[tor-project] OONI Monthly Report: June 2024

Mailing Lists tor-project
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Hello,

This email shares OONI’s monthly report for June 2024.

# OONI Monthly Report: June 2024

Throughout June 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.

## Published Job Opening for OONI Junior Backend Developer

In June 2024, we published a new job opening for a Junior Backend Developer: https://ooni.org/post/2024-job-opening-ooni-backend-developer/

We are looking for a dedicated backend developer to join our team to work on our backend components and infrastructure, and to provide OONI data analysis support for our research efforts.

Following the publication of the job opening, we started to receive many applications and we allocated team resources towards reviewing incoming applications.

## Published OONI Community Interview with Tawanda Mugari (Digital Society of Africa)

In June 2024, we published a new OONI Community Interview with Tawanda Mugari, the Co-Founder and Geek in Chief of Digital Society of Africa (https://digitalsociety.africa/).

You can watch Tawanda’s interview and learn about his work here: https://ooni.org/post/2024-interview-with-tawanda-mugari/

Through the OONI Community Interview series, we aim to share the amazing work of our partners, highlighting the different ways through which they make use of OONI tools and data. You can find more OONI Community Interviews through our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pam2UQoZ1qM&list=PL1sH9kYR-16nlPlFT-RDBs8O0OiS2N6fJ

## OONI Probe Mobile

In June 2024, we released OONI Probe 3.8.8 on Android (https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v3.8.8) and iOS (https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v3.8.8).

We also released version 3.8.8 of the News Media Scan app, which included support for OONI Run V2 functionality so that Deutsche Welle can maintain their list of test URLs.

We also worked on fixing the following bugs on OONI Probe iOS:
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2710
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2744

## OONI Run

After completing the work for the News Media Scan app, we turned our attention back to our implementation of OONI Run v2. We started working on the iOS implementation of the new dashboard view:
https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1512
https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1516
https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/1514

We also fixed the following bugs and addressed feedback during our internal beta testing round:
https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/180
https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/2756

Additionally, we discussed how we want to handle backwards compatibility for v1 OONI Run links, once we launch v2. We decided that v1 links will have an intermediary page before launching the mobile application which will encourage users to migrate to v2 before a specific date (https://github.com/ooni/run/issues/183).

## OONI Probe CLI

Notably, we merged the OpenVN experiment, implemented by Ain Ghazal as part of their OTF ICFP fellowship with us: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1585

This experiment allows OONI Probe users to measure OpenVPN blocking. Further information about the experiment is available in the specification: https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/master/nettests/ts-040-openvpn.md

## Creating a methodology for measuring throttling

We revised our plan for performing the A/B testing to make sure that Web Connectivity v0.5 produces the same results as v0.4 in terms of top-level metrics (i.e., the “blocked” and “accessible” values and the resulting colors shown by OONI Explorer).

Between 11th to 13th June 2024, we traveled to Atlanta, USA, to participate in the first Open Measurement Gathering: a 3-day event (hosted at Georgia Tech) that brought the OONI, IODA, Censored Planet, M-Lab and Cloudflare Radar teams together to share skills, knowledge, and methods on network measurement.

As part of this event, we co-facilitated a session with IODA on “Existing and new methods for measuring throttling”. During this session, we shared details of our methods, and learned details of the new methods that IODA are developing for measuring cases of throttling. While our approaches and methods for measuring throttling are very different (and look at different types of throttling), they are very complementary, and we identified opportunities for future collaboration.

## Expanding OONI’s testing model to support richer testing input

We have successfully expanded our testing model to support richer testing input: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pulls?q=label%3A2024-06-richer-input+is%3Aclosed

In June 2024, we refactored the OONI Probe engine to improve its internal representation of richer input and to enable each experiment to define its own richer testing input structure (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1615). This refactoring change enabled us to reduce the entailed complexity by moving richer testing input around. In turn, this lower complexity enabled us to read richer testing input from experiment-specific APIs, as well as from OONI Run v2 descriptors.

We merged the OpenVPN experiment (developed by Ain Ghazal as part of their ICFP fellowship with OONI) with full support for using richer testing input (https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/1585). We also published a document which provides details of our design choices for supporting richer testing input, the refactoring of the OONI Probe engine to enable richer testing input, our implementation of richer testing input through the OpenVPN experiment, as well as our implementation of other related improvements. This document also lists next steps for potential future work: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/blob/master/docs/design/dd-008-richer-input.md

## OONI Explorer

As part of the effort to update our design system implementation, we updated most of the components to use Tailwind CSS (instead of previously used styled-system and styled-components): https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/947

## General backend work

We added IPv6 support to ooni-backendproxy and other AWS based deployments, allowing us to migrate DigitalOcean-based test helpers to the new deployment strategy: https://github.com/ooni/devops/pull/61

## Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements

Notably, we merged a large area of work related to:
Optimizing the performance of the table writers for observations;
Refactoring of the observation data model.

Details on what was done are available through the following pull request description: https://github.com/ooni/data/pull/74

Between 11th to 13th June 2024, we also presented and shared our new pipeline (https://github.com/ooni/data) and data analysis advancements with internet measurement experts as part of our participation at the Open Measurement Gathering in Atlanta, USA. This enabled us to gather feedback from experts working on similar problems (such as Censored Planet). Quite similarly, we continued to collect feedback for the improvement of our data analysis methods through meetings with internet measurement experts at the Oxford Internet Institute.

## Data analysis for upcoming research report

As part of an upcoming research report on internet censorship in Kazakhstan, we analyzed OONI measurements collected from Kazakhstan over the past year. We completed this data analysis in June 2024, and further details about the analysis are available here: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/846

## Test list updates

In response to the adoption of an LGBT propaganda law in Georgia, we updated the Georgian test list to include the websites of LGBTQ+ organizations: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1739

Based on the statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1959391/), we added 80 foreign news media websites (whose services were suspended in Russia) to the Russian test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/1744

We also reviewed and merged community contributions to the following test lists:

## Call for LGBTQ website testing during Pride Month

LGBTQ websites are blocked in many countries around the world. Similarly to previous years, we made a call to action to encourage the OONI Probe testing of LGBTQ websites during Pride Month (and beyond) through our social media channels: https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1806284856998936597, https://mastodon.social/@ooni/112688417530827272

The threads through the above links:

  • Include a call for OONI Probe testing of LGBTQ websites (which we previously collected in collaboration with OutRight International);
  • Encourage people to contribute LGBTQ websites for ongoing monitoring/testing through our Test Lists Editor;
  • Share our previous reports documenting the blocking of LGBTQ websites based on OONI data;
  • Share links for ongoing OONI Probe testing and for monitoring the blocking of LGBTQ websites worldwide based on real-time OONI data.

## Outreach Kit with new illustrations

In June 2024, we updated the materials of the OONI Outreach Kit with the new illustrations created by Ura Design: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/pull/1569

## Community use of OONI data

### ISOC Pulse blog post on internet disruptions in Kenya

In June 2024, ISOC published a blog post documenting the internet disruptions in Kenya amid protests: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/kenya-internet-disrupted-amidst-protests

Their blog post cites OONI data, includes OONI data charts and encourages readers in Kenya to run OONI Probe to contribute more measurements.

## Community activities

### Ford Foundation Retreat

Between 3rd-5th June 2024, OONI’s Maria attended the Ford Foundation Tech & Society Retreat in Nebraska City, USA. As part of her participation, Maria co-facilitated a session on partner engagement, and facilitated a session which provided a live demo on using OONI Explorer to investigate internet censorship.

### Open Measurement Gathering

Between 11th-13th June 2024, OONI’s Jessie, Maria, Maja, and Simone traveled to Atlanta, USA, to participate in the first Open Measurement Gathering (OMG): a 3-day event which brought internet measurement projects together to exchange skills and knowledge on measuring and reporting on internet censorship globally (https://x.com/OpenObservatory/status/1803734336300032218).

This event was hosted by IODA at Georgia Tech, organized in collaboration with M-Lab, and supported by the Open Technology Fund. The participants included team members from the following organizations/projects: IODA, M-Lab, Censored Planet, Cloudflare, and OONI.

As part of our participation in this event, we:

  • Presented OONI’s measurement methodologies and tools (“OONI Measurement 101” session);
  • Presented OONI’s open dataset and methods for interpreting the data (“OONI Data Dive” session);
  • Co-facilitated a session on methodologies for measuring cases of throttling;
  • Facilitated a session on strengthening collaboration on research and reporting on internet censorship.

We thank the Open Technology Fund for supporting this event, and we thank IODA, M-Lab, Censored Planet and Cloudflare for the valuable insights and discussions!

### OONI Partner Quarterly Meeting

On 25th June 2024, we hosted the first OONI Partner Quarterly Meeting (a private video meeting with our partners) to gather feedback and discuss the future of the Partnership Program with the OONI Partner Network.

During the call, we agreed to host similar calls every quarter to share updates from the community, share OONI updates, and to discuss partner needs.

### OONI Community Meeting

On 25th June 2024, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/).

As part of this meeting, we gathered feedback from the community on the structure of OONI’s documentation and received a request to update the structure of the community documents and educational materials. We also discussed the possibility of hosting open training sessions for the OONI community.

## Measurement coverage

In June 2024, 54,898,348 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 2,825 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.