[tor-project] OONI Monthly Report: July 2024

[Maria Xynou]

Hello,

This email shares OONI's monthly report for July 2024.

*# OONI Monthly Report: July 2024*

Throughout July 2024, the OONI team’s work can be tracked through the
various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni

Highlights are shared in this report below.

*## New partnership with Indonesia’s Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression
Network (SAFEnet)*

In July 2024, we established a new partnership with Indonesia’s Southeast
Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet): https://safenet.or.id/

We published a page to feature SAFEnet’s work on our Partner pages:
https://ooni.org/partners/safenet/

Through our partnership with SAFEnet, we aim to collaborate on measuring
internet censorship in Indonesia.

*## Publication of OONI Partner Gathering 2024 Report*

We published a report on the OONI Partner Gathering 2024: a 2-day event
hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which brought our partners from Asia and
the Middle East together to exchange skills and knowledge on internet
censorship research.

Read the report here:
https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/

In May 2024, we hosted the OONI Partner Gathering with the goal of
strengthening regional and global collaborations on censorship measurement
research and advocacy.

The event included 45 individuals from 30 countries. Specifically, the
participants included OONI partners from Southeast Asia, South Asia, East
Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, some OONI partners who work
internationally, as well as the OONI team.

Why Malaysia? We developed a script which identified Malaysia as a
visa-friendly location for our participants. We also loved the fact that
this data finding coincided with the base of our long-term partner, Sinar
Project!

Based on partner feedback which shaped the agenda, the OONI Partner
Gathering included a diverse set of 25 censorship-related sessions --
ranging from advocacy and litigation to research and data analysis.

View the detailed Agenda here:
https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Partner-Gathering-Agenda.pdf

As part of the event, we had the opportunity to exchange experiences,
skills and knowledge, to improve our understanding of local challenges and
community needs, and to collect invaluable feedback. We have documented the
partner feedback here:
https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/#partner-feedback

We expect such feedback to inform the improvement of OONI tools!

As an outcome of the OONI Partner Gathering, we also expect to see
increased use of OONI tools & data in support of research and advocacy over
the next years! We share more details on the outcomes of the event here:
https://ooni.org/post/2024-ooni-partner-gathering-report/#outcomes

Huge thanks to our partners for their invaluable feedback and
participation! You made the event an unforgettable experience for us all.
Warm thanks to the Ford Foundation and Luminate for supporting the OONI
Partner Gathering 2024 and making this event possible!

We aim to host additional OONI Partner Gathering events for our partners in
Africa and Latin America over the next few years.



*## Published new reports on the OONI Censorship Findings page### Report on
the blocking of Al Jazeera in Israel*

On 4th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of Al Jazeera in
Israel:
https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/62771144901

This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the
measurement findings.

*### Report on the blocking of Facebook in Bangladesh*

On 18th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of Facebook in
Bangladesh amid student protests:
https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/45013413801

This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the
measurement findings.

*### Report on the blocking of DuckDuckGo in Indonesia*

On 30th July 2024, we published a report on the blocking of the DuckDuckGo
search engine in Indonesia:
https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/282511010901

This report shares relevant OONI data and an interpretation of the
measurement findings.

*## Release of the OONI Test Lists Editor in 9 languages*

In July 2024, we released our Test Lists Editor (
https://test-lists.ooni.org/) in 9 new languages: Arabic, Burmese, French,
German, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

By adding such localization support to the Test Lists Editor, many more
community members around the world can now more easily contribute to
websites for censorship testing. We thank the Localization Lab community (
https://www.localizationlab.org/) for the translations!

*## OONI Probe Mobile*

Building on our proof of concept that we worked on in previous months, we
took the next step in our multi-platform project. The goal of this is to
unify how we build our applications across mobile and desktop to make it
more efficient for us to build and maintain them. We will start with
focusing on our Android and iOS applications first. You can see our
repository for this work here:
https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/issues

The specific tasks we started include:
* Building up a project backlog;
* Working on tooling and instrumentation set up (
https://github.com/ooni/probe-multiplatform/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed+);
* Iterating on PoC to finalize approaches for specific features (
https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1535).

We also fixed a crash reported by the community
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2750

*## OONI Run*

As part of our work on creating the next generation version of OONI Run
(“OONI Run v2”), we continued our efforts with QA testing for the Android
version of the new OONI Probe app that will include both an improved UI and
support for new OONI Run links.  We addressed several bugs and UI
improvements: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2756

We also took steps to ensure that OONI Run v2 links would also work on iOS,
since we are prioritizing releasing OONI Run v2 on Android first:
https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/182

In preparation for the upcoming launch of OONI Run v2, we edited the copy
in the strings for the OONI Run v2 web interface, as well as the copy in
the new strings for OONI Probe Mobile. We also tested OONI Run v2
extensively.

*## OONI Design System*

We wrapped up the changes required to migrate from Styled System to
TailwindCSS. The changes included removing a lot of redundant components
and replacing them with utility classes instead, and replacing old styles
with tailwind utility classes for the remaining components:
https://github.com/ooni/design-system/pull/175

*## OONI Explorer*

We fully integrated the updated ooni-components (design system
implementation), we fully removed redundant components (replaced with
TailwindCSS utility classes), and we replaced Styled Components with
TailwindCSS styling: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/947

*## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI
measurements*

In July 2024, OONI’s Arturo visited the Oxford Internet Institute – with
whom we have a research collaboration (https://ooni.org/partners/glitch/) –
 to exchange knowledge and ideas with researchers on advancing OONI’s data
analysis techniques. This led to exploring some other approaches in terms
of analyzing OONI data through Bayesian network based techniques (
https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/84), and we worked on these techniques
throughout August 2024.

We also made progress on getting the OONI data pipeline ready for a
production deployment. Specifically, we:
* Added support for running the temporal workflows in temporal cloud:
https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/78
* Fixed a bug related to parsing the new network_events data format, which
was affecting our ability to process web_connectivity 0.5 and tor tests:
https://github.com/ooni/data/issues/80
* Implemented several other code quality improvements:
https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/79

*## OONI Backend*

We worked on porting the OONI Findings API to our new pattern, as well as
migrating it to Postgresql. Additionally, we got started on porting the
Measurements API to the new pattern:
https://github.com/ooni/backend/pull/862
https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/814

We worked on setting up integration tests for a framework to allow us to
A/B test our improved APIs more effectively (
https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/856). We finalized our CloudHSM set
up for managing certificates related to our desktop application (
https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/55). We also shut down unneeded
droplets we weren’t using on DigitalOcean (
https://github.com/ooni/devops/issues/64).

*## Hiring process for OONI Junior Backend Developer job opening*

Throughout July 2024, we reviewed applications submitted for our OONI
Junior Backend Developer job opening (
https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/). As part of
this process, we tracked applications, followed up with applicants, and
interviewed shortlisted candidates.

*## Research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan*

Based on the analysis of OONI measurements (
https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/846), we worked on writing a
research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan. We worked on this
research report in collaboration with our partner, Internet Freedom
Kazakhstan (https://ooni.org/partners/ifkz). Throughout July 2024, we
completed the necessary research and writing of all sections of the
research report. We aim to publish this research report in September 2024.
## Published designed PDFs for research reports on internet censorship in
Russia and Iran

Thanks to support from the Open Technology Fund (OTF) User Experience &
Discovery Lab (UXD Lab), Ura Design (https://ura.design/) created designed
PDFs for two of our research reports:

Technical multi-stakeholder report on Internet shutdowns: The case of Iran
amid autumn 2022 protests:
https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Iran-multi-stakeholder-report.pdf
New blocks emerge in Russia amid war in Ukraine: An OONI network
measurement analysis:
https://ooni.org/documents/OONI-Report-New-blocks-emerge-in-Russia-amid-war-in-Ukraine.pdf


By designing PDF copies of the above 2 research reports, Ura Design helped
ease the accessibility of the findings and support their dissemination and
long-term impact. We therefore thank Ura Design and the OTF for these
designs!

*## Community use of OONI data*

*### FOCI 2024 paper on automated DNS tampering detection using machine
learning*

A FOCI 2024 paper was published which applies supervised and unsupervised
models to recent global DNS measurement data collected by OONI.

This paper is available here:
https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0008.pdf

*### Other OONI citations in FOCI 2024 papers*

OONI was also cited in the following FOCI 2024 papers:
https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0007.pdf
https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0006.pdf
https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0012.pdf

*### Tehran E-Commerce Association Report*

In July 2024, the Tehran E-Commerce Association published a report on the
“Quality of Internet in Iran”, which makes use of OONI data.

Their report is available here:
https://etchamber.ir/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Internet-Quality-Report-v3.9.3.pdf

*### News article by Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo on the Facebook block*

Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo media outlet published a news article on the
blocking of Facebook in Bangladesh, citing OONI data. Their article is
available here: https://www.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/h4uzv1zi9f



*## Community activities### FOCI 2024*

On 15th July 2024, OONI’s Arturo attended the Free and Open Communications
on the Internet (FOCI) 2024 Summer Workshop in Bristol, UK (
https://foci.community/foci24.html#2024-summer-program). The event included
the presentation of numerous academic papers on internet censorship
research, including some that cite OONI data (as mentioned previously).

As part of his participation, Arturo served as the session chair for the
sessions on “Censorship Circumvention Strategies”. He also generally serves
on the FOCI Program Committee.

*### OONI Community Meeting*

On 30th July 2024, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our
Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/).

As part of this meeting, we discussed the outcomes of the OONI Partner
Gathering 2024 and the possibility of hosting similar sessions online for
the broader OONI community. We also discussed plans for OONI’s new Social
Media Censorship Alert System, research based on OONI data, and how to
contribute fingerprints for censorship detection.

*## Measurement coverage*

In July 2024, 58,294,513 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,996
networks in 173 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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