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Tor Researchers' Tool Aims To Map Out Internet Censorship

Posted by Unknown on 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."

13 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Risk? by ohnocitizen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What are the risks for anyone found running OONI-probe in a surveillance heavy country?

    1. Re:Risk? by filthpickle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      up to and including death.

    2. Re:Risk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Such a coddled, uncreative human being you must be, to think that 'death' is the ultimate punishment.

    3. Re:Risk? by LordLucless · · 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
    4. Re:Risk? by girlintraining · · 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
    5. Re:Risk? by Taco+Cowboy · · 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 !
  2. Pertinent by djnanite · · 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 SuricouRaven · · 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.

    2. Re:Pertinent by Grumbleduke · · 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.

  3. ironic by jsh1972 · · 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...

  4. I'd love to run it.... by BLKMGK · · 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 jgrahn · · 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:Inaccessible for everyone or just me? by Plunky · · 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..