[tor-reports] OONI team progress report for August 2016

[Arturo Filastò]

OONI August 2016 Monthly Report
===============================

The OONI team has made a lot of progress during the month of August.

We implemented an informed consent procedure inside of our web based UI, added
support for giving users information about why blocking is happening and how
they can circumvent it, created a Raspberry Pi image with Graphical User
Interface (GUI) support and did some research for the next iteration of the
data processing pipeline.

We also published an article, in collaboration with our CIPIT partner from
Strathmore University, on what appears to have been an internet shutdown in
Ethiopia during its ongoing wave of protests.

Below we provide more information about our activities in August.

Implementing informed consent inside of the GUI
-----------------------------------------------

The new ooniprobe GUI now features an informed consent procedure that
automatically appears when users first install the application. This procedure
informs users of the risks associated to running ooniprobe and requires them to
answer a set of multiple choize quiz questions correctly (thus demonstrating
their knowledge of what ooniprobe does and what the associated risks are) as a
prerequisite to using the software. As part of this informed consent procedure,
we also provide users with various choices through the configuration settings.
Specifically, users can choose which types of data OONI can collect (e.g. IP
address, ASN, etc.), how their measurements will be sent to OONI's measurement
data collector (via Tor, HTTPS collectors, or cloud-fronting), and whether
their measurements will be published by default on OONI Explorer or not.

Screenshots for this can be found here:
https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-spec/issues/71#issuecomment-237851167

In preparation for the implementation of the informed consent procedure of the
GUI, we updated our relevant documentation and drafted quiz questions
(https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-spec/pull/72).

Raspberry Pi image for ooniprobe with GUI support
-------------------------------------------------

We now have a new Raspberry Pi image for ooniprobe that also includes support
for running tests from a web based GUI.

This image enables users to connect to their Raspberry Pi from their local
network, access the web based interface to view the measurements they have
collected, and configure their Raspberry Pi based on the specific tests that
they want to run. The Complete list of improvements and new features can be
found here:
https://github.com/TheTorProject/lepidopter/blob/master/ChangeLog.md#lepidopter-v030-beta-2016-09-14

We have begun doing testing of this new image with users and will soon
make an official announcement of the release:
https://github.com/TheTorProject/lepidopter/releases/tag/v0.3.1-beta

Research for the next iteration of the data pipeline
----------------------------------------------------

We have written a document explaining the current architecture of our data
processing pipeline as a starting point for designing the new version of the
data processing pipeline:
https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-pipeline/blob/master/docs/architecture.md

Based on this we have written up the design goals of the next iteration of it
and identified some possible ways and technological solutions to achieve them:
https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-pipeline/blob/master/docs/pipeline-16.10.md

Diagnostics for blocking
------------------------

The web user interface for ooniprobe now will show a detailed explaination of
why the blocking is happening on a given site and suggest some possible steps
that the user can take in order to circumvent the blocking in place.

Publications
------------

We collaborated with Strathmore University's Centre for Intellectual Property
and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) on the publication of an article
examining a possible internet shutdown in Ethiopia during the recent wave of
ongoing protests. This article was published by both OONI and the CIPIT, and
was cross-posted by a media organization (Quartz). The relevant links can be
found below:

OONI: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ethiopia-internet-shutdown-amidst-recent-protests/

CIPIT: http://blog.cipit.org/2016/08/10/ethiopia-internet-shutdown-amidst-recent-protests/

Quartz: http://qz.com/757824/how-the-ethiopia-protests-were-stifled-by-a-coordinated-internet-shutdown/

Other:
------

We coordinated on the deployment of probes in new partner countries, we carried
out research and started writing our report on network interference in Zambia
(which is to be published in September).

Happy testing!

~ The OONI team
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