13:59:27 <hellais> #startmeeting OONI community meeting 2020-05-26
13:59:27 <MeetBot> Meeting started Tue May 26 13:59:27 2020 UTC.  The chair is hellais. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
13:59:27 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
13:59:54 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> <here> Hello everyone! Welcome to the May 2020 OONI Community Meeting. :) :ooni::party_parrot:
14:00:10 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> How are you doing? Who has joined us today?
14:00:17 <slacktopus> Action: sbs waves
14:00:30 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> Hello
14:00:58 <slacktopus> <nuke> Hello
14:01:09 <slacktopus> <hellais> :party_parrot:
14:01:10 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Please feel encouraged to introduce yourselves as you join. Don't be shy! :)
14:01:32 <slacktopus> <santiago> Hello! Santiago here from R3D
14:02:33 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> I'm a Researcher with Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, and an OTF fellow studying Internet censorship in Africa
14:02:45 <slacktopus> <eric> I've recently joined the channel because the team at Project Gutenberg wanted to know more about being blocked in Italy.
14:03:35 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Great! Thanks so much for joining us today. :)
14:03:47 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> The topics we'll be discussing today are included in this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep
14:04:07 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Please feel encouraged to add any other topics you'd like us to discuss today there :point_up_2:
14:04:45 <slacktopus> <cmngounou> Hello here Charlie Martial NGOUNOU, from AfroLeadership. We work on Data Rights/Digital Rights in Africa.
14:05:00 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> Hello Charlie
14:05:25 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Hello @cmngounou, @eric, @babatunde.okunoye, welcome!
14:05:40 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Before we get started, a few updates:
14:05:52 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> 1. OONI Probe Mobile 2.4.0 is out! :tada:
14:06:11 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Please update to the latest version: https://ooni.org/install/mobile
14:06:37 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> As you will see, the latest OONI Probe mobile app has a new Dashboard design and a button that allows you to run all tests at once! Hopefully you find this useful. :)
14:07:39 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> 2. Over the last weeks we published 2 reports on censorship events in Burundi & Myanmar, which you can find here: https://ooni.org/reports/
14:08:24 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> 3. @eric Yes, unfortunately www.gutenberg.org appears to be blocked in Italy indeed :( You can find relevant measurements here: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2020-05-27&domain=www.gutenberg.org&probe_cc=IT
14:09:00 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> I am personally in Italy at the moment and it seems that Vodafone is blocking access on mobile data, but it's accessible on fixed-line
14:09:24 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> OONI measurements suggest that access to the site is blocked on several other networks as well :point_up_2:
14:10:47 <slacktopus> Action: sbs is taking a look at the measurements
14:11:02 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Unless there are any questions on these updates (which you can also share later), we can proceed to the 1st topic of the agenda
14:12:18 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> #topic 1. Update on OONI Run survey outcomes (Tunde)
14:12:34 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @babatunde.okunoye is there anything you'd like to share/say?
14:13:35 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> I wanted to know if the surveys are completed, and when will the new OONI run be ready?
14:13:58 <slacktopus> <hellais> The text of the decree ordering the block can be obtained here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200525125134/https://lumendatabase.org/file_uploads/files/4605137/004/605/137/original/0053965_2020.pdf?1589919391&access_token=FD8SoqvahyWJmp-NVNUpDw. It seems like it’s connected to the blocking of sites that made available italian newspapers for free. It doesn’t mention what is the actual copyright infringing material.
14:14:34 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @babatunde.okunoye yes, thank you, that's a great question. :)
14:15:11 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> First, I'd like to thank you @babatunde.okunoye and everyone else who filled out the OONI Run survey & participated in the interviews! Your feedback has been extremely helpful and it's hugely appreciated! <3
14:15:28 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> We are now in the stage where we're analyzing all the information collected through the surveys and interviews.
14:15:37 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> And we plan to publish a report soon which will document the findings & next steps.
14:16:13 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Many of the next steps will also be documented in GitHub tickets.
14:16:38 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> And based on the feedback and next steps, our team will work on developing a new version of OONI Run which we hope to release by the end of this year.
14:17:46 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> When we publish the report (based on the findings of the usability study), I'll be sure to circulate it on this channel, as well as on the ooni-talk mailing list: https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ooni-talk
14:17:54 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> And we will share it on social media platforms as well.
14:18:21 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> I guess one thing that really stood out from the feedback was the need to shorten the generated OONI Run links, so that they're easier to share.
14:19:40 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> And many community members shared detailed feedback on UI improvements we can make to the platform itself so that it's clearer how to use it. It also became apparent that we should make the copy pasting of long lists of URLs more straightforward, so that people don't have to insert URLs one by one. ,:)
14:20:08 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> +1
14:20:45 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Furthermore, many community members shared that they would find having a guide (with screenshots) useful, so that they -- and others -- can more easily make use of the platform.
14:21:01 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> And there's lots of other feedback.... which you will read soon, once we publish our report. :)
14:21:13 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> In the meanwhile, did you have any specific questions?
14:21:58 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> No, you've answered my questions already
14:22:28 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Ok... then let's proceed to the next agenda topic
14:22:46 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> #topic 3. Improve OONI.org SEO [xhdix]
14:23:06 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @xhdix Is there anything you'd like to share/say?
14:24:09 <slacktopus> <hellais> I looked at the issues you opened on this @xhdix and I think there are some really good suggestions in there. I think we need to up our SEO game quite a bit both on our ooni.org website and on OONI Explorer
14:24:24 <slacktopus> <hellais> Especially if we want to defeat the ooni pizza people :pizza: :killitwithfire:
14:24:43 <slacktopus> <xhdix> Hi,
14:25:17 <slacktopus> <xhdix> The first time @darkk used the name OONI, I did a Google search. It's funny, but I was surprised that he works for a pizza company?!!! Yes, OONI has many weaknesses in SEO (_Search Engine Optimization)_ and SMM (_Social Media Marketing)_ . I documented a part: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/314 But it is certainly not enough. And I don't know everything. I wanted to ask for help if anyone is aware of SEO and SMM, if I made a
14:25:18 <slacktopus> mistake, or if there was a better solution.
14:25:27 <slacktopus> <xhdix> Now the situation is as follows:
14:26:03 <slacktopus> <xhdix>
14:26:25 <slacktopus> <xhdix>
14:26:48 <slacktopus> <xhdix>
14:27:21 <slacktopus> <xhdix> Also, Is this address better for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Observatory_of_Network_Interference_(OONI)  Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OONI  I changed to the latter. I can change the redirect if you want.
14:28:01 <slacktopus> <hellais> What happend on May 4th that our impressions per day went so much up?
14:28:14 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @xhdix awesome, thanks! I think the 2nd wikipedia page (OONI) works better indeed. :)
14:30:19 <slacktopus> <hellais> @xhdix ah, very nice, thanks for changing the wikipedia page title! That is much better!
14:30:23 <slacktopus> <sbs> This happened on May 5: https://blog.magma.lavafeld.org/post/women-on-web-blocking/
14:30:33 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @hellais from a quick look at our social media activity, all I see is the OONI Run survey around that time, but I doubt it's that :P
14:30:37 <slacktopus> <hellais> I had actually tried doing the same thing in the past, but some of the wikipedia admins reverted it at some point
14:31:14 <slacktopus> <hellais> It might have been because I changed the redirect which previously pointed to the Ooni of Ife (so many Ooni’s!), instead of changing the title itself
14:31:51 <slacktopus> <xhdix> I used a Wikipedia admin to change it :))
14:31:55 <slacktopus> <hellais> It’
14:32:07 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Yeah. I noticed that :)
14:32:17 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> haha
14:32:35 <slacktopus> <hellais> Ah very nice! So we have an internal wikipedia connection, very good! :)
14:32:52 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> I think we should mention that some work was recently done on OONI Explorer's SEO
14:33:29 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> And our current Google Summer of Code project is on improving the social media capabilities of OONI Explorer's pages
14:33:52 <slacktopus> <hellais> Ah I see. So they are case sensitive
14:34:41 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/430
14:36:48 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> @kronaemmanuel is working on some really good ideas on making it more effective to share links on various social media platforms.
14:37:45 <slacktopus> <hellais> I have put all the SEO related issues inside of the improve the OONI website epic on zenhub: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/329
14:38:42 <slacktopus> <hellais> It’s basically a bunch of smallish issues which I guess we will do incrementally as time permits
14:38:58 <slacktopus> <hellais> @xhdix was there something else you would like to discuss specifically about this?
14:39:41 <slacktopus> <xhdix> No. Right now everything is fine. :P
14:40:38 <slacktopus> <hellais> Thanks a bunch for looking into this and filing all those issues! It’s super helpful!
14:40:38 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Meanwhile, something rare has happened: We have 20 minutes left, and no agenda topic left: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting-keep :P
14:41:05 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Is there any other topic you folks would like to discuss? :)
14:41:39 <slacktopus> <xhdix> censorship alert system?  :P
14:42:29 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> #topic 4. Censorship Alert System [xhdix]
14:42:40 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @xhdix any thoughts you'd like to share?
14:44:10 <slacktopus> <xhdix> What @sukhbir wrote was great. https://openobservatory.slack.com/archives/C38CT1JDD/p1585915800241800 Can you use it in the explorer or somewhere?
14:45:10 <slacktopus> <xhdix> (Maybe just for the global list)
14:45:42 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @xhdix yes, this is a great project, thanks for sharing it.
14:46:13 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> I guess part of the challenge on OONI's end is that of improving our heuristics to reduce the ratio of false positives, and to reduce the subsequent noise in the data.
14:46:57 <slacktopus> <hellais> I think something that might be related to this is the work we are doing and will be doing as part of the following issues: • Analyze data to extract website metrics (https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/384) • Add data export capabilities for website-related metrics (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/331) • Data analysis and pipeline work necessary for extracting per site metrics(
14:46:57 <slacktopus> https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/330)
14:47:14 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Our initial idea was to have some sort of alerting system that informs those who have subscribed to it that the "state of censorship" has changed, once something that was previously blocked gets unblocked, etc.
14:47:16 <slacktopus> <hellais> If there are some specific features or things you would like to see be part of this work, do let us know so we can be sure to include them!
14:48:28 <slacktopus> <hellais> Eventually we will also have website specific views inside of OONI Explorer itself.
14:49:03 <slacktopus> <hellais> WRT the censorship alert system specifically we have been offering since a while now an RSS feed which you can subscribe to get alerts on blocking events
14:49:16 <slacktopus> <hellais> Though as @agrabeli mentioned it is quite noisy as it includes several false positives
14:49:44 <slacktopus> <hellais> https://explorer.ooni.org/rss/global.xml
14:49:48 <slacktopus> <hellais> This is the global feed
14:50:27 <slacktopus> <hellais> Or you can also get it on a per country basis, for example: https://explorer.ooni.org/rss/by-country/IR.xml
14:50:52 <slacktopus> <hellais> Maybe @federico can add something more on this
14:51:20 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Though @sbs (with the help of many others) has been doing great work to expand and improve our heuristics, so we're hopeful that we're getting closer to some more reliable type of censorship alert system. :)
14:52:54 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> So we have 7 minutes left... Is there anything else anyone would like to discuss? :)
14:53:58 <slacktopus> <xhdix> Thanks. @agrabeli @hellais
14:55:58 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Are there any updates from the community, or anything else someone would like to share?
14:56:39 <slacktopus> <santiago> I was wondering if there is a way to measure censorship that happens through attacks such as DoS or other. I saw today an independent media tweeted that their site was down because of an attack, and I have seen other cases.
14:58:08 <slacktopus> <santiago> I don't know if it is something possible or that is in the field of OONI but as well share it
14:58:09 <slacktopus> <hellais> I guess this is something which is best investigated from the server-side. A tool like OONI Probe which monitors network resources from the edge would not be very helpful.
14:58:38 <slacktopus> <hellais> it’s quite tricky, without having access to server-side logs, to distinguish an attack from some other availability issues that are caused by other factors
14:59:11 <slacktopus> <santiago> Thanks
14:59:22 <slacktopus> <xhdix>
14:59:33 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @santiago you might find it interesting/relevant to learn about the work of Qurium / Virtual Road: https://www.qurium.org/services/
14:59:39 <slacktopus> <xhdix>
14:59:52 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> They investigate DDoS attacks against independent media websites and offer support.
15:00:20 <slacktopus> <hellais> It’s crazy how many impressions the telegram nettest description page gets
15:00:44 <slacktopus> <santiago> Great, thanks
15:01:47 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Great, well I think that's a wrap! Thanks so much everyone for joining us today! :)
15:01:59 <slacktopus> <babatunde.okunoye> Thanks!
15:02:18 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Next month we'll likely be hosting an Online Internet Measurement Village -- I'll share more info on that on this channel (and mailing lists) soon. :)
15:02:23 <slacktopus> <santiago> Bye! Thank you.
15:02:50 <slacktopus> <xhdix> They searched the Telegram web and then entered the Telegram's nettest page. What were they looking for? :thinking_face:
15:02:53 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> In the meanwhile, please feel encouraged to share updates, engage in discussions, etc. here and on the ooni-talk mailing list: https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ooni-talk
15:03:18 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Thanks again everyone! Hope you stay safe and healthy, and hope you have a great day/night. :)
15:03:24 <hellais> #endmeeting