Tor Researchers' Tool Aims To Map Out Internet Censorship

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Tor Researchers' Tool Aims To Map Out Internet Censorship

Posted by Unknown on Monday April 30, 2012 @04:03PM from the developers-mysteriously-disappear-during-senate-csipa-vote dept.

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Tor developers Arturo Filasto and Jacob Appelbaum have released OONI-probe, an open-source software tool designed to be installed on any PC and run to collect data about local meddling with the computer's network connections, whether it be website blocking, surveillance or selective bandwidth slowdowns. Unlike other censorship tracking projects like HerdictWeb or the Open Net Initiative, OONI will allow anyone to run the testing application and share their results publicly. The tool has already been used to expose censorship by T-Mobile of its prepaid phones' browser and also by the Palestinian Authority, which was found to be blocking opposition websites. The minister responsible for the Palestinian censorship was forced to resign last week."

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Risk? by ohnocitizen · 2012-04-30 16:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

What are the risks for anyone found running OONI-probe in a surveillance heavy country?
1. Re:Risk? by filthpickle · 2012-04-30 16:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  up to and including death.
2. Re:Risk? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-30 16:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Such a coddled, uncreative human being you must be, to think that 'death' is the ultimate punishment.
3. Re:Risk? by AHuxley · 2012-04-30 16:52 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on who you upset and where. A large truck might hit you. You might suffer a home invasion and a quick death.
  You might suffer a home invasion and a long "cult" death. Day, weeks, months under anti terror questioning and dumped, never to be found or left just outside your family home.
  Or you might just have tax, gun, medical or possession problems that fit your 'lifestyle' become legal issues. Or you just drop dead walking home one night ....
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
4. Re:Risk? by LordLucless · 2012-04-30 16:57 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If you're in such a country, you don't need OONI - you know you're already censored.
  This looks to be more a tool against those regimes that claim to be open and against censorship, by pulling aside the curtain and revealing the reality - as, according to TFA, has already happened in Palestine.
  
  --
  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
5. Re:Risk? by girlintraining · 2012-04-30 17:05 · Score: 2
  
  What are the risks for anyone found running OONI-probe in a surveillance heavy country?
  If they board the ship, they'll rape us, kill us, and sew our skin into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.
  
  --
  #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
6. Re:Risk? by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-04-30 18:21 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If you're in such a country, you don't need OONI - you know you're already censored.
  WRONG !
  OONI still comes handy even if you stay in countries run by authoritarian / totalitarian / bastard governments
  With OONI you can identify _which_ sites they have censored, and you can use OONI to share THAT information to the world
  
  --
  Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
7. Re:Risk? by retchdog · 2012-04-30 18:41 · Score: 1
  
  that quote has always bugged me. i'd rather be killed first and then raped and then sewn into their clothing; that would be much better. the only other alternative, being sewn into the clothing and then raped and then killed seems only slightly worse than the so-called "very, very lucky" scenario.
  maybe zoe had a reaver fetish.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
8. Re:Risk? by Gonoff · 2012-04-30 23:47 · Score: 1
  
  In the UK, one of the things that can happen is you commit suicide.
  
  --
  I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
9. Re:Risk? by pipatron · 2012-05-01 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  They don't make any profits, it's a non-profit; they are not allowed to.
  It is likely that all this code is free and open software, as is everything else they have released. This makes it difficult to hide their intentions. I have not verified this since the website seemed to be slashdotted.
  
  --
  c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
10. Re:Risk? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-01 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  This looks to be more a tool against those regimes that claim to be open and against censorship
  Regimes? Heck, I have Comcast as my ISP. I can't wait to try out this tool!
Pertinent by djnanite · 2012-04-30 16:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

Especially in light of the UK's recent decision to block The Pirate Bay.

I wonder what the legal recourse would be if this tool found the government in your respective 'free' democratic country was blocking sites for political reasons...? Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
1. Re:Pertinent by girlintraining · 2012-04-30 16:50 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
  A government is just a group of people, notably ungoverned. You can't really sue the government. I mean, you can, but only if they allow you to. So really, when you can sue the government and it isn't just dismissed or you, your family, and everyone you ever knew disappear in a 'boating accident', the government is acknowledging that it hasn't been paid enough from Peter to rob Paul. If Peter pays a higher percentage, then Peter can rob Paul and Paul will not be able to sue the government.
  Remember: All laws advantage one group while disadvantaging another.
  
  --
  #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
2. Re:Pertinent by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-30 18:46 · Score: 1
  
  Remember: All laws advantage one group while disadvantaging another.
  Can we call that girlintraining's Law?
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
3. Re:Pertinent by SuricouRaven · 2012-04-30 18:47 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  In princible, vote for someone who says they'll lift the blocks. Accountability in a democracy is via the vote. How well that works in practice varies greatly by country.
4. Re:Pertinent by girlintraining · 2012-05-01 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  Can we call that girlintraining's Law?
  Not if you want to keep both your arms.
  
  --
  #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
5. Re:Pertinent by Grumbleduke · 2012-05-01 06:12 · Score: 2
  
  Especially in light of the UK's recent decision to block The Pirate Bay.
  Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
  Ah, but the UK didn't decide to block The Pirate Bay. An English (and Welsh, but not Scottish or Irish) court ruled that some of the UK's ISPs should block The Pirate Bay. That's a judicial decision rather than a governmental one, so would be challenged by an appeal. But as the ISPs weren't interested in fighting it in the first place, and no one else has both the resources and will to do so, it will probably stand forever.
  Were a UK public body to block a website without a legal reason, that action/decision to do so could probably be challenged in the courts via a judicial review. That's using the basic legal principle that public bodies aren't allowed to do anything unless a law says they can (hence that case over prayer in a local council meeting recently).
  But the UK governments have been sneaky about website blocking; they've left it to the courts, the police and the ISPs. So far, courts have ordered the blocking of at least 2 websites (Newzbin and now The Pirate Bay). Not sure how effective those will be.
  The police seem to do it by seizing servers etc. in the process of investigations, or simply asking service providers to shut down websites (seize domain names, block financial transactions, SOPA-style stuff) - which is usually done through the service provider's contract with the target (i.e. "we can refuse your service if we have reason to believe you might be acting illegally"). This sort of thing seems to get used against financial scam sites as well as copyright cases (the police force that does it - the City of London one - happens to be near many of the major banks and the offices of the IFPI).
  ISPs have also been doing their own web-blocking through the IWF blocklist system, set up under pressure from the government, but is run independently (thus making it immune to things like judicial review, Freedom of Information requests and the Human Rights Act). That mainly targets child abuse images although may have expanded now to cover racial hatred material. It's a bit unclear, which is kind of the point.
  But anyway, the fear of the government being sued is partly why they haven't imposed laws about blocking certain websites (be it porn - the latest moral panic in Westminster - piracy or child abuse images). Their legal people will have advised them that blanket blocking proposals are likely to be illegal under EU and/or ECHR law.
ironic by jsh1972 · 2012-04-30 16:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

Kind of ironic that with the multiple tor-centered stories on slashdot today that just now, when I tried to view this story, I was told that my IP was banned! I thought WTH, then realized that I had tor enabled on the device I was browsing on... (HP touchpad running cm9). I guess I can post AC, I just can't BROWSE anonymous...
1. Re:ironic by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-30 18:47 · Score: 1
  
  I guess I can post AC, I just can't BROWSE anonymous...
  Oh, great... now we have a write-only internet.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
2. Re:ironic by BlueStrat · 2012-04-30 21:55 · Score: 1
  
  I guess I can post AC, I just can't BROWSE anonymous...
  
  Oh, great... now we have a write-only internet.
  Judging by an ever-growing number of /. posts and submissions, I'm not sure this will noticeably change anything.
  Strat
  
  --
  Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'd love to run it.... by BLKMGK · 2012-04-30 17:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

I cannot find anything on the site that appears to make it available to me in a form I can run, a GIT repo for devs and some press releases is all. I suppose I could hit the "secure" .onion site but I see nothing to indicate there's code there. the summary appears to make it sound like they want participation and I'd love to help but see no way to do so.
Am I the only one that finds this clear as mud?

--
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
1. Re:I'd love to run it.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-30 18:25 · Score: 1
  
  you've already run it, by verifying that your helpful local filtering system removed the download link. now hurry up and don your tinfoil hat before they filter this post too.
2. Re:I'd love to run it.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-30 18:35 · Score: 1
  
  A git repo is (presumably) a "form you can run". Because, you know... "News for nerds", etc.
3. Re:I'd love to run it.... by Anachragnome · 2012-04-30 18:59 · Score: 1
  
  "I suppose I could hit the "secure" .onion site but I see nothing to indicate there's code there."
  For the second time today, I heard a little voice in the back of my head telling me "You don't really want to click that link..." leaving me wondering where the hell that came from. Both times intuition instantly took the helm and I browsed off on another tangent.
  The first time was an article link on the main page of CNN's home page titled "How to hide from face-detection". In hindsight, what better way to find out who is interested in avoiding being tracked by face-recognition software then to place an article about the subject and watch who clicks. Add 'em to the database! Now, I'm not saying all of this went through my head when I saw the article, but rather intuition simply steered me away.
  The second time this happened was when my mouse cursor was just now hovering over that very same button you just mentioned--The "Secure Website" button. This time around, intuition just said to me " I TOLD you so!". Again, in hindsight, what better way to find out who is interested in censorship (and by extension, circumventing it) then by dropping a link that claims to offer insight into the inner workings of censorship, and simply tracking the hits?
  Now take the results of BOTH of those link traces. Anyone that now shows up at both goes one notch up the list of people to keep an eye on. Do this long enough, with enough crafted honeypots, and you end up with lists of people that are ranked by threat levels based on interest. This is essentially what the librarians have been warning us about. This link, the "Secure Website", didn't even work for me--standard Firefox "Server Not Found" error. Nothing of value was even offered by the website, that I can tell. Same goes with the CNN article--it's the same article, rehashed, that has been going around the web for a few months now (even here on /.).
  OK, my sig has started to tell me to shut up now...
4. Re:I'd love to run it.... by jgrahn · 2012-04-30 19:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  A git repo is (presumably) a "form you can run". Because, you know... "News for nerds", etc.
  That's what I thought before I clicked the link. It takes you to a list of dozens or hundreds of repos, private and public, for different pieces of software. No indication which one, if any, contains this particular release of this software. That's not how you release something.
5. Re:I'd love to run it.... by drinkypoo · 2012-04-30 23:56 · Score: 1
  
  Am I the only one that finds this clear as mud?
  No, you're not the only one. I went to go download it and run it before I made a comment and uh... no.
  Perhaps we could have another story about this when it's in a form that you can compile and run without having to understand the software completely first. And I don't want to hear about how that's irresponsible, nearly nobody in the world understands every line of code on their computer, and probably ALL of them are here on Slashdot.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
6. Re:I'd love to run it.... by wealthychef · 2012-05-01 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps it's slash dotted, but I get "Failed to Open Page" when I click on the link which points to http://5m4rylprkig4swgg.onion/
  
  --
  Currently hooked on AMP
7. Re:I'd love to run it.... by BLKMGK · 2012-05-02 00:38 · Score: 1
  
  Are you running TOR? If not the TOR .Onion link won't work. I don't happen to have TOR installed or I'd have explored the hidden site myself. So far though no one seems to have found the code to download and test near as I can tell...
  
  --
  Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Linux Bug Compromises Tor Users by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-30 17:36 · Score: 1

http://pgpboard.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=651
Inaccessible for everyone or just me? by AftanGustur · 2012-04-30 18:49 · Score: 1

A nice tool to get a hint of if a certain website is down/inaccessibel for everyone or just you is This Tool!
This service attempts to make a connection to a website of your choice so you can see if it is just your ISP that can't access it.

--
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
1. Re:Inaccessible for everyone or just me? by Plunky · 2012-04-30 19:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  A nice tool to get a hint of if a certain website is down/inaccessibel for everyone or just you is This Tool!
  This service attempts to make a connection to a website of your choice so you can see if it is just your ISP that can't access it.
  
  Of course, since that is a known site it could easily be redirected to a locally hosted copy that said "Yes, that site is down for everybody! Its not just you!" for sites that were being blocked..
Risk Analysis, Firefly style by TiggertheMad · 2012-04-30 19:19 · Score: 1

that quote has always bugged me. i'd rather be killed first and then raped and then sewn into their clothing; that would be much better. the only other alternative, being sewn into the clothing and then raped and then killed seems only slightly worse than the so-called "very, very lucky" scenario.

We can analyze this using a 'truth table' approach..

1st 2nd 3rd Conclusion
1) Kill Rape Sew Bad
2) Kill Sew Rape Bad
3) Rape Kill Sew Bad+
4) Rape Sew Kill Bad++
5) Sew Kill Rape Bad+
6) Sew Rape Kill Bad++

The question is, which is worse, option 4 or option 6? This will of course vary, depending on what kind of seamstresses the Reavers are. Clearly it will not be pleasant.

A deeper and more interesting question is, what is the nature of 'Reaver Space'? If the zone of space they inhabit is a spherical shell, then I can understand why Mal flies near Reaver space, he has no choice. It is a min-max game between the Alliance core and the spherical shell of Reavers that lurk outside that zone, where he keeps maximum distance between both groups. However, in the movie, they indicate that there is a central location that the Reavers originated from. If that is the case, why doesn't he just fly to the other end of known space where there are no Reavers?

--

HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
1. Re:Risk Analysis, Firefly style by retchdog · 2012-04-30 19:35 · Score: 1
  
  the min-max thing is not inconsistent with central reaver space. serenity, being a pirate transport, has to serve backwater planets to make $. reavers may harass indie ships while being smart enough not to attack alliance. after all, why is the alliance still conducting military ops after re-unification? there are no aliens, so it seems reasonable they are suppressing reavers, not out of any concern, but to suppress the truth.
  of course, the real reason for reaver space is that the movie had to compress several seasons of plot into two hours, hence the partially inconsistent retconned reaver origins and mr. universe.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Re:Quick links to .onion forums by mamas · 2012-04-30 21:53 · Score: 1

> Warning: view either site with images and cookies disabled in your browser. Never visit .onion sites with images enabled in your browser!
Why? Any reference to where the issue is described?
Re:Quick links to .onion forums by mamas · 2012-04-30 23:34 · Score: 1

Are you worried about sensitivity issues? That does not seem to be a valid technical reason. Even if such image pops up, you're being tor, so nobody will know you've seen it. That does not seem a good reason to spread unjustified "Never visit .onion sites with images enabled in your browser!" FUD.
As for #2, yes, that's what I was thinking. Even a frame could be load from non-onion sites. Heck, you can easily wrap the whole page inside a frame... It seems to be that if that's a worry, then the browser should forbid accesses to non-onion sites from onion sites, either built in, or with a plugin (for user clicks, pop-up a "are you sure you want to go there" warning).
#3 and #4 seem to have nothing to do with onion at all. Those can trigger in non-onion domains just the same.
Re:Quick links to .onion forums by mamas · 2012-04-30 23:36 · Score: 1

s/being tor/behind tor/
Where's the edit button...
And it even has an effect by Hentes · 2012-05-01 01:39 · Score: 1

The tool has already been used to expose censorship by T-Mobile of its prepaid phones' browser and also by the Palestinian Authority, which was found to be blocking opposition websites. The minister responsible for the Palestinian censorship was forced to resign last week.
I would like to see that happen in Europe too.
Re:Quick links to .onion forums by blackraven14250 · 2012-05-01 05:03 · Score: 1

It's still in the works...
Censorship and corruption in Fatah? by Alimony+Pakhdan · 2012-05-01 12:47 · Score: 1

What do you expect from a former Soviet client terrorist organization?