Hello,

Throughout April 2020, the OONI team worked on the following sprints:

* Horseshoe Crab Sprint (30th March 2020 - 12th April 2020) * Blue Bottles Sprint (13th April 2020 - 26th April 2020) * Beluga Sprint (27th April 2020 - 3rd May 2020)

Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni

Details and highlights are available in this report.

## Public launch of new OONI Probe desktop app

We launched a new OONI Probe desktop app for Windows and macOS!

You can download and install the new app here: https://ooni.org/install/desktop

To announce the launch of the new OONI Probe desktop app and share relevant highlights, we published a blog post: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-probe-desktop-app/

### Localization

Thanks to support from the Localization Lab community, the new OONI Probe desktop app was translated to 14 languages: Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Thai, Turkish, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Slovak, Catalan, and German.

We launched the desktop app with 12 of these languages, excluding Arabic and Farsi, which we will be included in future releases once we have added RTL support.

### Press coverage

The launch of the new OONI Probe desktop app received press coverage from Deutsche Welle (DW), who published an article about it:  https://www.dw.com/en/ooni-an-app-for-detecting-internet-censorship/a-532242...

The DW article was also published in the following languages:

* German: https://www.dw.com/de/ooni-eine-app-um-internetzensur-aufzusp%C3%BCren/a-531... * Chinese: https://www.dw.com/zh/ooni%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8%E7%A8%8B%E5%BA%8F-%E8%AE%A9%E4%... * Farsi: https://www.dw.com/fa-af/ooni-%D8%A7%D9%BE%D9%84%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C%D8%B4%D9%... * Spanish: https://www.dw.com/es/ooni-la-aplicaci%C3%B3n-para-detectar-la-censura-en-in...

## Adding support in OONI Probe for availability testing of the circumvention tools Tor, obfs4proxy, and Psiphon

We released OONI Probe Desktop 3.0.0 (the new OONI Probe desktop app for Windows and macOS) which includes support for running the new Tor and the Psiphon circumvention tool tests.

Tor test: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-probe-desktop-app/#tor

Psiphon test: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-probe-desktop-app/#psiphon

## Analyzing collected censorship circumvention tool test results and integrating them into OONI Explorer and the OONI API

Following the release of the new OONI Probe desktop app (which includes the new Tor and Psiphon tests), we started to collect, analyze, and publish OONI Probe measurements from the testing of Tor and Psiphon around the world.

These measurements  -- which are also available via the OONI API (https://api.ooni.io/) -- can easily be searched and accessed through OONI Explorer:

* Tor measurements: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-05-12&test_name=tor * Psiphon measurements: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-05-12&test_name=psiphon

Measurements collected from around the world are published on OONI Explorer in near real-time.

## Improving censorship circumvention tool methodologies to include metrics that are also related to the performance of the tool

To improve our methodologies for measuring censorship circumvention tools, we aim to measure the performance of those tools as well.

To this end, we:

*  Added support for running the NDT speed test over Psiphon: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/506 * Switched to using the golang implementation of DASH, which will allow us to run this performance test over the Psiphon network: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/501 * Made progress in refactoring netx to enable which more performance testing in the testing clients: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/543

## Developing OONI Probe orchestration logic that is specific to circumvention tool testing

As part of our work on developing OONI Probe orchestration logic that is specific to circumvention tool testing, we discussed with Tor’s anti-censorship team how we would integrate bridge testing into OONI probe services.

See: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/396

## OONI Probe mobile app

Some of the main new changes that the next releases of the OONI Probe mobile app will feature include:

* New/improved design for the Dashboard * “Run” button (in the Dashboard) to run all OONI Probe tests at once * Grouping the middlebox tests inside the Performance card * Adding a new Circumvention card to release the new Tor & Psiphon tests

In preparation for the next releases, we worked on the following tickets:

* Implement new dashboard layout: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1094 * Run All Tests button: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/826 * Implement Run All Tests button: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1093 * Group the middlebox tests with the performance test group: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/835 * Remove notification settings screens: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1090 * Verify network information settings: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1112 * Remove country code in the opt out settings of the app: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1105 * New navbar appearance on iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1108 * Create experimental flavour for the Android app: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1080 * Remove/update obsolete NDT fields: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1107

We also created a beta branch with support for automatic daily testing: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1059

## Push notifications

As part of our ongoing efforts to add support for sending out push notifications, we deployed a production countly instance on Digital Ocean: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/379

We also made a developer build of the OONI Probe mobile app which uses countly to receive push notification and try it out: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1101

We also did some testing of the countly backend to ensure that it is not a critical path and that downtime of the service will not affect our mobile app user: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/393

Then we updated the developer OONI Probe mobile app build to also support for receiving OONI Run links via push notification: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/874

## Making the OONI Probe apps rely entirely on the OONI Probe golang engine

We continued to make progress on making the OONI Probe mobile and desktop apps rely entirely on the golang based probe-engine.

To this end, we completed the work in the following tickets:

https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/125 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/349 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/352 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/376 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/396 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/453 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/482 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/489 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/501 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/504 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/538 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/543 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1017 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1036 https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1040

As part of the process of switching entirely to the new golang probe-engine, Measurement Kit (https://github.com/measurement-kit/measurement-kit) has now been deprecated.

Since several third-party projects rely on Measurement Kit, we published an upgrade path for all the use cases that we know of. This documentation is available here: https://github.com/measurement-kit/measurement-kit/blob/master/README.md

As part of the process of deprecating Measurement Kit, we also worked on the activities in the following tickets:

https://github.com/measurement-kit/measurement-kit/issues/1921 https://github.com/measurement-kit/measurement-kit/issues/1913

## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies

As part of our ongoing efforts to expand our measurement methodologies, we:

* Integrated the Go implementation of the DASH test into probe-engine: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/501 (and implemented ConnectTime in the DASH test: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/281) * Made improvements in the specification of the data format to allow for incrementally updating the data format without introducing breaking changes: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/423 * Refactored and carried out research related to netx: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/543 (i.e. netx is code used by probe-engine as a low level library to collect network, DNS, and HTTP events that occur during OONI measurements) * Analyzed measurements and performed quality assurance for our SNI blocking experiment: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/547 & https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/299

### Measuring SNI based filtering in Iran

To check whether our new SNI blocking experiment (https://github.com/ooni/spec/blob/adf9537c43ef848b96792f8dea99fbd7f93fe608/n...) works as expected, we tested it in Iran (where this censorship technique is known to be deployed) with the help of local community members.

Following our experiments in Iran, we concluded that the new OONI SNI blocking experiment works as expected.

To document and share our experiments and findings, we published the report “Measuring SNI based blocking in Iran”, which is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-iran-sni-blocking/

## Prototype of system for probe URL selection

To improve URL testing, we created a prototype system for probe URL selection which is now being deployed in production. Below we share details.

### Policy for URL prioritization

We started off by writing and publishing a document that describes the new smart URL list system, why it’s needed, which problems it aims to address, how community members can contribute to URL priorities, and how we plan to roll this system out. This document is available here: https://ooni.org/post/ooni-smart-url-list-system/

We also published a policy that determines the criteria for URL prioritization: https://ooni.org/post/policy-url-prioritization/ooni-policy-url-prioritizati...

### Adding weights to Citizen Lab categories

Creating a smart URL list system requires adding weights to the Citizen Lab category codes (based on which tested URLs are categorized), to ensure that certain categories of URLs receive more testing over others (depending on the criteria outlined in the aforementioned policy for URL prioritization).

Our first steps therefore involved adding weights to the Citizen Lab category codes: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/431

We will likely revise these weights as the system is rolled out and we receive community feedback.

### Prototype system

The prototype is available through this ticket: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/361

The prototype system for URL prioritization is implemented in the backend through the following pull request: https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/312

## Analyzing data to extract website metrics

We completed, deployed, and merged a series of improvements to our fast-path data processing pipeline: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/233 To add data export capabilities for website-related metrics, we implemented an API call to extract metrics from the counters table (in JSON and CSV): https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/321

## OONI Explorer

Once the smart URL list system has been rolled out, we aim to add support to OONI Explorer (or, potentially, another web platform) for user accounts that (among other things) would enable users to run database-heavy queries for website-centric measurements.

To this end, we did some research to understand, in practice, how these accounts could work across the various OONI products. See: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/391 and https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/434.

During the April 2020 OONI Community Meeting, we did a poll to collect feedback and understand if OONI users would have issues with certain authentication methods, if OONI accounts were created.

Our idea is to have an account that has interoperability across OONI Probe, OONI Explorer, and OONI Run to support seamless integration between the platforms.

## OONI backend

To improve our backend services, we:

* Implemented rate limiting on exposed services: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/260 * Completed our work around investigating API slowness and DB issues: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/381 * Improved DB query monitoring: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/382 * Decreased DB query load (throttling, caching, blocking bots): https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/383 * Implemented throttling of the API based on IP address: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/394 * Investigated missing Psiphon measurements in the fast-path pipeline: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/296 * Ensured that the API gives priority to fast-path table data: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/283 * Investigated API query slowdown: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/401 * Added rate limiting to the API: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/405 * Added support for parallelising can processing in the fast-path pipeline: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/392

## Improving OONI server infrastructure

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our server infrastructure, we:

* Deployed workarounds for slow networking between servers: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/384 * Ensured that the new OONI Explorer redirects to HTTPS by default: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/252 * Made improvements to the fast-path pipeline: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/233 * Installed a clickhouse test instance on EC2: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/388 * Tested and benchmarked Greenhost object storage: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/247 * Dropped UI components from OONI API that are duplicated in OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/139

## Improving the quality of OONI software

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of OONI software, we:

* Refactored and did research around netx: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/509 * Sanitized the netx error strings: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/546 * Discussed the react-native integration plan: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1058

## OONI Run usability study

To enable community members to more effectively use OONI Run (https://run.ooni.io/), we aim to research its limitations and collect structured community feedback through an OONI Run usability study.

In April 2020, we created a user research plan and decided to collect feedback through a combination of a survey and a series of interviews with community members. Throughout the month, we created and circulated the survey, and we carried out interviews.

### Survey

We created a survey with the goal of collecting more quantitative information on community needs, challenges, and feedback for the improvement of OONI Run.

This survey is primarily meant to be completed by OONI Run users, as we include detailed questions that require experience with the OONI Run platform.

The survey is available here: https://ooni.typeform.com/to/r9c5ee

Throughout April 2020, we circulated the survey on social media and on multiple mailing lists, as well as with our network of partners. We aim to analyze the data collected through the survey in mid-May 2020.

### Interviews

Through interviews with community members, we aim to collect more in-depth qualitative information to better understand their needs, challenges, and feedback for the improvement of OONI Run. The interviews also provide us an opportunity to observe how community members interact with the OONI Run platform.

The interviews involve three user personas:

* Measurement campaign coordinators: Experienced OONI Probe users who use OONI Run to generate links and coordinate censorship measurement campaigns * Measurement campaign volunteers: OONI Probe users who receive OONI Run links to perform testing and participate in censorship measurement campaigns * Internet freedom community members: People who care about internet censorship, but who haven’t necessarily used OONI Run before

As each of these personas have different experiences with OONI tools, we drafted separate interview questions for each persona.

During the last week of April 2020, we interviewed 7 community members. We plan to continue and complete the interviews by mid-May 2020.

### Blog post

To promote the survey and encourage more community members to participate in the interviews, we wrote and published a blog post that shares the survey and information about the interviews.

This blog post is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-run-survey-and-interviews/

## OONI website

Leading up to the public launch of the OONI Probe desktop app, we made a series of improvements to the OONI website.

These include new Install pages (https://ooni.org/install/) for our mobile (https://ooni.org/install/mobile) and desktop clients (https://ooni.org/install/desktop). The new Install pages have a new layout, design, and copy.

We also edited the copy for most of the other pages on the OONI website to ensure that the information we provide is up to date and relevant. As part of these copy edits, we updated the risks documentation (https://ooni.org/about/risks/), we updated the test descriptions (https://ooni.org/nettest/), and we improved the layout and copy of the landing page (https://ooni.org/).

We also wrote and published OONI’s mission statement: https://ooni.org/about/

## Updated OONI Data Policy

We published an updated version of the OONI Data Policy: https://ooni.org/about/data-policy

The new version of the OONI Data Policy shares the principles that govern our data practices, and we explain what data we collect, process, store, and publish when you use OONI Probe. We explain how you can opt out of the various forms of data collection and publication.

We also share which analytics we use for the OONI website, OONI Explorer, and the OONI desktop app, and we explain how you can opt out of analytics all-together.

## Test list updates

Throughout April 2020, we:

* Updated the Global test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/600 * Updated multiple test lists with COVID-19 related sites shared by the Citizen Lab: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/601

## Data analysis

In April 2020, we analyzed OONI measurements for the following:

* OTF Information Controls Fellow: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/453 (analysis of OONI measurements collected from Myanmar) * Community members in Myanmar: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/471 (longer-term analysis of OONI measurements collected from Myanmar) * Community members in Guinea: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/488 (to examine the blocking of social media during Guinea’s March 2020 elections) * Website monitoring project: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/454

## GitHub sponsorship

Our application to receive donations through our GitHub repositories was accepted!

OONI now has a GitHub sponsors profile: https://github.com/sponsors/ooni

We are therefore in the position to receive recurring donations.

## Community use of OONI data

### Blocking of sites hosting COVID-19 related information in Venezuela

Through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data, VEsinFiltro reported new censorship cases in Venezuela involving the blocking of sites hosting COVID-19 related information.

Many of these cases were shared on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vesinfiltro/status/1250579061937770496,%C2%A0 https://twitter.com/vesinfiltro/status/1250571183579373568, https://twitter.com/vesinfiltro/status/1253423468273471490, https://twitter.com/vesinfiltro/status/1253122594976468993.

VEsinFiltro also published a report (which links to OONI measurements) on the blocking of and the phishing attempts against the Heroes of Health platform (created by the management of Juan Guiado): https://vesinfiltro.com/noticias/2020-04-26-phishing_heroes_salud

### Blocking of websites in Egypt

Masaar published a report on the blocking of websites in Egypt over the last months (“Internet Censorship in Time of Social Distancing”), through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data.

Their report is available here: https://masaar.net/en/internet-censorship-in-time-of-social-distancing/

## Community activities

### OONI Community Meeting

On 28th April 2020, we facilitated the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/), during which we discussed the following topics:

1. Updates from the OONI team. 2. Adding user accounts to OONI Explorer. 3. Monitoring potential censorship events during the upcoming elections in West Africa. 4. Challenging the blocking of social media during Guinea’s March 2020 elections in a strategic litigation case with OONI data. 5. Women on Web blocked in Spain: Technical analysis. 6.  Reducing the latency of publication of measurements from custom URL tests and experimental tests. 7. SNI-based blocking.

### IFF Glitter Meetup

On 30th April 2020, we were invited to attend the IFF Glitter Meetup as featured guests to discuss the OONI Probe desktop app launch.

The notes from what was discussed are available here: https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/April_30_2020_GM#Conversa...

### Coordination of COVID-19 site testing in Mexico

Our Mexican partners, R3D, published a blog post where they encourage OONI Probe testing of COVID-19 related websites.

Their post is available here: https://r3d.mx/2020/03/27/ayudanos-a-descubrir-bloqueos-de-informacion-sobre...

## Userbase

In April 2020, 7,175,892 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 6,124 networks in 214 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/

~ The OONI team.