigeria: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/nigeria-internet-censorship/
5. Ethiopia: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ethiopia-unblocking/
# OONI Probe Desktop
We made a fair amount of progress on the OONI Probe desktop apps, mostly on the command line interface (CLI) front.
See: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/13
# OONI Measurement ID
We came up with a strategy for adding a unique ID to past OONI Probe measurements and how to integrate this into our collector for future measurements.
Up until now OONI measurements were identified by a report_id (which can be shared by a set of measurements in the same report file) and the input. With the newly proposed scheme, it will be possible to share a single identifier to identify a specific measurement.
You can read more about this here: https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/blob/master/docs/ooni-uuid.md
# OONI API
We made some bug fixes to the OONI API and made a new release for it.
See: https://github.com/ooni/api/pull/54 & https://github.com/ooni/api/blob/master/ChangeLog.md#ooni-measurements-104-2...
# Revamping the OONI Probe mobile apps
We internally released the revamped OONI Probe Android app with the first three screens (Dashboard, Test Overview, Test running).
See: https://github.com/lorenzoPrimi/ooniprobe-android/pull/2 https://github.com/lorenzoPrimi/ooniprobe-android/pull/1 https://github.com/lorenzoPrimi/ooniprobe-android/commits/release/2.0.0
# Community use of OONI data
## Blocking of political party site in Pakistan
In the run up to Pakistan's elections, the site of the Awami Workers Party got blocked on 3rd June 2018.
Through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data, Pakistan's Media Matters for Democracy reported on the blocking (and unblocking) of the site: http://digitalrightsmonitor.pk/generalelections2018-amidst-shrinking-online-...
## Blocking of media websites in Venezuela
Two media websites (lapatilla.com and el-nacional.com) were blocked in Venezuela this month.
Our Venezuelan partner, IPYS Venezuela, reported on the blocking of these media sites based on OONI data: https://ipysvenezuela.org/alerta/nueva-forma-de-censura-en-internet-aparece-...
# Community activities
## ENOG 15 / RIPE NCC Regional Meeting
OONI's Leonid attended the ENOG 15 / RIPE NCC Regional Meeting in Moscow, Russia, between 4th-5th June 2018 (https://www.enog.org/enog-15/).
## Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI) 2018
We attended the Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI) in Toronto, Canada, between 13th-15th June 2018 (https://citizenlab.ca/summerinstitute/2018.html).
As part of our participation at the CLSI, we facilitated the following sessions:
1. Making OONI's censorship data more actionable (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRhl3ErFOG5gRNdzVydrGIkpsIJ_C-pu...)
2. Measurements from embedded devices (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRhl3ErFOG5gRNdzVydrGIkpsIJ_C-pu...)
We also interviewed five community members and plan to publish their interviews within the next months (as part of the "OONI Community Interviews" series).
## Community meeting
We held a community meeting on Slack (https://slack.openobservatory.org/) on Monday, 25th June 2018.
As part of our June community meeting, we discussed the following: 1. Sub-categories and tags for test lists 2. OONI Probe Debian packaging
3. Challenges in sharing OONI Run links: Creating OONI-maintained URL shorteners?
## Updated test lists
Based on URLs provided by community members, we updated the following test lists: 1. Cuba: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/357
2. Global: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/353
3. US: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/352
4. Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/358
5. Azerbaijan: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/361
# Userbase
In June 2018, OONI Probe was run 240,541 times from 4,627 different vantage points in 214 countries around the world.
This information can also be found through our stats: https://api.ooni.io/stats
~ The OONI team.