Internet Access Disruption in Turkey – July 2016

turkey

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 Interference

Publication date: 19th July 2016

OONI releases new Web Connectivity test for detecting online censorship

ooni

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 Interference

Publication date: 3rd June 2016

How Uganda blocked social media, again

uganda

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 here.

Publisher: Open Observatory of Network Interference

Publication date: 17th May 2016

Why we still recommend Signal over WhatsApp… even though they both use end-to-end encryption

whatsapp-crypto

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 an exciting and important development that will help protect the privacy of users all over the world. In this post, however, we would like to explain why we recommend Signal over WhatsApp, even though they both use the same protocol for end-to-end encryption.

Read more here.

Publisher: Tactical Technology Collective

Publication date: 23rd May 2016

OONI Data Reveals How WhatsApp Was Blocked (Again) in Brazil

whatsapp

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 of Network Interference (OONI)

Publication date: 6th May 2016

OONI Explorer: Censorship and other Network Anomalies Around the World

ooni-explorer

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 Project

Publication date: 23rd March 2016

Let’s Encrypt: Moving Towards an Encrypted Web

let's encrypt

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 Collective

Publication Date: 3rd December 2015

TrueCrypt’s Security Flaws: What Now?

truecrypt

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 Collective

Publication date: 8th October 2015

7 reasons not to shrug at the Snowden revelations

geopolitics

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 Technology Collective

Publication date: 5th June 2015

Nothing to Hide? Asking the Wrong Question!

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 world, agencies narrowed the debate, arguing that “if we have nothing to hide, we should have nothing to fear”.

The problem with this debate is that we are asking the wrong question.

Read this blog here.

Publisher: Tactical Technology Collective

Publication date: 4th June 2015