Author's posts
Aug 27
Internet Access Disruption in Turkey – July 2016
With the attempted coup in Turkey, reports went out about social media being throttled and/or blocked. We analysed data about this that we collected with RIPE Atlas and the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI).Read more here.Publisher: RIPE Atlas & Open Observatory of Network InterferencePublication date: 19th July 2016
Aug 27
OONI releases new Web Connectivity test for detecting online censorship
Today the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is excited to be releasing a brand new test, called Web Connectivity, which is designed to detect three different types of censorship: DNS tampering, TCP/IP blocking and HTTP blocking.Read more here.Publisher: Open Observatory of Network InterferencePublication date: 3rd June 2016
Aug 27
How Uganda blocked social media, again
Today we are releasing data which indicates that two ISPs in Uganda – Smile Telecom (Uganda) and Orange – carried out IP blocking to censor access to major social media services. Interestingly, OONI’s findings illustrate that social media is not consistently blocked across networks, and that certain cases of censorship can be easily circumvented.Read more …
Aug 27
Why we still recommend Signal over WhatsApp… even though they both use end-to-end encryption
WhatsApp’s collaboration with Open Whisper Systems recently brought end-to-end encryption to the lives of a billion people around the world. (Open Whisper Systems develops Signal, an open source mobile messaging and VoIP app.) When WhatsApp integrated the encryption protocol developed for Signal, many of us began using end-to-end encryption without even realizing it.Undoubtedly, this is …
Aug 27
OONI Data Reveals How WhatsApp Was Blocked (Again) in Brazil
Following the latest reports of WhatsApp being blocked in Brazil, the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) ran tests locally in Brazil to detect the technical details of how censorship was implemented. This blog post includes a publication of our measurements, revealing that Brazilian ISPs blocked WhatsApp’s website through DNS hijacking.Read more here.Publisher: Open Observatory …
Aug 27
OONI Explorer: Censorship and other Network Anomalies Around the World
Today the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) team is pleased to announce the public beta release of OONI Explorer: a global map of more than 8.5 million network measurements which have been collected across 91 countries around the world over the last 3 years.Read more here.Publisher: The Tor ProjectPublication date: 23rd March 2016
Feb 22
Let’s Encrypt: Moving Towards an Encrypted Web
Do you own a website? If so, as of today Let’s Encrypt, a new non-profit certificate authority (CA), entered Public Beta and allows you to add HTTPS to your website for free and more easily than ever before.Read more here.Publisher: Tactical Technology CollectivePublication Date: 3rd December 2015
Oct 27
TrueCrypt’s Security Flaws: What Now?
In recent weeks, critical security flaws have been reported in TrueCrypt, the open source software for file and disk encryption. As a result, Tactical Tech is reviewing its advice and now recommends users to consider other tools for secure file storage.Read this blog here.Publisher: Tactical Technology CollectivePublication date: 8th October 2015
Jul 04
7 reasons not to shrug at the Snowden revelations
Two years ago as of today, Edward Snowden started leaking confidential NSA documents which illustrate that a global surveillance ecosystem is being built right under our nose. Whether we like it or not, we are all part of it and it is limiting our control over our data and our lives.Read this blog here.Publisher: Tactical …
Jul 04
Nothing to Hide? Asking the Wrong Question!
It’s been two years since Snowden started leaking thousands of confidential NSA documents which illustrate and prove that the communications of almost all citizens around the world are under surveillance through a “collect-it-all” strategy. Yet, instead of questioning the legal and ethical dimensions of spying on the private communications of millions of citizens around the …