[tor-project] OONI Monthly Report: March 2018

Thu Apr 5 16:45:20 UTC 2018

Hello,*
*

The OONI team made steady progress in March.

We published a technical report explaining our new methodology for
investigating internet blackouts, and we created a working prototype of
the OONI Probe desktop app for macOS. We also released the first iOS
testflight and continued to make progress in revamping our mobile apps.

# Internet blackouts methodology
==================================

We are experimenting with the creation of a new methodology that will be
included in future OONI Probe mobile app releases, enabling community
members to participate in internet blackout investigations.

We published a technical report explaining how we are going to approach
developing a methodology for investigating internet blackouts. This
report is
availablehere: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/investigating-internet-blackouts/Investigating-Internet-Blackouts-Methodology-2018-03.pdf

We also published a blog announcing the report and explaining why we're
interested in developing this
methodology: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/investigating-internet-blackouts/

Our strategy is going to involve using OONI Probe mobile deployments to
gather rich network telemetry documenting when, where and how an
internet blackout is happening by running network measurements from the
edge of the network.

# OONI Probe Desktop apps
==============================

We made a lot of progress on the OONI Probe desktop apps. We now have a
working prototype of OONI Probe Desktop on macOS. This uses the
following software components that we developed:

* Measurement Kit Golang
bindings: https://github.com/measurement-kit/go-measurement-kit
* OONI Probe golang CLI: https://github.com/openobservatory/gooni
* OONI Probe Desktop electron
app: https://github.com/openobservatory/ooniprobe-desktop

Since this is just a prototype, we will not be publishing a .app (or
.dmg) at this stage. If you are interested in hacking on it, you can
follow the instructions inside of the ooniprobe-desktop Readme. Please
be aware of the fact that it's still in its early stages of development.
When the app will be out, you will likely have to do some cleanup (i.e.
deleting the ~/.ooni directory).

# Progress on revamping the OONI Probe mobile apps
=======================================================

As part of our work on revamping the OONI Probe mobile apps, we re-wrote
all of the copy and continued to make improvements to the design and UI.
We also released the first iOS testflight including the following features:

* Ability to run tests
* Ability to re-run failed tests
* Ability to filter test results
* Basic test result screen

# Updated test lists
========================

We carried out research
(https://ooni.torproject.org/get-involved/contribute-test-lists/#test-list-research)
<https://ooni.torproject.org/get-involved/contribute-test-lists/#test-list-research%29> to
identify more URLs to test for censorship in Sierra Leone. Based on this
research, we updated the Sierra Leone test
list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/320

We also updated the following test lists based on URLs provided by
community members:

*
Azerbaijan: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/316 & https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/311 

* Russia & Ukraine: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/310 

# Community use of OONI data
================================

## OONI data cited in research reports
=========================================

* Article19 report ("Iran: Government throttling of Telegram after
lifting
block"): https://www.article19.org/resources/iran-government-throttling-telegram-went-beyond-protests/

* Citizen Lab report ("Bad Traffic: Sandvine's PacketLogic Devices Used
to Deploy Government Spyware in Turkey and Redirect Egyptian Users to
Affiliate
Ads?"): https://citizenlab.ca/2018/03/bad-traffic-sandvines-packetlogic-devices-deploy-government-spyware-turkey-syria/

## OONI data used as part of Pakistan court case
===================================================

For the first time (to our knowledge), OONI data was used as evidence of
internet censorship in a court case.

Last November, we reported on the blocking of news outlets, social media
sites and IM apps amidst protests in Pakistan
(https://ooni.torproject.org/post/how-pakistan-blocked-social-media/)
<https://ooni.torproject.org/post/how-pakistan-blocked-social-media/%29>. 

Our report (and the OONI data it shares) was referenced in a recent
court case in Pakistan that challenges the legality of the social media
censorship events from last November. As an outcome, the Islamabad High
Court has directed the government to provide a legal justification for
the censorship events, and to submit written replies in response to the
petition of local human rights advocates. More information about this
case is available here:
http://digitalrightsmonitor.pk/islamabad-high-court-takes-up-petition-filed-by-rights-activists-challenging-the-legality-of-social-media-takedown-during-faizabad-dharna-issues-notices-to-pta-and-the-federal-government/

# Community activities
========================

## NullCon
============

We traveled to India to present OONI at NullCon on 2nd March 2018.
Information about our talk is available
here: https://nullcon.net/website/goa-2018/speakers/leonid-evdokimov.php 

## Internet Freedom Festival (IFF)
========================================

This year OONI was an IFF partner. As part of our participation at the
event, we helped organize the social evening on 7th March 2018
(https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/782)
<https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/782%29> and
we hosted an OONI Partners Meetup (on 6th March 2018). During the OONI
Partners Meetup, we facilitated a session explaining how to use OONI
Explorer and interpret its data.

We also (co-)facilitated and participated in the following:

* Which questions would you like internet censorship data to answer?
(https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/479)
<https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/479%29>

* Internet-based information controls and elections
(https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/27)
<https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/27%29>

* Tool Showcase: OONI presentation
(https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/721)
<https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/721%29>

* Localization Sprint: Engaging the translator community with OONI Probe
(https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/640)
<https://platform.internetfreedomfestival.org/en/IFF2018/public/schedule/custom/640%29>

## Tor Meeting
==================

We attended the Tor meeting which was held in Rome between 11th - 15th
March 2018. As part of the meeting, we held an internal team meeting
where we worked on our roadmap for the next 6 months. We also
facilitated the following sessions:

* Building communities to measure & respond to global censorship events
(discussion of challenges & brainstorming on strategies)

* OONI Tor vanilla + Tor launcher one click solve all censorship problems!!

* OONI Internet blackout methodology

* OONI Censorship Alert System

* OONI data analysis  

More information about the latest Tor meeting and its sessions is
available
here: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2018Rome/WorkingSessions 

## Community meeting
========================

We hosted the OONI community meeting on 27th March 2018. As part of the
meeting, we discussed the following:

1. Standard form to add URLs for testing

2. Which features would you like to see in the OONI Probe mobile apps?

3. Using OONI Run

4. Using Discourse as a long-term replacement for mailing lists? Would
it serve community neeeds better? 

# Userbase
============

In March 2018 OONI Probe was run 304k times from 5,091 different vantage
points across 211 countries around the world.

This information can also be found through our stats
here: https://api.ooni.io/stats

~ The OONI team.

-- 
Maria Xynou
Research and Partnerships Coordinator
Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)
https://ooni.torproject.org/
PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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