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Tor's Ooniprobe, Now Available On Android and iOS, Helps People Track Internet Censorship (cnn.com) 27

In 2012, researchers at Tor announced Ooniprobe, an open-source tool to collect data about local meddling with the computer's network connections, and also whether the government was censoring something. The team has now released a new app, available for Android and iOS, which makes it easier than ever to tell what your government is up to on the web. From a report on CNN Money: The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), which monitors networks for censorship and surveillance, is launching Ooniprobe, a mobile app to test network connectivity and let you know when a website is censored in your area. The app tests over 1,200 websites, including Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. You can decide how long to run the test, but the default is 90 seconds and would test between 10 and 20 websites depending on bandwidth. Links to blocked websites are listed in red, while available sites are green. Service providers, sometimes controlled by the government, don't always shutdown the internet entirely -- for instance, Facebook.com might be inaccessible while CNN.com still works. "Not only we will be able to gather more data and more evidence, but we will be able to engage and bring the issue of censorship to the attention of more people," Arturo Filasto, chief developer for the Ooniprobe app, told CNNTech.
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Tor's Ooniprobe, Now Available On Android and iOS, Helps People Track Internet Censorship

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  • I'm surprised that the summary doesn't mention something like "Now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, an app like this is more important than ever!" /. editors must be slacking more than usual...
    • Well, at least with him you won't see any censorship to protect feelings and safe spaces, that's for sure. So... I don't know if he means more censorship.

      Hey, it can't ALL be bad now that the hairpiece is at the helm.

      • Well, at least with him you won't see any censorship to protect feelings and safe spaces, that's for sure. So... I don't know if he means more censorship.

        I don't know. Looks like I'm getting downmodded for making a joke. Is /. now considered a safe space?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    They are completely compromised from the hardware to the firmware to the OS to the software run on them. Even worse so than desktop computers. A hopeless battle.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      its all hopless theres nothing any one can do.

    • And mobile computing will never catch on at this rate.

    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      I have a Nokia N900. It runs full stack Linux (including x11) with a large amount of FOSS on the device. The cellular radio in the device has no access to the main CPU, main RAM, main flash memory (for the OS), EMMC (secondary on-device storage for data), the SD card, either of the cameras, the main power management system or any of the audio hardware (including the microphone).

      The N900 can't be compromised (e.g. turning it into a remote bug, having data stolen from the main firmware or having images taken

  • Glaring omission is glaring.

    https://ooni.torproject.org/po... [torproject.org]

  • means "big sister" in Korean. So big sister is keeping a watch on big brother? I get it.

Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance.

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