Internet censorship has always been something that is hard to measure in India. Sadly, our censors aren't as kind as Russia's to who give us a whole list of blocked websites :P
It varies from ISP to ISP, City to City, and even from one day to the next. I'm sure you remember the lockdown days, when many ISPs randomly blocked duckduckgo without a court order or any legal requirement.
There is also some bans that are enforced selectively, like that of the Briar & Element (Matrix Client). They were supposedly only blocked in Jammu & Kashmir, for example.
Internet Chowkidar aims to solve these issues, by crowdsourcing internet blocking data from common people across the country. By collecting data for a diverse range of cities, ISPs and sites, we are able to reasonably gauge trends of internet censorship across the country.
This data can be easily cross-referenced with legal orders, giving us a wide variety of data points to use in the fight for internet freedom.
The talk will cover the following:
A rough overview of internet censorship, and why fighting it matters
The different types (and severity) of blocks, such as DNS, SNI, and deep packet inspection
How we use ooniprobe to identify and differentiate between these blocks
Demo using the GUI app
Future of the project, and how you can contribute
