The Open Observatory of Network Interference is a free software, global observation network created to detect censorship, surveillance and traffic manipulation on the internet. It develops tests designed to examine blocking of websites, of instant messaging apps, of and other circumvention tools, and detection of systems that could be responsible for censorship and/or surveillance. It relies on volunteers living under authoritarian regimes to run code that checks for crackdowns and then upload the results to their servers. As of October 2019, OONI has analyzed 292 million network connections in 233 countries.
Development
OONI was officially launched in 2012 as a free software project under The Tor Project, aiming to study and showcase global internet censorship. In 2017, OONI launched OONI Probe, a mobile app that runs a series of network measurements. These measurements detects blocked websites, apps, and other tools in addition to the presence of middleboxes. Results of these tests can be utilized through the OONI Explorer and API. The current tests deployed by OONI are as follows:
OONI has confirmed the blocking of 886 domains in Iran over the course of three years between 2014 and 2017, most of which include news outlets and human rights sites. It has also confirmed data analyzing the 2019 Internet blackout in Iran. OONI has also reported the blocking of 10 media websites in Egypt, including Mada Masr and Al Jazeera. In 2018, OONI detected network disruptions in Sierra Leone right before and after the country's runoff elections. On 24 February 2019, Cuban independent news outlet Tremenda Nota confirmed the blocking of its website a few hours before a referendum in Cuba. A new Constitution was voted in the countryfor the first time in decades. OONI network measurement data confirmed the blocking of the site along with several other independent media websites during the referendum. The network had previously confirmed 41 websites blocked in the country in 2017. Cases of internet censorship and network disruptions during elections have also been detected in Benin, Zambia, and Togo. In May 2019, OONI reported that the Chinese Government blocked all language editions of Wikipedia.
