14:00:14 <darkk> #startmeeting
14:00:14 <MeetBot> Meeting started Tue Jul 25 14:00:14 2017 UTC.  The chair is darkk. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
14:00:14 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
14:00:44 <slacktopus> <hellais> heyo
14:00:52 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Welcome everyone to the July OONI community meeting! :slightly_smiling_face:
14:00:53 <slacktopus> <sukarn> Hi all :slightly_smiling_face:
14:01:05 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @sukarn hellos :slightly_smiling_face:
14:01:13 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Hello
14:01:22 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> @sarath_ms heya :slightly_smiling_face:
14:01:43 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> who else is here with us today?
14:01:49 <slacktopus> <sbs> hello!
14:01:52 <slacktopus> <jakub> hello
14:02:05 <slacktopus> <hellais> @channel the meeting is starting if you have any agenda items to add, do it on this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ooni-community-meeting
14:02:56 <slacktopus> <darkk> HI all!
14:02:58 <hellais> #topic 1. What are further steps regarding monitoring internet shutdowns at Jammu and Kashmir? When do we want to start? (darkk)
14:04:03 <slacktopus> <hellais> For reference these are the notes from the sessions where we discussed this at the OONI partner gathering: https://github.com/OpenObservatory/gatherings/blob/master/partner-gatherings/2017-07-toronto/session-notes/measuring-internet-blackouts.md
14:04:07 <slacktopus> <hellais> https://github.com/OpenObservatory/gatherings/blob/master/partner-gatherings/2017-07-toronto/session-notes/measuring-internet-blackouts-part-2.md
14:06:12 <slacktopus> <darkk> I raised this question as a followup after the gathering. We've decided to deploy some sort of lab to develop a methodology couple of weeks ago and CLSI was happening after that and vacations, so the question is: is the project still valid, actual and ongoing? Is series of Internet shutdowns still happening in J&K region?
14:07:08 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> @darkk about the situation in J&K, yes. Things are pretty volatile and shutdowns are still expected to be ordered now and then.
14:07:16 <slacktopus> <darkk> If the question should be kept private, I'm ok with getting silence as a response  :slightly_smiling_face:
14:08:07 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> It also means that its probably not easy for us to convince our contacts about our ideas.
14:09:18 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> However, we have only getting started with exploring it the contacts we have.
14:09:49 <slacktopus> <hellais> I guess the first step towards this would involve setting getting the hardware to create the lab setup perhaps at @darkk's location
14:09:57 <slacktopus> <hellais> The BoM we made was the following:
14:10:06 <slacktopus> <hellais> * Raspberry Pi 3
14:10:28 <slacktopus> <hellais> * USB dongles (here there is some list of Raspberry Pi supported 3G dongles: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#USB_3G_Dongles)
14:10:48 <slacktopus> <hellais> * Power supply, SD card, etc.
14:11:57 <slacktopus> <hellais> I have confirmed that we actually have some budget to finance buying this material and have it delivered to @darkk. It may however be cheaper to re-buy all the stuff in India rather than shipping the pre-configured box
14:12:35 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> I agree.
14:13:20 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Meanwhile we will be ready with the right partner to deploy the lab.
14:13:33 <slacktopus> <hellais> I expect the most painful thing is going to be debugging potential issues with getting the USB dongles to work and getting one that we can send AT commands that give us the information we need.
14:13:33 <darkk> hellais: 3G dongles are often provided by ISP as a part of contract (although most of these dongles are quite alike)
14:13:56 <slacktopus> <hellais> So it's probably going to be important to ensure that the specs of the dongles are the same
14:13:57 <darkk> sarath_ms, can you check what sort of dongles do local ISPs use?
14:14:18 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> @darkk Yes.
14:14:38 <darkk> I ask as there are two quite different kinds of dongles, some of them act as GSM modem and other provide ethernet interface instead.
14:14:39 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Its mostly Huawei. And then ZTE.
14:14:39 <slacktopus> <hellais> @darkk possibly, though we probably want to ensure we are using the same type of dongle for all of the providers to minimize the amount of work needed to get them functioning properly
14:14:58 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> I will try listing out the most common models.
14:14:58 <darkk> hellais: sometimes dongles are SIM-locked
14:15:37 <slacktopus> <hellais> @darkk but not if you buy the hardware
14:15:49 <slacktopus> <hellais> I doubt the SIM is dongle-locked
14:17:19 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Last I heard, there were even a few providers here offering over CDMA.
14:18:34 <slacktopus> <jakub> i think airtel will give you huawei 3g dongle generally but it is not on that short compatibility list
14:19:27 <slacktopus> <jakub> a lot of models on that compat list are a bit older, available on amazon.in but on short supply
14:19:31 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> One of the blogs mentions the Airtel 3G dongle with Huawei E303H
14:19:58 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> which is on the list, unless E303 is very different from the 'H' variant
14:22:36 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Airtel 4G dongle has E3272 which a friend confirms runs on Ubuntu.
14:23:32 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> In short, I can, in parallel, go ahead and unit test connectivity on a Raspberry Pi.
14:23:47 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> I only have a RPi2 though
14:24:11 <slacktopus> <hellais> Yeah I think that could be useful. I don't think it's going to make much a difference between rpi2 or 3
14:24:24 <slacktopus> <hellais> except it's probably going to be much slower for you to work with it
14:26:17 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> @hellais I can ask around if I can get someone's Pi3 for a while. Most people seem to buy just because they can. :slightly_smiling_face:
14:27:45 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Another idea we discussed, though not in detail, was to see if we can get Facebook or Google to share their data.
14:28:53 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> We have a love-hate relationship with Facebook India :P But we can surely open a conversation and see where it goes.
14:29:34 <slacktopus> <hellais> That would be great. If you or anybody else @here has any contacts with companies like facebook at google, it would be good to pitch them this idea
14:30:33 <slacktopus> <hellais> The ask is basically if they would be open to publish data similar to what google already publishes: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/explorer/?r=US&l=WEBSEARCH
14:30:47 <slacktopus> <hellais> BUT, with the addition of adding more granularity in terms of position
14:30:57 <slacktopus> <hellais> so that we would be able to know how much traffic every region has
14:32:26 <slacktopus> <hellais> Do we have more to add on this topic?
14:33:29 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> Isn't there a way to record action items with the Meetbot?
14:34:08 <hellais> yes
14:34:45 <slacktopus> <hellais> #action is the command
14:34:50 <slacktopus> <hellais> but you need to do it from IRC
14:35:08 <hellais> If you use #action I will echo it in IRC so it gets recorded
14:35:30 <sarathms> Yes. Thats why i am here too ☺
14:36:47 <sarathms> #action List and test 3g dongles used in India compatible with Raspberry Pi3.
14:38:23 <slacktopus> <jakub> another way to do it would be to get a mobile hotspot (like the jio ones) and set up a router to act as a wireless extender then just plug in the ethernet if you want to avoid driver problems
14:39:34 <darkk> Avoiding driver problems is not the reason. Also we may want to collect data on signal strength and other alike stuff.
14:39:40 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> @jakub Yes. But we wanted to be able to connect to multiple mobile networks from the same device and probe all of them.
14:39:52 <slacktopus> <jakub> gotcha makes sense
14:42:26 <slacktopus> <hellais> Yeah I think having the ability to issue AT commands to obtain cell tower information and other potentially useful metadata is a requirement.
14:42:36 <slacktopus> <hellais> Do we have any other things that we would like to talk about?
14:43:38 <slacktopus> <sarath_ms> None from my side :flushed:
14:45:54 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Is there anything else someone would like to discuss?
14:49:40 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Since there are no more agenda items for today and there's silence, we could end the meeting
14:50:14 <darkk> yep, seems, the answer is "not today"
14:50:24 <darkk> Thanks everyone for participating!
14:50:31 <slacktopus> <agrabeli> Thanks everyone!
14:50:47 <darkk> #endmeeting